More on Week One in Amsterdam
Living in Amsterdam has been a constant lesson in ways not to ride a bike: in a dress, in Birkenstocks, in the wind, in the rain, into poles, around other people, by motorbikes, one-handed, uphill, around sharp corners, while sneezing, etc. It is unmistakably clear that my European classmates from bike-friendly cities somehow have these lessons ingrained, and I am learning them all for the first time. Every time I Google-Map biking directions somewhere, I add an extra 15 minutes to account for collisions and panic attacks.
But I refuse to give up. I am determined to reach Tour-de-France-status by my last day in Amsterdam. Yet until then, I have discovered a temporary solution to all this madness, something that I like to call the 8:30 pm bike ride. No locals are on the roads at 8:30 pm on a weekday because they’re all other, better things, even though it stays light outside until 10 pm. This means that I am free to pedal along Amsterdam’s unparalleled biking infrastructure at my leisure. Somehow, without knowing where I am going, I have been able to explore a large stretch of the city and miraculously end up back at my apartment each time.
Amsterdam is beautiful, but not in an in-your-face kind of way. It doesn’t shove monuments down your throat like Rome, but the architecture is cleaner, more polished. For example, it looks like this:
(It’s also really windy).
Besides aimlessly biking, I also take tours from educated, well-informed people during my class sessions. It’s hard to believe that this the final Urban Studies class I will ever take, and that I get to take it in Amsterdam of all places. The privilege of this is not lost on me, and I have a Moleskine that is quickly filling up with frantically scribbled notes. Here are some of the highlights:
Amsterdam might be the most secular city in all of Europe, but here’s a church!
Most of the housing developments in the canal belt have a green space or garden like this in the middle, which city law prohibits from building upon. Pretty cool.
And of course, here’s a canal. Fun fact: Amsterdam has more bridges than its canal-city counterpart, Venice.
I also went on a walking tour of everyone’s favorite/least-favorite urban phenomenon, gentrification! Like in many cities, gentrification has been good for Amsterdam’s artisan pickle business but bad for housing its low-income residents. But Amsterdam’s government really goes the extra mile by basically sanctioning and formalizing gentrification, paying artists and other creative types to move into neighborhoods that they want to “revitalize.”
Pictured: aforementioned artisan pickle store in a gentrifying immigrant neighborhood
When walking through this area, our guide, a PhD student, would point out streets that are often stigmatized as “bad” by the city at large. These streets are full of vibrant economic activity, children enjoying parks, and beautiful housing, and generally looked like some of the “best” streets in America.
In another walking tour, we went to an area that is currently a very hip neighborhoods and a hub for artists, Noord Amsterdam. A reoccurring theme in Amsterdam is government-subsidized and public support of the arts to an extent that could never exist in the United States.
We toured this huge warehouse that serves as an open-concept office and gallery for visual artists and other creative types and is completely open to the public.
Lastly, we also toured a squat that has been established since the 80s. Squatting only recently became illegal in Amsterdam, but it has been and continues to be a prominent social movement of artists who recognize the absurdity of buildings remaining vacant when there is such a great need for affordable housing. I had a lot of mixed feelings about the squat and their approach, but it was much nicer than anticipated. It was essentially a “normal” Dutch apartment complex with utilities and whatnot that I neglected to photograph. But here’s a garden and a treehouse:
