Couchsurfing in the Netherlands

Amsterdam

After leaving India, I have to say that arriving in Europe was a relief because it felt like home. I traded the excitement of the East for the comforts of the West, which I think has been a good transition and will get me ready for going home in a couple of weeks. This entry is going to focus on my experience as a couchsurfer in a country I never really thought I would explore. Before I begin, I will explain the label “couchsurfer”: this means that I pay nothing to stay with someone who has opened his or her home to travelers trying to save money and experience more fully the local culture. Prices are so expensive in Europe, so the idea of getting free lodging and instant friends really appealed to me. I decided to embark on this thing called couchsurfing and have been pleasantly surprised.

From Delhi, India, I flew directly to Amsterdam, which was the only direct flight from that city to Europe with the airline companies I am using. Instead of simply laying over at the airport, I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to visit one of the more curious European cities: Amsterdam. Having only heard that Amsterdam is the place to go for pot and prostitutes, I was overjoyed to discover that the city is much more than that. In fact, I arrived downtown and started to explore, confused by the way that people seem to concentrate so much on these vices when they are such a small part of the local culture. I did see one prostitute in the window and I did smell pot everywhere, but these things did not detract from the beauty of the brick-laid streets and the magical canals.

I was so tired when I arrived in Amsterdam because I had been distracted by the movies on the plane and did not manage to get any sleep. (Even without movies, I tend not to be able to sleep on long flights.) All I wanted to do was sleep, but I could not until the afternoon when I managed to find a bench near a canal where I sprawled out and relaxed. One of my hosts—he hosted me on my second time around in Amsterdam—gave me some really good tips about where to put my bag and how to get around, etc. I put my big bag in the public library, which also had free wifi and a great ambience; then I snuck out because you are technically allowed to keep the bag in the library when you are not around. It worked out fine and was so nice to be able to get rid of my bag while walking around the town.

I decided that once I got to Europe I would not be concerned about seeing things but would only soak up the local culture, which is a free activity :) I roamed the streets like a little grandmother because I was so tired and distracted by the beauty of the bikes and the canals. Funny how bicycles can actually be quite mesmerizing when they are in large quantities. I have never seen so many bikes! I was looking both ways when I crossed the street I was trying to avoid the bicycles, which are considerably more numerous than cars.

My first host was a lovely woman from Suriname. We had arranged when I would come to her house and that I would eat dinner with her. (Sometimes the hosts offer their guests food, like breakfast or dinner, and sometimes they only offer something to drink. There are really no rules about all of this. It depends on the host and the means of the host. I was fortunate to have many that fed me.) She was such a jolly woman with a great sense of humor. With me in her house was another American guy who was making his way back home from Kenya. We three had a fantastic time talking about cultures and traveling and food, etc. She was really accommodating and had no problem when I said that I needed to bow out early to get to bed. I have not met many people as trusting as this woman. She gave keys out to her surfers and really opened up her home to them. It was a great introduction to this thing called couchsurfing.
The next day, I put my bag in the library once again because I would leave later in the evening for Madrid. It was smarter to take the bag with me than leave it at my host’s house about 30 minutes door-to-door from the center. I had a lovely walk around the city and another snooze in the Museumplein, which is a large space of green encircled by Amsterdam’s famous and very expensive museums. (I did not enter a single museum because I would have had to pay out the nose for something I would not really retain. I have put a very low value on museum going since at the end of the day, eating is more important than seeing important paintings or artifacts about which I have no previous knowledge. We all have our values and I have discovered that travel is about maximizing that which makes the most lasting impact and minimizing that which is cool for a moment but quickly depreciates as the days pass.)

