Northern Europe Tour 2007 - Part III: in Amsterdam

[liv]

Returning to the by now rather delayed account of What I Did on My Holidays: I was really taken with Amsterdam. I think it helped that I had a bit longer there than in some places I visited, and it helped a lot that I was with friends rather than on my own. lethargic_man is the most excellent of travel companions! But it's also a great city and very much tourist friendly.

Various little things went wrong and added up to my reaching Amsterdam about four hours later than I'd planned, which meant I was rather stressed. Actually, meeting up with lethargic_man and curious_reader was fine in spite of the delay, and in spite of my yelling at Lethargic Man for absolutely no good reason (my apologies for that). We did end up not having time to do much on Sunday evening, other than find something to eat in an Indian restaurant that was tolerable but pricey for what it was. We stayed in the Park Plaza Vondel, which is a fairly generic though not horrible chain hotel.

We were pretty efficient about touristing on Monday. We made an early start to get to the Anne Frank museum before the queues got impossible. It probably wouldn't have been my first choice of destination, but it is extremely well put-together. In some way it mitigated my bad experiences of Holocaust merchandizing in Berlin, because it is very sensitive and clearly aimed to educate rather than shock and titillate.

lethargic_man pointed out to me the Pink Triangle memorial which is just behind Anne Frank's house. It's a very discreet memorial; I could have walked right past it if I hadn't been deliberately looking for it. It consists of a triangular jetty, a triangular paved area, a pink granite triangle about a foot high, and a little booth providing health information and advice for young gay people. It seems right that it should exist, though; it's rare for the Holocaust to be commemorated specifically as an attack on gay people (rather than lumping them together as "the Jews and all the others"). This is partly because people who happen to be gay do not entirely form a distinct community with a clear sense of shared heritage.

We decided we had a little time to see the Amsterdam Historical Museum. This turned out to be very interesting; it basically discussed the history of the city in chronological order, displaying artefacts and artworks from each period. I learned a lot from it, though we didn't have time to see the whole museum properly, and I'm still a little confused about what was going on with all the civil wars and power struggles between Catholics and Protestants! The coolest thing is probably the original shipwrights' scale models used to construct the Eastindiaman ships. Also I got a really clear impression of how artificial the city is; it seems to have risen to prominence as a result of an event that is ludicrous even by the standards of Mediaeval Christian superstitions (seriously: a dying man received the Last Rites, but vomited up the Host, and the Host did not burn when the vomit was thrown onto the fire. The man died anyway, and somehow this was a reason to attract such a regular stream of pilgrims to the nascent city that it became prosperous. Dot. Dot. Dot.) And the city doesn't even have natural access to the sea; they just picked a random spot to build a connecting canal so it could serve as a port. Then half the land the city stands on is artificially constructed and the rest is reclaimed.

We managed to lose track of eachother in the museum (this was a bit of a theme over the course of our stay!) so we were somewhat rushed to make it to our next appointment. When I took the tour of Berlin, they mentioned that the same organization also offers free walking tours of Amsterdam, and since the Berlin one was so good it seemed a good way to get a feel for Amsterdam too. Anyway, we were (just!) in time to join said tour. The guide was a rather sweet Aussie girl, not as much of an intellectual as the Berlin guide, and someone who had obviously very much bought into the Amsterdam myth. She kept telling us how wonderful and tolerant the city is, and how the commercial imperative makes everyone willing to work together and overlook differences, and so on. I don't want to be mean; she did a good job of showing us the city, but she seemed a little bit naive.

Anyway. Amsterdam is very very pretty. I think it has benefited from the fact that its most prosperous period corresponded with an era of good architectural taste. And the canals really help. The only part of the city that is not visually lovely is the former Jewish quarter; not only were most of its inhabitants killed, to add insult to injury the empty buildings were torn apart for fuel during the terrible winter of 44, and the quarter was rebuilt with revolting 60s architecture. Apparently the city learned from that experience and instituted strict planning laws so there won't be any more eyesores. But it's just one more sad thing to add to the incomprehensible mass of tragedies.

