Netherlands and Denmark

I wrote most of this post when we were traveling from Belgium to the Netherlands and back, but haven’t had a chance to post it, so I’m doing that now, completely out of order.  We’ve had some difficulties with internet access in the last few places we stayed, and my MacBook Air has always had problems with staying online (is “searching for networks” a familiar phrase for anyone else – it’s seems to be a consistent problem reported with this series of computers, but Apple doesn’t seem to have addressed it effectively). 

In any case, a week ago we went to the University of Leiden to meet with a Dutch colleague of Paul’s, Colette van Laar.  She is a social psychologist who studies intergroup relations, specifically focusing on stigmas and discrimination between societal groups that differ in terms of ethnicity, religion, national origin, etc.  She was quite surprised to find that we had made a day trip to the Netherlands to see her.  Apparently for most Europeans, the idea of traveling two hours, and to an entirely different country as a day trip to visit someone is quite remarkable.  In California it can easily take two hours to reach West LA from Riverside, and it’s not too unusual to have school trips that are that far away.  For us, of course, the idea of traveling to an entirely different country seems like a big trip too, but one has to drive much further in most of the US to reach another country.  Somehow I had the idea that the because so many of the European countries are small and close together, it would not seem strange to them to go back and forth.  Perhaps the psychological barriers around crossing borders and changing cultures are not so different here than they are at home. 

I think most of us enjoyed the fact of visiting the Netherlands almost as much as the actual things we did.  It’s true that the part of the Netherlands we went through is full of windmills, but they are not the stereotypical old-style Dutch windmills that we picture.  Wind power still seems very significant, but almost all the windmills we saw were the modern style with a white pillar and a set of blades mounted near the top.  These are very similar to the ones a Californian would see going over the Altamont Pass (if this means anything to anyone) or in the desert near Palm Springs.  As we’ve traveled to Denmark and now Norway, we keep seeing these windmills and observing that the presence of the windmills is one of the big differences between the US and these countries.  There seems to be a significant objection to windmills in the US (often of the “not in my backyard” variety), and it’s kind of puzzling to me why people object so strongly.  My leaning is to say that it has something to do with oil and gas lobbying power, but I still find it odd.  It’s weird to me that we are less concerned about off-shore oil rigs that periodically leak and cause major spills than we are about windmills off shore blocking the view of more ocean.   We are coming to enjoy seeing the windmills out into the ocean here.

The countryside in the Netherlands struck me as looking very much like a Playmobil set.   For those who haven’t seen Playmobil toys, they are a little like Legos, but Legos are more free-form, in the sense that you can make anything with them.  Playmobil sets tend to include specifically shaped pieces to make specific objects and people.  There are houses, vehicles, people in varied historical dress, etc, and all look neatly groomed and perfect.  The Netherlands looked like that to me.  It was almost like a storybook: a little too neat and organized and perfect.

Upscale jogging stroller bike with moon roof

One of the really remarkable things about both the Netherlands and Denmark is the sheer number of bicycles.  In both countries there are distinct lanes for bikes, and on significant roads these are often set off from the main roadway by a median or other barrier to protect the bikes from cars.  In the University town of Leiden, from the outer edge of the road to the center there was a sidewalk, a wide bike lane, a grassy median strip with trees, and then the main roadway.  In Copenhagen the bike lanes are delimited in more subtle ways.  Generally the sidewalk will be a few cm higher than the bike lane, and the bike lane may only be distinguished from the sidewalk by that slight dip or by a slightly different design on the paving stones.  In general, bikes seem to be allowed to park anywhere there is a wall as long as there is no sign specifically forbidding it (and some seem to ignore the signs).  On a lot of streets bicycles will be parked two or three deep against the walls for the entire length of the street.  We’ve been surprised that so few of them are locked up.  Many riders just seem to get off their bikes and leave them wherever they are, with full confidence that the bike will still be there when they return.   We’ve been by the bike stores, and they are not cheap here, so I think it’s more of a general assumption that no one will harm your property (or perhaps a view that bikes are sacrosanct).  We have some friends who lived in Denmark about 40 years ago (Hi Mike and Linda) who say that when they lived here people would actually park their baby strollers WITH THE BABIES STILL IN THEM outside of stores while they went in to shop.  They said that the babies were always bundled up if it was cold outside, but no one seemed to be concerned about whether the baby would still be there when they returned.   This seems a bit shocking to me as a parent in this era.

which apparently holds FOUR kids in addition to the one adult!!
(the mini-van of bikes)

Brochure-rack bike (the seat is on the left side with the handles
against the red brochure bin

In any case, the most interesting feature of the bicycles in Denmark has been the wide variety of modifications people seem to make to them.  It’s not entirely clear whether people buy bikes with all the designs I’ve seen or if they buy a cruiser bike or something like that and modify it.  Certainly some of the designs look quite original, which makes me doubt that they are manufactured that way.  Probably the most common bike mod looks like a combination of the back 2/3 of a cruiser bike and the front portion of a jogging stroller.  Some of these are fairly high class vehicles, and some look like a large garbage can on wheels with a cut-away window welded below the handlebars of the bike.  We also saw several bikes that looked like they incorporated the concepts of a flatbed truck.  These sometimes had a platform for cargo just in front of the handlebars, with the front wheel of the bike stretched way out in front of the platform.  People seemed to be using these to haul a variety of things, including hardware or tools or groceries.  We saw one of two that had the platform behind the seat with a back wheel trailing behind the platform.  There were also bikes that had been modified for other purposes.  For example, one bike had a brochure rack mounted over and in front of the front wheel so it was essentially a rolling advertising stand.  It was parked in a prominent place so people could take the advertising brochures for city tours, from the rack and then the business owner could ride the whole thing home at the end of the day.  In addition to these special modifications, people had every kind of carrying contraption you can imagine mounted on their bikes for carrying smaller packages.  A lot of bikes had the classic wicker basket on the front or metal mesh professionally made baskets, but some of them had milk crates, plywood platforms or other home-made or make-do solutions for carrying things with them.  There were also a lot of baby seats on bikes as well as a few that had platforms built onto them for older kids to sit on.  It    At one point we were scolded by a group of Danes for blocking the WALL, because people wanted to park their bikes against it.  Sigh. 

was pretty clear that bikes are the preferred mode of transportation, and people seem to be very open to a variety of ideas about what is considered proper to do with or to one’s bike.

Baby-in-a trash-can bike modification, with rain hood.  I think these are available to rent

The "wheelbarrow" bike in front of the "Boger" store (apparently it's a book store, but it's well suited for American junior
high school humor)

The "flat-bed" bike modification (it's not entirely clear to me how the steering works on this one.  Perhaps it's just brute force?  Perhaps "lean to the left" might work just as well?).  You can see Aydin reflected in the window.  I think he's
saying, "Mom, why do you keep taking pictures of bikes??"