Trip to the Netherlands

I just returned from the Netherlands, my only trip there this year. As usual, I have some interesting observations to share. The first one starts in Chicago, at O’Hare’s airport security. The person in front of me had a really beaten-up, torn and tattered ID card from Arizona or some other state. The security officer laughed it off and joked about it. I was next in line with my passport and green card, looking shiny and new. I smiled and put on a friendly face, but the security officer would have none of it. His face turned from a good-humored smile to a stern grumbling grimace. I could have sworn he smiled again for the person next in line, who, of course, had an Illinois state ID.

On Thursday, I mainly rested and recovered from the jet lag. On Friday, I went to the Regionaal Historisch Centrum Eindhoven to dig deeper into my family history. Results from this trip will soon be posted to the new “Dutch Roots” project.

That day will also go down in history as the day that Jan Wolkers died. Wolkers was a giant in post-War Dutch literature. His best known novel is Turks Fruit (Turkish Delight). The novel made it to the silver screen in 1973, when it was nominated for that year’s Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. As a testimonial of his literary importance, but also of the importance of art in the Netherlands, the funeral ceremony was broadcast live on Dutch television.

On Saturday, I had somewhat of a 6-year flashback. In the morning, with a temperature of a measly 1 degree above freezing, I joined my old bike group for a 110k ride, something I last did in 2001. In the afternoon, I met up with a good friend of mine from high school at my school’s reunion. Unlike the typical American high school reunion, all years were invited, resulting in over 2,500 people. And even though I could only spend an hour or two there, I talked to a whole bunch of people. I concluded that six years is really not that much.

Sunday and Monday was filled with more family. Tuesday morning ended up being somewhat stressful with a crashed truck blocking the two-lane highway in Belgium, on route to Brussels’ Zaventem Airport. A normally hour-and-a-half-drive now clocked in at 4 hours (I calculated I could do it in just over 5 hours by bike). I checked in with an hour to spare and discovered the flight was delayed. That meant time for a cup of coffee and a proper goodbye…

25 October 2007 | Across the board, All things Dutch, Stories from the Road | Comments