just like riding a bike...

Since spring washed over Amsterdam, I have been having a harder time finding a place to park my bike outside my house. Weird, right? It's like more bikes have suddenly been called into existence and they're hogging all the good spaces in the bike rack! Since last autumn, and all winter I had been locking my bike up in more or less the exact same place, and now I'm lucky if I can find anywhere at all among the 26 or so bike spots in front of my house. Even my flatmate's usual spot (on a railing literally outside our door) has been usurped!

Anyway, the point is (besides a little venting) that Amsterdammers are crazy for bikes. Most people seem to own more than one of them - especially if they commute between cities, leaving one bike in each place rather than paying 7 Euros to bring it on the train with them. It's not that public transportation is bad here. Not at all. It's just that cycling is by far the best way to get around the city (any city), and the cheapest, and the healthiest. In Amsterdam, like everywhere else in the Netherlands, the bicycle is celebrated. I think this is done quietly: in having (usually) enough places for people to lock up their bikes, in making roads friendly for cyclists (not automobilists), in allowing you to take your bike for free on the ferry across to Amsterdam Noord or on the train if it's a small folding bike, etc. But it seems in spring, this spring especially, Amsterdam is making noise about how great their bicycle culture is.

Today, in Amsterdam and all over the Netherlands, the Dutch are trying to break the world record for the most people cycling at once. Although I didn't get on my bike between noon and 1pm for the record myself, I don't doubt that there were a lot of people who did. Afterall, "Nederland is gegrepen door het fietsvirus" (The Netherlands is in the grips of the bike-bug).

Of course, all the people who cycle daily to and from work, school, through the neighbourhood and everywhere else, will be making way in May this year for the 'professionals'. From the 8th to 10th of May, the city just recovering from spring fever is expected to succumb briefly to Giromania! That's right, the Giro d'Italia is kicking off the cycling tour this year with time trials in Amsterdam and two races to other cities (Utrecht and Middelburg) the following days. Keeners can try the course for themselves on the 9th.

With all this attention on how great cycling is, it makes me thankful that the old saying is true; once you learn how to ride a bike, you'll never forget. It does make me think though (and recall a certain early post by one Ms. Long) about just how important knowing how to bike is to really living and maybe even belonging in Amsterdam, or anywhere else in the Netherlands!

spring!

Spring is in the air, and things are happening! Well, at least I am determined to smell spring and discern a very spring-like quality in the sunlight. Plus, all the signs of spring are undeniably cropping up: lovely sneeuwklokjes (snowdrops) on a plein in Den Haag a couple of weeks ago, the return of some very chirpy songbirds outside of my window, the increasing masses of tourists, and of course, the return of GreenPeace and other charitable canvassers on all the busy street corners!

Last week this change in the air made me feel restless for change myself, but this week it's making me aware of all the things I have to do before I head back to Canada (and all the things I have to do once I'm back in Canada - but, maybe there I'm getting a bit ahead of myself!).

This week, on top of all the usual things, I had an interview on Monday (yay!), had to finish preparing my own paper to be presented at a reading group next week on questions of the culturalization of citizenship (eep!), am attending another reading group on Thursday afternoon about national identities (nice), and am looking forward to what looks like a really interesting discussion Thursday evening: "Echt Nederlands" (Real Dutch; unsurprisingly, the site is also really in Dutch).

Frank J. Lechner (a Dutch-American sociologist; I read his book), Ergün Erkoçu (an architect), Willemijn Maas (director of the AVRO), and Pieter-Matthijs Gijsbers (director of the Openluchtmuseum Arnhem) will be moderated by Kees Ribbens (researcher at the Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie) in their discussion about the dynamics of Dutch identity formation: "Hoe veranderen ideeën over Nederlanderschap en wat is hierin de rol van maatschappelijk beleid en cultuurpraktijk?" (How are ideas about Dutchness/ Dutch nationality changing, and what is the role of social policy and cultural practices?) The discussion is going to be in Dutch, so even though I think I'll have my work cut out for me trying to keep up, it should be really interesting. If you're keen on attending, entry is free, and the event is from 19:00 to 21:00 March 11th (Imagine IC – Bijlmerplein 1006-1008 - Amsterdam Zuidoost, 1 minute walking from station Amsterdam Bijlmer Arena).

the votes are in...

Yesterday was the nation-wide gemeenteraadverkiezingendag (municipal elections day). Citizens in all the municipalities in the entire country went to their local polling stations to cast their votes for their next municipal government.

The verpleeghuis (nursing home) where I volunteer on Wednesday afternoons was busier than usual. While this mostly had to do with the concert of visserliedjes, fisherman songs replete with accordion and heartfelt sentiments happening in the unusually crowded restaurant, at least a little of the foot-traffic was being directed to small room off the cafeteria where people could cast their vote. Later, when I was getting off the rush-hour ferry from Amsterdam Noord there was a man with a loud-horn telling Amsterdammers to remember to vote, and also to vote for GroenLinks (an amalgamated party of lefties). His group of people in vests were competing with people sporting Partij voor de Ardebeider (Labour party) vests in giving away last minute leaflets. Later in the evening, my speaking partner asked me if I'd like to come with him to the polling station, since he still needed to vote. We donned our coats and walked across the chilly street to the polling station in a nearby school. I couldn't vote, what with being Canadian and having only lived in Amsterdam for about 7 months, but I did enjoy the festive atmosphere and an early chocolade Pasei (chocolate Easter egg), while I waited for my friend to do his civic duty.

Today, however, the votes are all in - and almost everyone agrees that the results of the municipal elections that happened everywhere in the country yesterday (March 3rd) point to what to expect during the national elections come June 9th.

And what to expect, seems to be huge gains for the far-right populist Geert Wilders. In what has been a shrewd move by Wilders, his PVV ran only in Den Haag and Almere, where it swept the polls (though the results for Den Haag/ 's-Gravenhage aren't in officially yet according to the Amsterdamse daily Het Parool) coming in as the second largest party in both cities. If this is a sign of things to come for the Netherlands as a whole this summer, commentators predict that Wilders could even be the next Prime Minister!

The PVV wasn't the only party to make gains in the polls though, the D66 and GroenLinks (both lefty parties) also won more seats in municipalities across the country. And as to be expected, according to RNW, the "Christian Democrats (CDA) and Labour Party [PvdA], the two parties responsible for the fall of the Dutch cabinet two weeks ago, both lost a large number of seats." The results for Amsterdam really highlight these changes, although a few local parties also took some seats from the bigger parties.

So, while the media makes its own predictions for the future, I am thinking that it's going to be a pretty interesting few months for thinking about what it means to feel at home in the Netherlands. I fully anticipate having to pay a lot more attention to the news over the coming months as the various political parties work on perfecting their platforms and slogans, and duke it out in debates on the national stage. For now though, I need to pay attention to the episode of De Wereld Draait Door and their poking fun of yesterday's election coverage...