Curious.
Dutch weather is notoriously unpredictable. And like the average ambitious twenty-year-old, Dutch weather is also indecisive.
Will today be filled with sunshine? Rain? Thunder? Dutch weather can’t stand to make a decision, so it gives a bit of everything instead. That just ends up making everybody confused.
Loosely translated from Dutch: “part of the deal”
I was chatting with Ingrid, the owner of Café Hooi right around closing time. I asked her how things were going since it’s been a few weeks since I first visited (and she still remembered our last conversation!).
Hoe is het? — Aah, goed — Waarom goed?
Ingrid said she felt good when she spent some time with her newborn son earlier in the morning.
“Even changing his diapers?”
“Well, not so much that. But it’s part of the deal.”
photo credit: juhansonin via photopin cc
I was cycling back from the gym when I saw bright disco lights coming out from The Basket, one of the cafes in De Uithof science campus. People usually only go there out of convenience, but this party looked quite fun from the outside.
The crowd outside was motioning towards me. They were all in suits and colorful gowns. Come inside! They said. But I’m all sweaty! I said.
Doesn’t matter. Come inside.
Sweet! A spontaneous party invitation. I’m confused and excited at the same time. But as I come closer, it becomes clear that everybody around me has baby faces, despite being as tall as I am. Turns out it’s a high school prom.
Technically we’re only a couple of years apart, but this isn’t the kind of party I’m trying to crash.
~
I want to leave, but they insist that I don’t go until I see somebody. The crowd gives way until there’s only one other person in front of me — the only other Asian-looking guy in the party.
Kijk! Jouw broer!
He took one look at me and turned away. He looked annoyed and ashamed.
So was I. I just got duped by a bunch of rowdy Dutch teenagers.
It’s 11:15 PM on a Monday night and I can hear someone playing bagpipes outside my kitchen window. Cambridgelaan is a big apartment complex — the music could be coming from anywhere.
“Who’s playing?”
Every once in a while the bagpipe player would play off-key and stop to regain composure. I really wanted to know who tonight’s musician was, and it bugged me that I didn’t.
“No clue.”
~
The bagpipes stopped about fifteen minutes later, with people craning their necks and cheering from their windows.
I noticed that I’ve been more observant of the parked bicycles in the city center. I stop where I’m at if there’s a bike that remotely looks like the one I had before. Any bike that is tall, silver, and with a curved frame makes my head crane a bit. Could this be the one?
Nope, it’s not.
Abandoned bikes take up valuable space in Utrecht. A few weeks ago the city government posted a notice — any bikes that appear unattended (i.e. broken, rusty, looking like crap) will be labelled with a sticker. If that sticker is not removed within fourteen days, the city will take the bike away.
Two weeks ago my bicycle went missing. I parked it in the same cage I’ve always parked it for the past nine months. Along the way, its gears started rusting apart and its brake cables became detached. Only packaging tape was holding it together. In other words, it was a deathtrap (but it was my deathtrap, dang it.)
The city must have mistaken it for an abandoned bike.
So I went to the impound in the city center. It’s not there. The supervisor told me to check out the impound in Kanaalweg, close to the university campus.
But it’s not there either.
~
Losing a bicycle is heartbreaking as a student, even if objectively speaking, your bicycle is a steaming pile of junk. In the Netherlands, everything you do, everywhere you go is by bike. You do your groceries on your bike, you go to town with your friends on your bike — you can even peel oranges and make sandwiches while on your bike.
At first I was angry.
Then I was sad.
Now I’m just shrugging my shoulders. Some international students are on their third or fourth bike for the school year. At least mine lasted for nine months.
~
So what are my options?
Many students at the beginning of the year will go for option #2 — buying a used bike from the store.
This changes when their bicycle gets stolen. Option #3 becomes more and more enticing, especially when people are living on a student budget. The thing is though, nearly every student who has lived in Utrecht for an extended period of time has had their bicycle stolen.
So at that rate, almost everybody will eventually go to option #3. It’s a vicious cycle.
My neighbor’s bicycle got stolen as well, around the same time as mine. Time to make another “visit” to town, he said.
“Don’t tell me that! You can do it, but don’t tell me!”
My other neighbor was not nearly as enthused. She keeps three different locks on her bicycle that her grandmother gave her.
~
Sometimes I wonder if I’ll see my bike out on the street again. It’s definitely out there somewhere.
If I do see my bike, would I be angry? Would I be amused? Both, I think.
You could say this is part of the typical “Dutch experience.” Utrecht is a quiet town in terms of crime, especially by American standards. If bike theft is the biggest thing I need to worry about, then so be it.
Bevrijdingsdag (Liberation Day) is the day after Remembrance Day in the Netherlands. The Dutch celebrate Bevrijdingsdag like the Americans celebrate the 4th of July (but with fewer fireworks — the Dutch are not allowed to blow them up until New Year’s Eve).
You can find picnics and barbecues all over the parks in town. The larger parks often have music festivals, complete with what you would expect at your typical outdoor festival — portable standing urinals (no equivalent for the ladies, which leads to resentment), fried foods and expensive beer. The Park Transwijk in Utrecht holds one such festival. Over 38,000 people were there when I went.
It’s also one of the rare moments you’ll see Dutch flags flying from people’s homes. As proud as the Dutch people are, they only show their national pride a few times a year — and only during public holidays like this.
(Or just as important: during football matches.)
Every 4th of May, there is a national moment of silence in the Netherlands from 8 PM to 8:02 PM. For two minutes, the entire country comes to a standstill. No trains, trams, or buses are left running, television and radio stations end their programming, and everybody stops where they are.
I was with my neighbor Maja in the Dam Square in Amsterdam during those two minutes. To be in a crowd of 20,000 people in the busiest city of the Netherlands, and hear not even a single whisper — that was special. Nobody was told what to do. Everybody already knew.
Only the birds were still moving.
–
King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima walked out of the Royal Palace, and towards the pillar. People craned their necks and stood on the tips of their toes just to get a peek.
