After that hectic trip to Europe, we came back happy and content with all the marvelous experiences we had the opportunity to take in, and also intensely happy to be back to our suburban heaven in California. It was a beautiful rainy day when we landed and the day after, an even more beautiful sunny day. So, off the son & I went on a bike ride through the beautiful trails by the swollen creek that we can now call a river. It was as we were happily talking to each other and biking that we took to discussing the bikes of Amsterdam. The beautiful, haphazard bikes by the canal.
There are images, and there are special ones. The ones that you have no time to take, but remain imprinted on your brain. The whizzing fleeting ones that sear themselves in some cozy part of the brain, associating with some feeling or aroma or words. The mystical ones.
“Remember that man with his kid on his shoulders riding the bike?”
“Oh- and that lady who had a cabin baggage sized suitcase hanging from her handlebar as she biked off to catch her train or plane!”
“Oh – that grandpa with his suit and lovely grand-daughter sitting in a basket seat in the front dressed like a princess tootling off for a Christmas service or lunch somewhere!”
While walking by the canal in Amsterdam on Christmas Eve can be an experience in itself, it doesn’t quite prepare you for the chaotic beauty that is Amsterdam. I’ve heard folks talk about Amsterdam not being like other European cities. I’ve seen pictures of bikes by the canal on social media. But I was truly taken aback by the sheer joy and the haphazard manner in which the bikes were strewn against the canal as folks went about their business. There was a hustle and bustle, a gaiety, a chaotic joy to the whole atmosphere that was wholly unique to Amsterdam. It seemed like everything was possible with a bike. What an empowering sensation that must be!
We were besotted by the warmth and quirks of the locals, and fellow gawkers such as ourselves alike.
The markets! The open air market near LinderGracht was a charm. Nowhere had I seen such a jolly throng of folks.About the only orderly thing is the statue of Dutch writer and educator Theo Thijssen, teaching one of his pupils. The son & I chuckled as we made our way on a cold morning walk the next day and saw a bike propped against the statue as if the student was in a rush to get to his master, and had to get there on bike and dash it by the statue.
This was Christmas morning, and many folks seemed to be making their way to church or for a meal with friends and family on their bikes, and we wished them all a merry Christmas as they biked past. The fact that they all waved back, returned the greeting or said something clever and witty tickled us to no end.
“You know I understand now what my colleagues meant when they said they missed the biking of Amsterdam when they moved to the US!”, said the husband as he watched a father and son whiz past us to somewhere. The baby sat safe and content in the front basket, while the father biked him to where he needed to be, while the wind whipped their faces with holiday cheer. “This is a whole different level of mobility and swift action.”
A dozen geese squawking overhead flicked me back from Christmas time in Amsterdam to a cold January day in California in a jiffy. Who said we haven’t invented time travel and wormholes?
“Isn’t it so much easier to bike here on the trail though?” said the son as another biker courteously informed us that he was approaching us on the left, and sped past us with a wave of his hand as moved out of his way.
I agreed.
While it was enchanting to watch all these bikers wiggle their way through the crowds, it takes a certain debonair attitude I think to be able to bike suavely in Amsterdam, and for that they had our admiration. We amateurs were safer on a biking trail for now.
Nourish-n-Cherish 