Prettige Kerstdagen

Haarlem is generally a subdued kind of place, however, as we get ready to head back to the UK this weekend, our adopted home town is bracing itself for ‘Serious Request’. Serious Request is a major fund-raising event by one of the Dutch national radio stations – three DJ’s incarcerated in a ‘glass house’ in the Grote Markt playing six days of non-stop music. Apparently up to 200,000 visitors are expected – so it’s probably a good time to be leaving.

It’ll be Haarlem’s second weekend entertaining the hoards – last week was the Christmas Market, plenty of opportunity to buy all the handcrafted fir-cone knick-knacks you’ve ever wanted and sample the local gluhwein. It would have been rude not to have joined in.  The added attraction was the ‘Anton Pieck Parade’  – a spooky assortment of Charles Dickens’ like characters who spontaneously burst into song, played instruments and herded sheep through the market place. 

Christmas is pretty low-key here compared to the UK . There doesn’t appear to be the manic rush to stock up. Presents are exchanged on St Nicholas Day at the beginning of the month  and although there are a few ‘kerstdagen feest’ treats on the supermarket shelves, the shops are not full of the usual selection of tacky Christmas gifts. It’s a refreshing change.

However, our knowledge of cheesy Christmas songs proved a major hit in the quiz this week. Our bemused German team-mates who have adopted the mantra 'the music round is our favourite round' in an attempt to overcome their lack of strength in this department, were pretty impressed as we rose to the giddy heights of third place.  We feel we’ve well and truly earned our place in the team, unlike the rogue Irish man who joined us at the last minute and insisted he knew more about the length of the German border than the Germans. Not quite so sure he’ll be welcomed back….

Anyhow, Ed is getting very excited. He has been frantically clawing at the chimney for the last few days – it could be mice I suppose, but I like to think its anticipation of Santa’s arrival. Cats are known for their extra-sensory perception, perhaps he can already hear the distant patter of reindeer hooves. 

Unfortunately for Ed, his presents are being delivered 700 miles away back in the UK – he’s coming with us, and it’ll be good to get him back onto beige carpet.  Whoever decided  black carpet was a good idea obviously had never  vacuumed one. It’s a nightmare to keep clean, showing up every hair and speck of dust. In this Dutch gloom Ed has become a major tripping hazard.  Like most cats, he does like to sit with his (white) paws tucked in, and his favourite place to sit is at the top of our (very steep) stairs. After a three month delay, our medical insurance cards may only just have arrived in the nick of time..... And I've finally discovered the reason for the erratic delivery of our post. We regularly receive post for our neighbours, people in the next street, and people in the next town. According to one of my new ex-pat friends who lives further up the same road,  the postman is high on weed. This explains a lot.  It's a bit like the flashing Christmas lights in Amsterdam, warning you not to buy cocaine from street dealers - three tourists have recently died from contaminated cocaine. It's all right living in a liberal society,but it does have it's downsides. I think the Netherlands is a great place, but I'm very much looking forward to a couple of weeks back in the UK.

Out & About Again

It’s another Monday morning feeling – the airport run and sad goodbyes.  The downside to all this globe-trotting is always being apart from family and friends. Yes being an ex-pat can sound rather glamorous, and  yes it is mind-broadening and eye-opening to have the opportunity to explore exotic places and experience a difference culture, but it can also be rather isolated and lonely…so after kissing the student off at the airport again, there was only one antidote, to get back on the bike.

The weather has turned pretty cold here in Holland but that doesn’t deter the Dutch. They just wrap on another layer and continue their battle with the elements.  Armed with hat, scarf and gloves I cycled up to the pool for a swim, where I was actually approached for the first time for some small talk.

I immediately apologised, in English, for my lack of Dutch. The dear old Dutch lady then apologised to me in English, for speaking Dutch in the first place! No, I insisted, still in English, I was the one who was sorry. So ashamed I hurried home and Googled  the translation for Sorry, I don’t speak Dutch , which is (according to Google) Sorry, Ik sprek geen Nederlands. How difficult is that?  Very, apparently because later that afternoon when faced with a shop assistant who appeared to be telling me more than the norm of how much I owed, I found myself saying in English yet again, sorry, I don’t speak Dutch….