Obviously, we had to visit the Red Light District, since it's one of the major tourist attractions. Our starry-eyed guide was full of enthusiasm for how the prostitutes are all unionized and have legal protections, and how wonderful it is that there is so much diversity among the workers, with all races and body types taking part in this magnificent Amsterdam institution. I have some reservations about this rosy picture, starting from a rather visceral reaction to seeing the half-dressed women gyrating in the windows. Still, I think on the whole there are advantages to sex trade being a normal part of business (especially when that is extended to shops selling naughty underwear, condoms, toys and erotic videos, as well as the direct prostitution). I definitely like the way that the Red Light District is an area where one can feel comfortable after dark, unlike in a lot of cities. And there's lots of sexually themed public art, which is rather cool especially as lots of it is actually artistic rather than merely graphic. And it's not like the fact that prostitution is less in my face elsewhere in the world makes it less of a moral problem.

On the guide's recommendation, we had an Indonesian meal in the evening. That was the only meal we ate in Amsterdam that was interesting and good value for money, though it was in a tiny little dive only one step up from a takeaway. It's not surprising that it's hard to find decent and not overpriced food in such a touristy city, at least if you yourself are a tourist without local knowledge. Anyway. Indonesian food is tasty.

Tuesday was the wedding, which I've blogged about already. We were pretty tired after a long and intense day, so we didn't get up all that early on Wednesday. Still, we had time for a couple of hours in the Rijksmuseum, another museum that was high on my list of places to make sure to see at some point in my life. Even though the museum was partially closed for renovation, I was not at all disappointed. Apart from the very obvious things (yay Rembrandt! yay Vermeer!), I rather liked some of the stuff by an artist called Metsu, whom I had not heard of previously. Also, it's very cool to see the famous Dutch style of painting the sky, and then go outside and see the sky actually looking like that. I know that's really trite observation which has probably been made by millions of tourists before, but I was happy anyway.

A little more exploring the city on foot, partly unintentionally as it took us ages to find anywhere vaguely suitable to eat, and we ended up in a trashy "Italian" place. Then we caught the Eurostar train back to London, which was expensive but vastly, vastly less stressful than flying (as well as being more environmental, which was the reason for choosing that means of transport).

Conclusion: even though I only had time for the really obvious tourist clichés, I'm definitely a fan of Amsterdam. Yet another place I want to find time to go back to some time. At least it's reasonably easy to get to from both here and England.

Comments

[redbird]

It also occurs to me that having the prostitution be legal, open, and in a specific district means that people who would rather not look at it can avoid it more easily. There's much less chance of happening to get off the metro and discover that this is the latest area the police have chased the streetwalkers to.

[(Anonymous)]

It also occurs to me that having the prostitution be legal, open, and in a specific district means that people who would rather not look at it can avoid it more easily.

Or even if you walk straight through it: I decided I was not going to go craning my neck around to ogle at scantily-clad women, but expected I would see them anyway. Instead, despite passing through the edge of the red light district on abovementioned tour, all I ended up seeing of the prostitutes in their windows was half a second in the corner of my eye.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

Oh, that was me. Don't know why LJ logged me out.

[liv]

I wasn't sure if you didn't want your name directly associated with a discussion about prostitution, though it was fairly transparent that the comment came from you.

I didn't want to be ogling either, though I think I saw a little more than you did. It feels really weird to stare at someone like that, even if she is obviously intentionally on display. The thing is, how often do you (knowingly) see prostitutes somewhere that doesn't have an official Red Light District? I'm guessing that, in London, you might occasionally see the characteristic phone box cards, and that's probably about it.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

Often enough if you happen to walk through the unofficial one, which I've done in Birmingham, Prague and Nice, to my memory.

London doesn't work that way because the city's too big. (Birmingham probably too except that the kerbcrawlers had latched onto the area where Central Shul is, to the Jewish community's eternal mortification.)

[liv]

I have a bit of a problem with keeping something like prostitution out of sight so that innocent people don't have to look at it, actually. If a person believes that prostitution is harmful, then that person has an obligation to try to do something about it politically, not try to hide the evidence of the harm.

I think that sort of attitude is exactly why there is such a problem in New York with the police mistreating prostitutes. They are chasing the women out of "nice" areas because fastidious people don't want to have look at vice and the attendant suffering. That's bad for the prostitutes because they get chased around and mistreated. It's bad for the people living in the not-so-nice areas that suddenly turn into unofficial red light districts with increased crime.

