byChrisWhite – 2018
They came into the city by rail and foot and aircraft and other less noble means, drawn like ants to a crumb trail, as if Amsterdam were not a place at all but a magnetized point on the spine of Europe, humming with some low frequency of attraction. You could smell the water in the air long before you reached it, not brine like the sea but the layered silt of old canals, iron and rot and the breath of lilies crushed beneath the wheels of ten thousand bicycles.
The city did not so much welcome you as endure you. It had been here longer than my own country had been a concept. It had outlived storms and empires and Nazi’s and plagues, and it would outlive this little vacation too.
They tell you it is beautiful, and it is, though not in any way you were prepared for. The sort of beauty that doesn’t ask for your opinion. The beauty of an ancient scar that healed crooked but strong. Buildings lean like town drunkards in eternal conversation. Bridges hold hands over still water that remembers everything. It is a city of memory, not invitation.
And everywhere the damn bicycles.
They move not singly but in herds, like flocks of iron-winged blackbirds, swarming and splitting and reforming with no perceptible signal. You do not see them so much as feel them, a sudden pressure in the periphery, a whisper of movement that passes within inches of your vulnerable ribcage. Their bells are not bells but declarations. Not requests but a series of screw-you’s.
It begins innocently enough, as these things always do. You step from the station with your luggage dragging behind like a stubborn step-child and you think: canals, stroopwafels, Van Gogh, legal weed. But by the time you reach your first street corner, you have seen it, the glint of a wheel, the blur of a moving shadow across the cobblestones, and you are forced back, retreating like a trespasser who has wandered into territory not meant for the uninitiated.
They do not slow. They do not yield. They do not pause to wonder if you know where you’re going. You are not part of their world, you are an interference. A blot. A mistake.
And this is the truth no one tells you in the brochures, in the guidebooks glossy with tulips and narrow houses that lean over water: Amsterdam belongs not to man, but to the machine. And not the roaring engines of Detroit, nor the gleaming sedans of Tokyo or Stuttgart, but to the dreaded bicycle. The humble, brutal, rust-clad bicycle, reborn here as pure predator.
It is not romantic. It is not quaint. It is war.
The people ride them as if possessed. Mothers with infants strapped like satchels. Teenagers texting while gliding between buses. Men in suits with no helmets and the glare of immortality in their eyes. Women who seem made of wind, hair trailing behind like battle flags. Old men bent forward as if toward the grave, yet moving with terrifying speed.
And when they ride toward you, you learn new things about your body. How it moves. How it hesitates. How quickly it wishes to pray in four-letter prayers.
There is no point at which this becomes less terrifying. You do not adapt. You do not become one of them, no matter how many days you spend attempting to walk with vigilance, head swiveling, ears tuned to the cadence of death on two wheels.
You do not understand the lanes. They are red. They are curved. They are sacred.
You are not welcome there. You learn this the hard way. You learn this again and again, in increments of shame and near-misses.
The signage means nothing. The symbols mean less. The city is ancient but the war is modern. The rules are unwritten and enforced with cruelty.
The bells ring like the last notes of a funeral song, and still you step wrong, still you hesitate, still you look left when you should have looked right and the scream of a man in Dutch, something guttural and loaded with consonants, slaps against your skull and you stagger back, heart hammering like a cat caught in a rabbit trap.
And if you laugh, it is not because you are amused. It is because your mind has reached the edge of understanding. The absurdity has bloomed full. The logic has collapsed into farce. You have become the joke and the city is the one telling it.
There is a word for this. The Germans have it. Of course they do. Schadenfreude. The pleasure derived from another’s misfortune.
And nowhere is this more relevant than in the square, in the courtyards and alleyways, in the market roads of Amsterdam, where tourists stumble like lambs into the paths of oncoming steel.
And they fall. Oh, they fall. And when they do, the city does not pause. The wheels keep turning. The bells keep ringing. The natives pedal past with blank expressions, neither curious nor cruel, only indifferent, as if to say: You knew what this was when you boarded the plane.