Anyway, the student had a very happy few days hobbling around Haarlem on a suspected ‘OMG I’ve broken my’ ankle which fortunately turned out just to be a serious sprain, although she was rather appalled at our acceptance of certain dubious aspects of  Dutch culture.  So accustomed have we now become to Zwarte Piet that I failed to even notice the man on the fish stall in the market in total costume complete with curly wig and blackened face. Black Pete is everywhere in Haarlem, in shop window displays, on posters, and even available as an edible sweet.  I suspect our little political activist would have quite liked us to boycott the fish stall with placards.

Visitors are always a good excuse to get out and about, and consume far too much apple pie. The week before we’d played host to the in-laws. We’d spent a happy day wondering around the Hague which is home to several grand old buildings (and where incidentally Black Pete is noticeably absent) as well as heading out to the beach on the tram to view some pretty wacky modern art. 

Amsterdam just seems to get busier, and colder, every time we go, but we also ventured up to Edam, which is a surprisingly small place, for something so big in cheese, and as for Volendam, that’s always good for tourists in need of retail therapy. If you are looking for slipper clogs and tulip shaped umbrellas this is the place to go.  All I need now is couple of rolls of Zwarte Piet wrapping paper and I've got the Christmas shopping sorted.

Sinterklaas is coming to town....

This week’s blog was going to be all about the series of fortunate, and unfortunate events that have occurred over the last seven days – finding some new friends, followed by the episode of the exploding boiler and the fact that we rose to the dizzy heights of fifth place in the quiz (Mr T and I realise our sheltered upbringings are proving something of a handicap in the quiz following our failure to recognise the anal ring (??) in last week’s picture round, although we correctly identified the contraceptive coil the week before.....)

However, all of these events have now paled into insignificance by this afternoon's arrival of Sinterklaas in Haarlem.  It is Dutch tradition that Sinterklaas – St Nicholas – arrives each year from Spain in a boat, together with his helper Zwarte Piet, in preparation for two weeks of festivities that lead up to St Nicolas Day on 5 December.  After Sinter  disembarks from his galleon he rides through the streets on a white horse, accompanied by several Piets who hand out sweets and the traditional spiced biscuits pepernoten to the eagerly waiting crowd.

In what is presumably an effort to placate the PR brigade, Sinter’s helper, ‘Black Pete’ is sometimes referred to as a chimney sweep, however there was nothing chimney sweep like about any of the Zwarte Piets who arrived in Haarlem.

‘Imagine a scene from the Black & White minstrel show’ one of my new English friends warned. Despite this, the last thing I expected to see on a cold, damp November day in Holland was a large brightly coloured steam boat, full of cheery singing, dancing, trombone playing men and women with blacked faces and wearing curly black wigs winding its way up the River Sparne. I think it’s one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever seen, and that says a lot, for someone who spent three years living in Los Angeles!

Sinterklaas, a papal sort of figure, waved to the crowd from beneath his brightly coloured umbrella as the procession then moved from the canal through the streets of Haarlem to the Grote Markt, an occasion that would have seemed more at home in the sunny streets of New Orleans than as a prelude to winter/Christmas festivities. 

Is it racist? I don't know.  It was certainly bizarre. However, each to their own. The Dutch probably think the British tradition of Guy Fawkes night is pretty nuts. What? You burn effigies of the man who tried to blow up the houses of Parliament four hundred years ago on a bonfire and then celebrate with fireworks? Yes, and why not? Any excuse for a party!.

Everyone we saw on the streets of Haarlem today seemed pretty happy to cheer along the Zwarte Piets, although, while researching a bit of the history for this post I did see an article that apparently 60 anti-Piet protestors have been arrested in the Dutch town of Gouda. Perhaps it's time to throw Piet, or at least his wig and make-up, on a bonfire too.