Country guides
Blending in with Amsterdam
You see them walking down the street, and instantly you know: tourists. The
Netherlands, and Amsterdam in particular, are quite an attractive location for
anyone travelling through Europe, such as backpackers from Poland and the Ukraine,
from Germany, France, Austria or from Portugal, high school graduates from the
US on their daredevil tour, British football fans, families from Japan, China
and Brazil, or elderly couples from Korea and Israel. Today, tourism is definitely
one major source of income in the former harbour-city and centre of trade. In
2005, 4.5 million hotel guests were counted and 8.5 million overnight-stays
were registered in the Dutch capital with no more than 750.000 inhabitants.
These figures certainly cannot disguise the fascination that the city bestows
upon its visitors. But what distinguishes the regular tourist’s appearance
from that of the residents of Amsterdam?
Comfortable outdoor clothing, a massive load of shopping bags dangling along
each side of the body, various football insignia, photo cameras, the hopeless
handling of city maps and dictionaries, simply give it away. Their admiration
for the charmingly crooked architecture, the canals along with their elegant
bridges and the eccentric houseboats, the countless little shops, galleries,
and cafés leads them to stand still and look around, mouth and eyes wide
open. The unique mixture of a certain small town cosiness and roaring urban
hectic, captivates the spectator’s thoughts.
Though not a Dutch citizen, I became an inhabitant of the Amsterdam two years
ago. And though not being a tourist, I sometimes – especially during the
summer months – get the feeling I am on holiday. It seems that after all,
I have earned a double status: being both, local and foreigner, at the same
time. Within six months, I learned to speak Dutch. I got quite good at preparing
myself against all sorts of rain and wind. I learned that during the week the
shops close at five, and I learned that traffic lights generally don’t
mean much.
However, among one in three residents being of foreign origin, it is not too difficult to blend in with the multicultural appearance of the city. Visitors from all around the world, seeing me on my old-fashioned black bike with the classical wide handle bar riding along the canals, listening to my i-pod, have stopped me many times over, all asking roughly the same kind of questions: ‘Miss, could you tell us the way to the Anne Frank House, please?’ ‘How do I get to Dam Square?’ and ‘We are kind of looking for the Sex Museum…’ Once this happens to you, you know one thing: you managed to blend in with Amsterdam.
Lina Zedelius, German national, living and working in the Netherlands
Photography: © Eric Sijbrands/Expertise in Labour Mobility.
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