It's not that I'm accusing you of being a hypocrite, or anything like that. It's just that I feel either prostitution is ok, in which case it should be open and above-board, or it's not ok, in which case it needs to be tackled systemically, not cosmetically. And it did occur to me that if I feel safer in an official Red Light District than a de facto one, it's likely that the prostitutes themselves feel safer there too, not to mention the people who might not have that much choice about which areas of the city they want to spend time in.

[ploni-bat-ploni.livejournal.com]

Glad you're a fan of Amsterdam... as am I! Told you you'd love it.

And you're welcome back at any time. You know that :-)

Re: Northern Europe Tour 2007 - Part III: in Amsterdam

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

ah, amsterdam. my most favourite large city in the world.

indonesian food was probably your very best bet. :)

[lyssiae.livejournal.com]

When I visited the historical museum I clearly remember breaking the displays with the flashy-uppy buttons.

The point about the Eucharistic Miracle (the one in Amsterdam, that is) and how it has given rise to the Stille Omgang is not whether or not the man died; it's indeed about how the Host was not destroyed in the fire and how He returned to that house two more times after a priest had taken it away. The modern-day Stille Omgang has taken on other meanings than simply commemmorating this event, but that's due to the nature of Amsterdam itself.

I read quite a bit of cynicism in your description of this point - which admittedly may or may not be real and may or may not be directed at the miracle itself (not being a historian per se, the rise of Amsterdam isn't something that interests me much). If it is indeed about the veracity of the tale then it leads me to wonder whether you accept as true tales such as the sea parting for Moses, manna falling from Heaven or Daniel's friends being kept safe in the fire (I think all three examples here are accepted as part of the Jewish canon)?

[liv]

Thanks for the further explanation about the Amsterdam Miracle. The museum did not do a great job of explaining the theology behind it. It's very telling that you use a personal pronoun for the Host, whereas I would automatically have said "it". Thinking about it from that angle makes a bit more sense of things. Can you translate "Stille Omgang", please?

I wasn't expressing cynicism about the possibility that a miracle might have occurred. But I can more easily understand why someone would build a cathedral on the site of, say, a miraculous healing, or a saint seeing a vision of Jesus or Mary, than on the site of a dying man vomiting up a Communion wafer. The story seems so banal and slightly gross. I can't understand how a devout Christian would hear of it, and think, oh, what miraculous proof of God's presence in the world, I must immediately make a pilgrimage to that random little town in a backwater swamp in northern Europe so I can stand on the spot where this amazing event occurred!

As to whether miracles are part of Judaism, that's actually a kind of tricky question. There's a famous tradition which says there were only ever ten truly miraculous events in all of human history. The rest, things like the prophets surviving the furnace, are considered to be unusual, but basically natural events. Of course, they are part of God's action in the world, but so is the rain falling or a child being conceived, and nobody would claim that those are supernatural events.

You probably know that we don't generally do saints or relics, and it's a standard cliché that Judaism sanctifies time (the Sabbath, the jubilee cycle of years, the different times of day for prayers and ritual actions, and so on) rather than space (God is everywhere, so there is no holy ground, and we don't consecrate our places or worship, for example). So the way we talk about these things is not really analogous.

[lyssiae.livejournal.com]

I can't understand how a devout Christian would hear of it, and think, oh, what miraculous proof of God's presence in the world, I must immediately make a pilgrimage to that random little town in a backwater swamp in northern Europe so I can stand on the spot where this amazing event occurred!

This made me laugh!

"Stille Omgang" means "Silent Procession" which is just what it is - a few thousand people come to Amsterdam, attend Mass at around midnight (in different churches around the city) and then process around the city centre in silence, circling the house (or the site at least - it's now in the middle of the shopping district) three times. I took part earlier this year for the first time.

The miracle is not, indeed, in the "general" style of miracle stories. When I first heard it I certainly had some of the reaction you mentioned above. It strikes me, though, as being very "Dutch" - down to earth and no nonsense - which I find rather (insert suitable word in here). It's good to know that not all the miracles that have taken place (and that we know of) are the sugary-sweet healings or the like. Whilst not wanting to take anything away from those, I can see why this occurrence would be more "convincing" to a stereotypically Dutch mindset, due not least in part to the rather no-holds-barred way in which the story is told.