What strange gods the Dutch now serve. Gone are the maritime deities of their past, the trading spirits and Protestant saints. Now they kneel to the altar of chain, spoke, sprocket and pedal. They have built sanctuaries, entire garages like temples, structures of industrial devotion where bicycles sleep in stacked repose, row upon row, level upon level, the machines of the faithful at rest before morning prayer. Bicycle flats, they call them. The scale of it is biblical.
They have a Bicycle Mayor.
Pause on that.
A Bicycle Mayor.
An official post. A real title. Not satire, not a flourish. A civil servant whose only mandate is to make the city more hospitable to the riders. Not to all people. Not to children, not to the elderly, not to the blind or the disoriented or the romantic fool stumbling home from too much Dutch gin. To the bicycles. Only the bicycles.
And what is she proposing now? Roofs for the bike lanes. Canopies to shelter the wheeled faithful from the indignity of rain. Let the walkers drown, let the umbrella-toting pilgrims suffer wind and sleet, but protect the riders. This is the logic. This is the theology.
You begin to see the signs. The city’s monuments have bicycles etched in brass. Murals depict saints on saddles. There are lullabies for bicycles, anthems, children’s stories. The mythos has taken root. The wheels have become halo.
And still the tourists arrive. And still they are broken against the crimson paths. The color chosen to blend with blood. Some part of them dies there, usually pride, sometimes hipbone. Occasionally, more.
There are statistics, yes. In 2017, more deaths by bicycle than car. Let that linger. Let it ring in your ears like one of those tiny silver bells attached to handlebars. A death toll not wrought by the automobile, the great villain of the modern city, but by the instrument of the sustainable, the green, the good. The Good?
It is the great lie of Amsterdam. The balance. The fabled harmony. They will tell you of the trams, the gentle cars, the gracious pedestrians. But you have walked the streets. You know the truth. The cars are ghosts. The trams are timid. The pedestrians have learned to shrink. Only the bicycles move with authority. They do not negotiate. They do not apologize. They arrive, and if you are not gone from their path, they take what they are owed.
So let us lift a glass, not a toast, but a ritual libation, to this city of canals and cruelty, of ancient grace and modern madness. To Amsterdam. Let us name it holy in its contradiction, sanctified by the blood and bruises of the visitors it swallows and forgets. And let us remember not to forget ourselves, should we wander there again, beneath the glowering sky, near the rattling tram lines, beside the water that never rests, while the wheels spin and spin and spin a lullaby of schadenfreude.
Ramblings & Revelations 
Responses
Exceptionally good writing. Thanks for the warning!
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Thanks a bunch Lisa.
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You’re welcome.
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Outrageously good writing 👏👏👏
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You’re too kind. Thank you.
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An excellent read! Thank you!
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Thank you.
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Well done. We had a similar terrifying experience in Copenhagen. Pedestrians, beware!
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Sadly, I think the city would much prefer unfavorably written tourist reviews over the positive.
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You’re probably right about that, but your review may prevent an unwary visitor from sustaining a serious injury.
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Chris, everyone is right! This is one fine piece of writing! So descriptive but not in a way that bogs you down. I feel like I was there and jumping out of the way myself! You also left me with a smile on my face. Well done!!
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Now I’m the one smiling. Thank you Maddie.
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This was great. Thanks for the like and subscribe! I always check out the blogs of anyone who stops by mine, and I never know what I’m going to find — this was GREAT.
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Thank you!
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commenting here on your gunfighting post because WP won’t let me do it there:
i love that line about Violence arriving mid-sentence. as someone that has seen enough to have a data set on such things, that assertion cannot be overstated. Mike
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I’ll look at the post to see why it’s not allowing comments. Thank you for commenting.
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تمت المتابعة يسعدني ويشرفني متابعتكم
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Equally honored. Thank you.
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Chris, I’ve lived there, and you got it right. Thank you for capturing the Dutch bicycle culture so well. If you leave the city, you will find that cycling in the countryside is relaxing and not life threatening!
