Amsterdam, Part 2

The Real Sin City?

Ask a typical American the first thing that comes to mind when they hear the word “Amsterdam,” and nine times out of ten they will probably say either “drugs” or “sex.” Amsterdam’s tolerance for vice of all kinds is legendary, and where sex is concerned, the Red Light District stands squarely in the spotlight.

Canal in the Red Light District

While my trusty guidebook proclaimed Amsterdam a city safe for women traveling solo, it did advise against walking in the Red Light District alone at night, reason being that the rough atmosphere could be “intimidating”. So, naturally, intrepid explorer that I am, I went walking in the Red Light District alone at night. Granted, it was Sunday, and it was about 9:00, so the debauchery was probably not in full swing, but even if it had been, I don’t think I would have had anything to worry about. The men were far too engrossed in the tarted-up, scantily-clad “merchandise” in the windows to take much notice of a grubby, slightly-damp, umbrella-bearing American girl skulking past. And, as if the utter disinterest of the entire male population weren’t enough insurance, police presence in the Red Light District is stronger than anywhere else in the city—just in case.

The Oude Kerk

In reality, though, the most shocking thing about Amsterdam’s Red Light District is how un-shocking it is. Amsterdam really has managed to take the fascination out of sin merely by laying it all out there in the open. Tour groups wind through the  alleys, much as they do in every other part of the city (there’s a lot to see there, apart from women in their underwear). Parents push strollers through the area without much apparent concern. Hilariously, but also somehow fittingly, the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam’s oldest house of worship, stands sentry over the whole district. In fact, there’s a generous row of red-light windows on the alley directly next-door to the church. Really, the only indication that the Red Light District is different from any other neighborhood in Amsterdam—apart, of course, from the women in the windows— is the men. There are a lot of them: they travel alone and in packs, cast nervous glances from side to side. Their hands are restless. When they’re contemplating a purchase, they pace back and forth in front of occupied windows, circling, almost, like vultures. (That analogy makes it sound way more dramatic than it actually is.)

In any event, I needn’t have gone as far as the Red Light District to find sex in the city. There are plenty of sex shops in the city center and elsewhere, and the Amsterdam Sexmuseum is a stone’s throw away from the train station (yes, I went. It was amusing and, for the most part, pretty non-sensational, much like sex everywhere else).  Not to mention the fact that there turned out to be a whole 17^th-century house full of red-light windows right across the street from my hostel.

Over the course of my four days in Amsterdam, I tried several times to assess my opinion about legalized prostitution, without coming to any satisfactory conclusions, and even now I’m still not entirely sure what to think. Part of the problem is that I don’t know how I’m supposed to react: is the feminist thing to be enraged, or approving? Should I feel sorry for these women? Should I be morally outraged? Decry the objectification and dehumanization of women? Maybe the problem is that I’m just too desensitized: the U.S. may not have legalized prostitution, but sex is unquestionably everywhere in our culture, and just like drugs and, to a lesser degree, alcohol, the repressed atmosphere around it only serves to sensationalize it further. Maybe I just watch too much HBO.

I toyed briefly with the idea of paying a prostitute for her time just to ask her questions about her profession, but then I had to wonder how often these women must see people like me who do exactly the same, fancying themselves enlightened, trying to get a sense for the “human” side of the story, maybe even doing the woman a favor. And the more time I spent around the Red Light windows, avoiding eye contact with the women in the windows, the more I felt that my motives for being there were far worse than those of the men around me: they were at least potential clients; I, on the other hand, was really only there to gawk.

Het Achterhuis: The “Secret Annex”

As I was walking along the Prinsengracht on my first or second day in Amsterdam—I mentioned in my last post that it turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the city— I realized that the name was familiar to me from somewhere, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember where. Then, I pretty much ran into the Anne Frank House, and I remembered.

(Part of) the to get into the Anne Frank House. shortly after I left.
It probably took the people at the end of this line between
one and a half and two hours to get in.

While planning my trip to Amsterdam—deciding which museums to go to and so forth—I went back and forth several times on whether I wanted to visit the house where Anne Frank and her family went into hiding. I’ve read The Diary of Anne Frank, like pretty much everybody else in the world. Twice, in fact: once in fifth or sixth grade and then again for school in eighth. But there seemed to me to be something morbid about traipsing through the house itself: I remembered a comment by Ruth Kluger, a Holocaust survivor and writer, calling Holocaust memorial culture and the tourist business surrounding it “pornographic.” I was determined, too, not to let the Holocaust take over my trip to Amsterdam— the same goes for Budapest and Vienna, as well. In the end, though, I decided to abide by the principle that it’s better to regret something you did do than something you didn’t, so on Sunday morning I joined the queue—the longest I encountered in Amsterdam—to see the Secret Annex.

Walking through the house itself, I was struck by how closely it matched the vision of it that I had in my head from reading the diary, which I guess is a credit to Anne Frank’s talent as a writer. Apart from that, I very quickly began to feel claustrophobic—as I stepped through the legendary secret passage behind the bookcase, my pulse was actually racing. Granted, this might have due in part to the fact that I was being hustled along in a stream of dozens of other eager visitors. Still, I can’t even begin to imagine what it must have been like to be trapped in those rooms, day in and day out, terrified that the slightest creak of a floorboard could give you away.

