what's with all this dutch boelsh*t

for the past days since the trip to the netherlands, much blog real estate has been occupied by those dutchies. futher, much of my free time (not to mention office time) has been quite filled with working on spreekje filipijns, a book i am doing to make sure i have something concrete to remember the trip by. and more importantly, a format with which i can best share the memories of the 10-day visit to the lowlands. with all the time and brain cells dedicated into thinking about the trip, what is it with all this NL fascination anyway?

el johnny, a friend from manila, forwarded this article from slate.com to me. it captures quite accurately, why perhaps i could have extended the visit to holland for a day or week or month or two more. and why now, i feel quite compelled and inspired to make something nice of the trip. (the author speaks of amsterdam, but what he speaks of is of course true of all the places i had visited, and even more so perhaps of the south)—

The Quest for Gezellig
The overriding vibe in Amsterdam is coziness. It's like a municipal mission here. Every cafe has a cute little cat in the corner licking its paws. Every canal house blooms with a window box of tulips. Every hooker has doilies on her bedside table. (I'm guessing about this last thing, but it feels right.)

There's a Dutch word for their tyranny of cuteness. The word is gezellig, and it's difficult to translate. You just know it when you see it. For instance: Friends enjoying a picnic on a canal bank, laughing fondly, sharing a bottle of red wine ... this is clearly gezellig. A slob wolfing down fast food as he sprints to a meeting ... not so gezellig.

(This is a side note, but I find it sad that eating while walking—or worse, eating while driving—is the great American pastime. [for Noypis, it's texting/phoning while eating] The Dutch almost never do this, except maybe with an ice cream cone. Having been here for a while, I've now decided I'm firmly on the side of the Dutchies in this matter. The notion that you wouldn't take time to slow down, sit at a table, savor your food—and, better yet, break bread with a couple of friends—seems weird to me now. And please don't start in about lost productivity and the demands of ruthless capitalism. I maintain that you can make money and also make time for a half-decent lunch.)

The larger point is this: They live much better here. They carve out cozy, delightful moments anywhere they can find them. They bring their families on candlelit, nighttime boat rides through the canals. They chat with their friends at outdoor cafes as the sun sets. They leave work by 6 every evening. And these are not special, once-in-a-blue-moon treats. This is how they live, all the time. Even in my short stay here, I've found myself drifting into various gezellig moments (involving, for instance, good food, thoughtful friends, copious pints of Heineken, and a rainy afternoon inside a bar that played only Al Green records).

I realize I'm in grave danger of sounding like a Euro-snob. So, let me be clear: I don't think they're any smarter or cooler than us (though they're certainly taller and slimmer). And yes, of course, we're capable of living beautifully in the States [or in the Philippines, the 51st state, for that matter]. But the gezellig lifestyle is a national priority with the Dutchies. I'm not even sure what our shared priorities are in America. Getting rich? Appearing on television? It's fair to say that coziness is not high on the list.

So, each time I come to the end of an Amsterdam visit, I wait for my plane at Schiphol Airport and I swear to myself that this time I will bring a little gezellig back home with me. That I will slow down, and savor, and live with grace and elegance. And then I land at Dulles and immediately eat fast food in my car.

in a city as busily predisposed as new york, i realize the importance of capturing gezellig. if not by action, at the very least, by memory. and so, in a few more days, i release spreekje filipijns, an attempt at capturing the gezellig-ness of the 10-day trip to the great lowlands. in the meantime, yet another preview spread. this time, of what perhaps contibuted most in making the trip most pleasurable of all—zi beusmans.

familie beusmans: greatest dutch hosts ever, gezellig unlike any other

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the biggest dutch mistake ever—in 1609, the netherlands sailed into the new york bay and up the hudson river. they claimed territory and established a colony trading post—New Amsterdam. in 1664, however, in the 2nd anglo-dutch war, the dutch lost new amsterdam to the brits and exchanged it for suriname. and hence, new amsterdam was christened new york in honor of the duke of york.

sheesh! wouldnt it have been nice if the "world's capital" were known for its gezellig-ness instead of its current extreme fast-paced mess/greatness? and instead of starbucks in every corner, coffee shops and coffee houses. sheesh. for that, i'm treating myself to a nice relaxed dinner tonight.