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Thanks for backing me up Brad. I wouldn’t anyone to think I’d make up a story. WinkWink.
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Vivid writing! And somewhat terrifying
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Well thank you Andrea.
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Stunning words! I loved this. But a bicycle mayor! Holy spokes🤪 your descriptions are on point and the words flowed like smooth canals.
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Well thank goodness you were getting your trash-reading in for the day and stumbled on my heap. You’re too kind Helen. Thank you.
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I just read your post and travels to your home roots and family history! I loved this post and your comments closed.
But you describe Wales with such beauty and being from South Wales myself and having been to these amazing steeped in history – I loved your journey to see your ancestor. Not to mention you standing next to William Herbert and Gladlys finally resting place too! Heart tug. To dine and the White inn- built by your 12th GG father!!
And no sooner as I read your surname – I knew you were related to the Raglan Castle. This is my eldest daughters fav castle and we spent many a Sunday afternoon there. My fav is Carreg Cennen, ( I’m originally from Llanelli) 2nd is Criccieth In North Wales 🏰
I giggled at your retelling of the figure 8 roundabout and driving stick shift lol not to mention your patient wife in the front seat until you deemed it necessary for her to be in the backseat.
You have a womdeful style of writing ! You should be published!
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Thank you so much Helen. Kind of you to share your thoughts. I’m definitely coming back to Wales soon. We have direct flights to London from Nashville now, so it should be pretty easy.
To address the matter of publishing, I have finally written a fiction manuscript for a Southern Gothic novel which includes characters with the Ragland surname. It’s being edited in London as we speak. So with fingers and toes crossed, I should be published within a year or so.
I very much appreciate you taking the time to comment on my travelogue. It means the world to me that others enjoy reading what I’ve enjoyed writing.
Chris
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Holy heck! Congrat’s on it being published as we speak! I’m going to have to read what you’ve posted on your blog so far :) I know it’ll be amazing – your writing is inspiring :) And woohoo for direct flights too :)
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Thank you. I’m honored that you appreciate my content. I started my blogging eleven years ago, some of the blogs are older, and my writing has improved over time—which was the reason I started blogging—but I think they’re still relevant. Travel, Advice, Poetry, Flash Fiction, Genealogy, and Motivational content; I’m all over the place. I’m always just trying to learn by doing, by putting myself out there.
My first career was in drug and violent crimes, so there’s a few about law enforcement and shooting as well (I own a private firing range and teach), which are very American sorts of subjects, but you can suit yourself. They all have cutesy titles, so each one is a bit of a surprise. Like Forrest Gump said, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.”
I’m a government planner now, so I write technical planning strategies for 20 and 30 year spans. So basically my mind is on the future and my fingers on a keyboard most of every day. And I’m writing for my own enjoyment in the evenings, some of which is an autopsy of the past. Which is to say I’m a great party trick. Aside from that, pretty useless.
Great chatting with you.
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Wow, you have had a life lived for sure and I’m also sure a vault of memories to pull from and shape into stories (which you have) You, pretty useless, I beg to differ Lol :) but yes, life is like a box of chocolates and we never know what we’re going to get ;) And lucky for me I love chocolate lol You have an interesting job now ) past one too) Myself, I haven’t had few paying jobs. My main priority was being a mam, with the few odd jobs here and there dotted throughout. I’d say my most rewarding was working as a Psych tech at a state hospital. I’t was an eye opener for sure – lots of tales to tell. Then my second was managing a the British – London Market shop in Utah. Of course being Welsh, and my love for all things Cadbury ( Brit version lol ) I was a natural. You could call me jack of all trades really. But for me writing was hard. Never great at it in school but my mam was my cheerleader. She never got to read what I’ve written. She passed the year before I decided I’d try my hand at the written word :) But I pretty sure she was cheering for me from up there :) and maybe tutting as I wrote a vampire book lol Life – certainly like a box of chocolates :) Happy Saturday.
