Tall people, tulip mania, tolerance...

...and other reasons why living in the Netherlands is mighty fly 

I was walking through Amsterdam a few days ago and it suddenly struck me: it should be illegal for any nation to be this tall. It just makes the rest of us wee ones feel inadequate. The few Dutch friends I knew prior to moving to the Netherlands were pretty darn tall, but it is only after spending a few months here that I have started to understand how this nation can get away with calling mini-golf “midget golf” (no joke). 

A bike and mucho cheese: what else
does anyone need in life?

Firstly, their diet seems to be approximately 93% based on dairy products. I mean they drink milk ALL THE TIME: over breakfast, lunch and dinner, at home, during business meetings, and I reckon they are trying to put France to shame through their consumption of cheese. These folks are pragmatic though, they don’t deal with runny stinky cheeses, they go for the semi-hard Gouda or Edam cheeses which come in round cheese wheels. So just in case the nation’s healthy obsession with cycling wanes, they can always just ride around on cheese wheels. Just a thought.

The heyday of Dutch football with Johan
Cruijff and outfits as well as haircuts
that were apparently tolerated in the 80s

The other - perhaps marginally more dull - reason they are so tall is apparently that there is a fairly even distribution of wealth in the Netherlands so everyone has access to decent health care. I know, I can hear you yawning already. But bear with me: wealth is an important characteristic of this nation as the Dutch are commercial down to the bone and always have been. You could be forgiven for writing the country off. After all, none of its football clubs has won the Champions League since Ajax in the mid 90s, they lost to Spain in the 2010 World Cup final (curse of the wrong kit sponsor, no doubt), and the nation will be one of the first wiped off the world map when the ice cap melts. But not so fast.

Tulip mania

This is the home of early modern Europe’s wealthiest trading city, the first full time stock exchange, and the world’s first recorded financial bubble... due to tulips, no less. You think we’re in a crisis, now rewind back to 1637, when a single tulip bulb cost up to ten times a craftsman’s annual income. Now there, when they do things, the Dutchies don’t go halfway. 

Flash forward to 2012, people here are so commercial that most actually speak fluent English (at least in the larger cities). Broadcasting soap operas and movies in English may have something to do with their fluency, but I can assure you it’s not just because of Gossip Girl. The Dutch are multilingual because they know few people will make the effort to learn their expressive but guttural language, and if they want to be successful in business, they need to speak foreign languages. Most pupils therefore have to learn English, French and German in school, and parents seem to think that it’s perfectly normal to drive their campervans 1,200 kilometers to the Italian or French riviera every summer...



Flypast of canal in red light district

The country’s openness to other countries is also evident in its permissive and tolerant culture at home. And by this, I am not only talking about the colourful Red Light District or the lenient drugs policy. As an aside, all drugs are actually forbidden in the Netherlands. The government just has a policy of non-enforcement that tolerates people smoking cannabis inside coffee shops. And Dutch people don’t smoke. That’s left for drunken tourists on stag weekends.

Perhaps a more revealing historical insight into Dutch tolerance is exemplified by the fact that at the height of the Protestant Reformation, when Catholic public mass was strictly forbidden, the Dutch allowed Catholics to build a hidden church on the top floor of a canal home to hold regular mass. So it’s not perchance that John Lennon and Yoko Ono chose the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel to kick-off their one week “bed-in” honeymoon to promote peace in 1969. As long as you respect the law (or at least its more practical daily interpretations), you can pretty much do as you please here.

But don’t think that this is a country that is all about peace & love and which sits on the fence in all circumstances either. The Netherlands proclaimed neutrality in both World Wars, but was notable for not turning a blind eye when the Jews were brutally arrested and deported from Amsterdam in February 1941. I think I am correct in saying that it was the only nation that actually went on a general strike in response to the Jewish deportation, a strike that was unfortunately suppressed by the Germans three days later, but a public strike nonetheless. 



Bloemendaal beach

So it is not too surprising that the Dutch are very proud of their nation. If you are not convinced with the reasons highlighted above, perhaps you will agree with me that endless admiration should be bestowed upon anyone who can wear orange in a way that puts Easyjet crew members to shame?! Oh, and they even have beaches. You have six weeks left to visit, and no, there is no way a beach outing is on the cards now. There are thundery showers and it is a mighty fine 13C.