The Top 5 Strangest Things

Note: I wrote this post several weeks ago, but didn’t want to publish it until I had finished writing about the things that happened before it. You can blame any weird anachronisms on the delay.

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I can hardly believe it, but last week marked the halfway point of my time here in the Netherlands. It’s been a good term, full of lots of fun and travel and adventure and hardly any of the homesickness and emotional craziness that I had prepared myself for. So in honor of a successful first half-semester, I present to you (in the order that they occurred):

The Top 5 Strangest Things I’ve Seen in The Netherlands So Far:

1. “Proud Sons of Maastricht”

The weekend Stewart and I went to Maastricht, we did a lot of people-watching while we were wandering around. On our second night in the city we happened across a group of young male Maastrichters congregating in a corner of the square. They were all just sitting/standing around and drinking while one of their number wore an Arab-style costume and stood over a kiddie-pool with a snorkel on. They were accompanied by a boom box playing an upbeat soundtrack of Michael Jackson’s greatest hits. Naturally. Stewart and I were convinced that the guys were street performers or something, but we later deduced that it was some strange sort of bachelor party, because all of the men (who weren’t wearing ethnic costumes) had on black t-shirts with “GAME OVER” under a picture of a man and woman standing together.

Sort of like this.

The entire group seemed intent on the task of filling up the kiddie-pool with water, but perhaps they had come ill-prepared (or were simply too drunk to function), because they actually seemed to be making negative progress during the time that Stewart and I were there. We were watching them closely, intent on figuring out what on earth they were trying to do, when all of a sudden we heard loud military songs and turned to see a parade of uniformed soldiers literally marching down the tiny street behind us. Stewart and I had seen a couple stray soldiers wandering around during the day, but the whole brigade seemed weirdly out of place.

What made it even weirder, though, was the fact that the soldiers weren’t Dutch – they were American. I didn’t think they looked like American military, but they were definitely singing something about “Gettysburg” and “Bunker Hill.” They chanted their way brazenly through the street (drowning out strains of “Billie Jean” in the background) as Stewart and I looked on bewilderedly.

I was waiting for the guy in the Arab suit to do something political and symbolic, but he totally missed his chance. Meanwhile, the soldiers marched on around the corner without any explanation, and nobody else in the square seemed very phased. To this day we have no idea what on earth was going on.


2. A Royal Promenade

The last of our IES orientation activities was a mandatory lecture about the evils of plagiarism. En route to that lecture, I had to trek along Prins Hendrikkade (a busy main street) with a couple of my friends from Centraal Station to the International Students building (the one of “blue brick road” fame). We were hurrying along, trying not to be late when we were distracted by a pair of policemen riding down the median of Prins Hendrikkade on large brown horses. “Mounted police officers,” we remarked, amused. “Didn’t know they had those here, too!”

But as we continued down the road we saw that the policemen weren’t just on patrol – they were escorting a series of 5 or 6 horse-drawn carriages full of people in fancy hats. The women were in stately flowery affairs, and some of the men were actually wearing top hats. They rolled casually down the center of the street, taking in the sights of the city. A couple of them smiled and waved to the people staring at them from the sidewalk.

I never got a confirmation on this, but I’m pretty sure some members of the royal family were in those carriages. It happened on a day when Queen Beatrix was supposed to be addressing Parliament about something, so apparently she was in town. She may or may not have been in one of the carriages, but other important people definitely were – cruising around Amsterdam in their classy top hats as if it happens every day. And who knows – maybe in the life of a Dutch dignitary, it does.


3. The Old Man and the Stone

The weekend Kristin came to visit, we took her to see some of the most touristy places in the city. As we were passing through Dam Square, a large area surrounded by the Royal Palace, Madame Tussaud’s, and other high profile attractions, we saw an Amsterdam Souvenirs shop with a giant yellow clog outside. Naturally, we had to take our pictures in it.

There was a crowd of people around the oversized shoe, more or less patiently waiting their turn to hop in and declare their dorky tourist status. Kristin, Conny, and I waited as well, and when some of the crowd had cleared out a little, Kristin and I walked towards the clog to get in. We were trying to settle ourselves into a sufficiently camera-worthy pose when a concerned-looking old man approached us, as if trying to get our attention. Worried that he might be trying to tell us to stop playing around on a piece of someone else’s property, we froze uncertainly. The man was mumbling something quietly in Dutch, and I strained to make out a familiar word, to no avail.

That was when he stopped, produced a stone about the size of a soup bowl, walked over to us and placed it officiously inside of the clog. With that he looked at us, bobbed his head, and tottered off into the bustling crowd, leaving Kristin and me to look at each other in bafflement.

We took our picture in the clog as quickly as possible, and hopped out a little nervously. “What was that about?” asked Conny, who had taken the picture. “I have no idea,” I said, “but it was really weird.” “It freaked me out a little, honestly,” agreed Kristin.

What was the meaning of the mysterious rock? Was it a weight? A bomb? An offering to the clog god?

We may never know.

Pretending we're not scared.

4. Let’s Talk About Sex

Amsterdam is famous for its liberal views and high tolerance of all things sexual. Gay marriage has been legal here for quite some time, the prostitutes in the Red Light District have a workers union, and there is not one, but two museums dedicated entirely to sex. But did you know that the sex education policies in the Netherlands are also among the most liberal in the world? The national guidelines for sex education are much more comprehensive than what is generally taught in the U.S., and most people here scoff at the idea of “abstinence only” education.

I’m not bothered by this attitude - I even support it (did you know the Netherlands also has the lowest teen pregnancy rate in Europe?). But what I like to think of as my own liberal attitude still didn’t prepare me for what I found at the NEMO Museum.

NEMO is a children’s museum across the harbor from where I have my classes. In most respects it’s a lot like any Science Center I’ve ever been to – several floors of fun games and interactive exhibits designed to teach kids about the world. As you advance up the levels, however, you eventually reach the “Teen Facts” floor. There you can find, among other things:

- A short animated video of the changes teenage bodies go through during puberty
- A game of Memory where the cards are microscopic or heat-signature depictions of things like sperm, neurotransmitters, or STD germs
- A display of wooden artist’s model dolls arranged in different Kama sutra positions, and -
- A glass box containing giant fabric tongues that you can stick your arms in to practice “making out”

You think I’m kidding.

I’m not kidding.

5. The Fresh Prince of… H&M?

After we had run out of pretty scenic things to see during Tarra’s visit to Amsterdam, we spent some time walking around Kalverstraat – a very big, very commercial pedestrian street. We shopped for awhile in H&M, the cheap, trendy clothing stores that are ubiquitous in Europe, and not uncommon in the hipper cities of the United States.

Tarra and I were perusing the racks of scarves and bags and stylish dresses when the edgy EuroPop that was playing in the store suddenly gave way to the most unexpected – and quite possibly most ridiculous – piece of music ever: the Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme song.

We both did a bit of a double take, and then cracked up for awhile in the middle of the store. There’s nothing like the musical stylings of Will Smith to make you want to buy that leather-fur-and-sequins purse you’ve been eyeing for awhile. Right?

Oh, Europe...


I hope these anecdotes have been as entertaining for you as the actual encounters were for me. Here’s hoping the rest of my semester will be just as wonderfully strange!