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I had similar experiences along with my kids in Denmark negotiating the streets and bicycle lanes. The natives do get angry if you step over the line. There is no free pass for a tourist from Australia.
Your words and especially the deeply satisfying imagery in your piece took me there – struggling around Amsterdam. But I did love it! The wry humour, your candour and the forthright descriptions of a foreigner in a alien land. Looking forward to reading more from you!
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Thank you for you kind words. Yeah, the real benefit of travel isn’t in the sights, it’s what it does to the soul. More personal growth than luxury. I wish more Americans would embrace traveling abroad. We’re just so comfortable in our isolation, which translates (sometimes) to cultural ignorance.
But if we somehow change that mindset, if Americans suddenly become well-traveled, I want them to be prepared for the death trap in Amsterdam. Haha
Thanks again.
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Changing the mindset of Americans towards travel isn’t easy, especially now. Your currency goes far and there are plenty of tours where you can sit back and enjoy being chaffeured around. I am surprised more don’t want to find out about their ancestral homelands, being a immigrant country of the new world. I guess crossing time zones is a big deal, as it is for us. But Australians being on an island embrace travel. Long haul travel and expensive travel. Just to get out of our country and even just to Singapore takes us 8- 10 hours in a plane. In that time, some east coasters could be in Europe, yes?
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I’ll keep at it until my body tells me to stop.
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Hi Chris, Love this post. It reminded me of a recent advert in Australia… perhaps you would also enjoy it https://www.google.com/search?q=budget+direct+bike+advert&oq=budget+direct+bike+advert&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIICAEQABgWGB4yDQgCEAAYhgMYgAQYigUyDQgDEAAYhgMYgAQYigUyCggEEAAYgAQYogQyCggFEAAYogQYiQUyCggGEAAYgAQYogTSAQg1MzUxajBqN6gCCLACAfEFRvqy0e81Rw8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:17171ea9,vid:8RJOqBlUNPY,st:0
Really also enjoy your writing and congrats on being published.
Your story (in your response to Helen) is interesting. I don’t plan on writing a novel, but I like writing (I have two active blogs) and reading (as you know as you found my Yarra Book Blog), but I also work a somewhat different career in financial services – risk and compliance.. so I get it. Look forward to reading more of your stuff!
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First, thank you for the kind words. I’m tickled to death that you enjoyed my musings. Second, that’s a hilarious video. I appreciate the share. I just woke up here, so what a great way to start the day. I enjoyed your work as well, what is your alternate blog site?
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https://cetteaventure.wordpress.com/ – this traces the time I spend setting up in France :) – the goal is to perpetually live in summer; and
https://fitzroymelb.com/ which is individual histories of the houses in Fitzroy (where I live in the Australian summer)
I love that you liked the video… it is so corny, but it works! Have a great day!
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Oh wow what an exceptional read! Beautifully written! I saw that you followed me so out of curiosity I came to see what you’re all about and I am truly surprised. Thank you for both the share and for the follow. I was thinking of again leaving WP behind after being here 13 years, yet today you give me HOPE that some on WP still have their heads on straight. What a relief!! THANK YOU again! xo
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LOL, thank you Amy. Like you, I’ve had this thing up and running for eleven years. I left it for a couple years, dissalusioned by a great many things, but my mother passed in September and I was asked by siblings to write the obit, and here I go, back in the kitchen cooking up ideas.
There’s an awful lot of noise in the world and much of it disappoints me. Like you, the noise makes me question a great many things.
But I have my own journey and I won’t allow the noise of dysfunction to discourage my message or my art, or whatever people wanna call it.
I’m enjoying your mind, so please keep it going. Thank you for staying with it and continuing to enlighten.
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Wow! Man have you touched my heart, Chris. I refuse as you do to bend my knee to fear or evil and I will not allow anything to take from me what is MY path. Bless you many times over! We are strong! And I am truly sorry for the loss of your Mother. That is a BIG one. I know. BIG (((HUGS)))! ❤️
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