It’s very clear that the Dutch are proud of Anne Frank, and of the numerous other stories of Jews in hiding in Amsterdam and the people who helped them. Along with the February Strike, in which workers across Amsterdam stopped working in protest of the treatment of the Jewish community under German occupation, it contributes to the legend—some would say myth—of Dutch resistance. But one can’t help wondering if the giant of Anne Frank has cast a shadow over other stories, other lives that were lived and then lost in Amsterdam during that time. For example, the Joods Historisch Museum has in the portion of its exhibit covering the years of the Holocaust another collection of diaries written in the early 1940s. These were written by a woman named Etty Hillesum, 27, also Jewish, also an aspiring author, also deported to Auschwitz and murdered. Etty Hillesum’s diaries have also been published—I tracked down an English copy of An interrupted Life: The Diaries and Letters of Etty Hillseum 1941-1943 at a bookshop in the Jordaan district. But her story is decidedly less palatable, I’d go as far as to say less commercial, than that of thirteen-year-old Anne Frank: she’s a grown woman, she dabbles in psychoanalysis and has affairs with her landlord and her psychoanalyst/mentor, she works for the Jewish Council and volunteers to go to the transit camp at Westerbork. Holding the stories of Etty Hillesum and Anne Frank side by side, and noting the immense difference in how those stories have been received, raises a lot of interesting questions about which lives get remembered by history and which don’t, who decides, and why.

(**Side note** Something that I must have known at some point but forgotten is that Anne Frank was actually born in Frankfurt am Main. Her family moved to Amsterdam when she was four—right around when Hitler came to power.)

“Excuse me, can you tell me how to get to…”

Once again, in Amsterdam as in Frankfurt and Cologne, I found myself the target of a large number of inquiries and requests for directions from other lost and confused tourists. Having devoted much reflection to the question of why these people think I have any idea where I’m going, much less where they’re going, I have come to the conclusion that it must be the trench coat. Back in the States, I bought a black trench coat with the express hope that it would help to disguise my American-ness. What I realize now, though, is that it’s doing its job almost too well: it’s disguising my tourist-ness. Tourists don’t wear trench coats. Tourists wear fleeces and insulated vests and Northface jackets. Tourists overdress for the weather because there was no room in their suitcase for a second coat, and it’s better to be over-prepared than under. When you wear a trench coat, you are subtly signaling that you are not concerned with such practical matters, as you have a second, and in all likelihood a third, warmer coat stashed away in your houseboat on the Herengracht, or your apartment over in Nieuwmarkt. People see “trench coat” and they think “local.” I look forward to testing this theory in Budapest and Vienna. 

Let’s Talk About Food

As a rule, the Dutch aren’t known for their world-class cuisine, but OH DEAR LORD, THE CHEESE. Dutch cheese is a miracle sent to Earth by the God of Cheese. Cheese shops are the churches of the Cheese God, the shopkeepers are his priests, and the FREE SAMPLES are his communion, enabling you to taste the divine without paying for it. That being said, I wish I had shelled out the ten Euro for a wedge of aged goat cheese. Or maybe Gouda. Of course, on the whole, cheese (and also bread) is something to add to the List of Things Europe Does Better Than The States. I mean, what does it say about America that the cheese named after our country cannot technically be called cheese? I think it says that we are a sick and depraved nation.

Also mega-tasty: Dutch pancakes. They’re flatter and flakier than their American cousins, and they come in a surprising array of flavors both sweet and savory. Also, they’re highly traveler-friendly, being relatively affordable and also extremely filling: I ate an apple pancake at Pancakes! at around 3:00 PM, and I was good to go for the rest of the day. Also, Pancakes! gave me a free wooden-shoe key chain (okay, so not free, obviously the expense was hidden in my check) so I got to have a geeky souvenir without having to set foot in any of those awful “Authentic Dutch” souvenir shops.

Less delicious than cheese or pancakes but no less Dutch is broodje haring. A broodje haring is a herring on what is basically a hotdog bun, topped with onions and pickles (“Onions and pickles?” asked the lady at the counter of one herring cart, my first of three. “Whatever comes on it,” I answered, in an effort to convey my desire to be authentic. The lady nodded. “Onions and pickles.”). Because it comes in what Lonely Planet describes as “an edible napkin,” a broodje haring is a great grab-and-go snack or lunch. It’s also gentle on the wallet, at between  2,50 and  3,00 depending on the cart.

Over on the beverage side of things, we have genever, or Dutch gin. I had a taste, and I can’t say I was a huge fan. Apparently, though, working-class Dutch men in the mid-to-late nineteenth century were hooked on it, and Heineken opened his brewery so that the men could get off the hard stuff and drink good, wholesome beer instead. Speaking of beer, I had several. I tried to stay away from Heineken, being pretty sure that it tastes the same in the Netherlands as it does in the States, and go for the more hipster beers instead. My greatest success was at the Eet-&-Bierencafe (meaning they have good food and god beer) De Beiaard, where I had the house Bock, or fall beer, and something called De Manke Monnik (according to google-translate: “the crippled monk”, which is just about as great a name for a beer as I can imagine). I think De Manke Monnik was supposed to be a “Trappist” beer, except there’s only one Trappist brewery in the Netherlands, and it isn’t called The Crippled Monk. But whatever, De Manke Monnik was delicious, and it’s not like I can really afford to be a label snob where beer is concerned.

Vaarwel, Amsterdam

That pretty much does it for my trip to Amsterdam. Well, except for the part where I construct my imaginary future life there—something I think I’ll do in every city I visit:  owning a houseboat (which actually would never happen, because they’re apparently super expensive and require TONS of upkeep); running an English-language book shop with a generous supply of Dutch literature in translation (something I found to be lacking in the shops I found there); living exclusively on pancakes and cheese and keeping off the pounds by taking long walks along the canals…