An ode to Amsterdam

A personal essay in truth, I'm no good at odes.

This is an observational account of some of the things I’ve noticed, and either “taken to” immediately or grown to love, since living in Amsterdam. The piece also deliberates over this perhaps more newly discovered inclination towards observation.

The way my childhood self committed so many picture book images to photographic memory. The patience with which I would consider every corner of two joined-up horizontal A4 pages, the detail that required craftsmanship I clearly respected. A nightly investigation, I took pride in excavating hidden oddities the author wasn’t clever enough to hide from me. Like on the circus page, where a sneaky smiling man-faced infant sets up a rather painful looking practical joke on his regrettably distracted mother. To see him, you have to look beyond the elephant who is mid-stomp, struck in horror by a brazen mouse. That large grey surface area, enveloped by huge red and white tent stripes, commands your attention, as do the snarling, jester-like acrobats and the unfathomable ring of fire. Nobody is looking for that ruddy-faced tyrant, not even his mother. He’s surrounded by enablers, permitting him to plot his diabolical deeds. Except, my young self was always on to his tricks, as would most children have been, even if the adults reading aren’t always as observant initially.

The eyes of children can be as frustrating as they are inspiring. You could take the above child to a real circus and they might just wish they had the book in front of them. It’s a total roulette.

I’ve lived a lot like this myself before moving to Amsterdam. I turned on and off my appreciation for what I saw around me. Returning to the same places in Dublin today, I’ve rediscovered that sense of childlike wonder and awe for familiar places that were right in front of me the whole time, already well burned in my memory. Suddenly, Dublin is leafy, with majestic oak trees that lacked a “wow” factor before. Had they done something recently with their leaves? The neon lights in town have somehow become classier and the architecture has had a character breathed into them that didn’t exist before. Except that’s not true, and these aren’t revelatory additions to the city I sometimes regret complaining about so much.

Amsterdam is what opened my eyes. So I’ll start with this short vignette of life in my adopted city, charting what I’ve appreciated over the course of my settling in here. Later, I’ll do Dublin the same service it deserves.

In Amsterdam, I love…

• How there is a great aptitude for regarding the potential of defunct warehouse spaces for becoming galleries, gyms or techno nights

• How the morning sunlight fills the many overpriced bakeries, the almost biblical sepia tones capable alone of justifying this little luxury I daren't indulge in as regularly at home

• How I feel as if I’m on a long holiday, given the multiplying attractions I tick off my list: I’ve seen the cube houses of Rotterdam by basking in a sailing hot tub, visited nightclubs fashioned from old schools or skateboard parks, participated in ice-skating at my own risk in the Vondelpark ponds during Winter, docked up for a pizza halfway through a silent disco on a boat (a shade of party I never knew I needed) and walked curved decking alongside moored ships that now host art studios and shops, to name some that I’m reminded of from carefully kept pins on Google Maps

• How the selection of a “korte bon”, or short receipt, in the self-checkouts of supermarkets make me feel like an environmentalist of Greta Thunberg proportions. Along with the two-wheeled mode of transport that is so ingrained in daily life that I still forget about the tram’s existence on rainy days

• How these bikes can be a reason to continue the party the next day: we have to collect the abandoned vehicles from parked outside a brown bar, so we may as well have a hair-of-the-dog bierflasche to congratulate ourselves for having not cycled home inebriated. Although maybe we’ll go next door, because the bar man likely isn’t pleased to see us again so soon

• How the flasche size has grown on me. Outraged I was, at first, disqualifying a beer that size. Especially when a significant fraction is foam, as keen as they are on the head here. But now I’m a believer in both and I’ll try to convert anyone who will hear my sermon – “it keeps it sooo much fresher...”

• How the Dutch attitude to merciless rain is defiant and all-embracing: “we’re not made of sugar, now put on your poncho” (and how al fresco dining also prevails)

• How they often prioritise innocent fun, whether that’s a pie in the face on King’s Day, conga lines in absurd attire during Carnival, or group rollerblading sessions through the city on Fridays

• How I can now appreciate that their obsession with planning anything well in advance is deeply rooted and reflected in their well-planned cities, while their penchant for vertical stairs of death is not a personal attack, but the cost of gorgeous high ceilings

• How they will disguise excuses for a party as a protest to secure its permission, like during the Amsterdam Dance Event, where we marched and danced for 10km with a unified goal: to enjoy life

• How I detected in myself recently a great sense of petty victory when Amsterdam’s best taco stall moved from the crazily touristic site of Albert Cuypstraat to my quieter food market of Ten Katestraat. I am now a woman with stance who vehmently values queuing time ethics, when it comes to food

• How the dogs captain the Stand Up Paddle boards in summer

• How dreams are realised with the simple act of attaching a slide to a houseboat

• How you are free to cycle home through an open park in the dead of night, instead of taking the main streets

• How I now get road rage when I come into contact with overly hesitant cyclists, consolidating once and for all that I am within my right to call this place 'home'.

Of course, sometimes my observations point to Amsterdam’s lack too, compared to Dublin. Like at 2022’s Down the Rabbit Hole music festival campsite, when the Dutch didn’t rate our rendition of their Nordic mates ABBA at 1am. They can keep their mosquitoes too.

Thanks Amsterdam.