Before leaving the city, I got together with a guy that would be my second host in the Netherlands. He had not been able to host me on my first day in Amsterdam because he had another couchsurfer with him. (This often happens in big cities that they have a ton of people who want to stay with them and they have to pick and choose from a first-come-first-served basis. This made my job of searching for a couch a little more difficult, but eventually I always found something.) Anyway, my second host suggested that we meet at a local organic brewery, and he brought the couchsurfer he was hosting at the time and we all chilled out at the brewery for a while. What I love about fellow couchsurfers is that they love to talk. They love to ask questions and tell stories. I have never felt more comfortable around people at a first meeting than with this group of people. I think this organization attracts people who are really open to meeting new people and to sharing things about their lives with those strangers.
When it came time to leave, they offered to go with me to the library then the train station except that they were on bikes and I was walking. Instead of just walking the bikes, we decided that it would be better if one of them just took me on his bike with him in order to get to our destination more quickly. I went with my host’s couchsurfer, and we tried three times to find the best position for riding together. I have never ridden with someone else on a bicycle. I told them that when I think of people riding together on one bicycle I think of poor people in rural Asia who could not afford two bikes and were forced to displace themselves like that. Well, in the Netherlands, it is a common sight to see people riding double on a bike. I have to say that it is more complicated than it looks. Oh, we laughed so hard! When riding on the small shelf above the wheel, I thought that I would break the wheel because it was creaking. I thought that it would be so embarrassing if I broke this guy’s bike, so we switched to the handlebars, which is slightly illegal. My new friend could barely see and we almost crashed into a car. We tried once again and this time we discovered a very good way: I sat on the seat while he pedaled in front. Man, was this a funny situation! It was a great way to break the ice with strangers.

I left for Madrid with the promise that I could stay with this guy for a night when I made my way back to Amsterdam. I met him again at his house and we went off to explore the city together. (This also depends on the person with whom you stay. Some have time to show around their guests, but others provide only a house and are willing to talk and socialize at night after work.) My second host knew Amsterdam like the back of his hand. It was great to follow him around because he was like a walking map. He showed me some great spots for getting really good gelato and real Dutch frites with peanut sauce. (This might sound disgusting, but it is amazingly delicious.) We had a full day seeing the history of the city and walking around places I had not yet been. When we reached his home later that night, we had dinner together and finished off the night learning a little chess although I felt really bad that I almost fell asleep during the lesson. I was not bored or anything; I was just so tired because I had not slept much that last night. He was very understanding, so all in all, it was a really great experience.

Utrecht

The next day, I got directions from my host to the city of Utrecht, and I rented a bike that would take me the 25 miles to this picturesque place. Besides knowing that there would be very few hills, I had no idea what this ride would be like, especially with my big pack. I was not prepared to get so lost and to have to endure so much pain from the pack. It took me an hour to get out of the city because the streets were quite confusing and google maps had given me bad directions although my host had ensured that the directions were waterproof and very readable, which was very thoughtful. Finally, I stopped at this bakery and the manager was really kind and gave me great directions on how to get to the bike path that led to Utrecht. In fact, all over the Netherlands there are bike paths with signposts indicating which way one should take to get somewhere. It is like having a GPS to follow. I appreciated these signs a lot except when they disappeared; then I managed to get lost. Oh, well, bike rides are always adventurous.

I finally arrived in the city about two hours after I had originally planned. I called a couchsurfing host with whom I was planning to have coffee and we made plans to meet in the center of town. (In Utrecht, I had two people respond to me at different times. I agreed to one then the other said yes, and since he seemed like a really interesting person, we agreed to meet anyway and talk, which was nice.) I made my way to my host’s store, where he was working until 6 pm. He was really nice and amazed that I had made it all the way with my pack. We smiled at one another and chatted a little before I left to go meet this other guy. I grabbed a sandwich and met my new friend. We had a great conversation and the hour went way too fast. Like I said, it is really easy to connect with this group of people, so it was with friendship that we walked back to my host’s store and parted ways.

I really connected well with my host in Utrecht. He is Whitney’s age and had a really great perspective on life. We talked for five or six hours straight about hitchhiking, making movies, cultural anthropology, politics, life in general. It was great. We even cooked dinner together and hung out on his porch until it was late. Even though I was tired and a little sore from the ride, I was really glad that I was there to be conversing with someone who spoke English so well in a foreign country that is quite different from my own. It was a great connection and I was really inspired by his travel sense at an age younger than mine.

Haarlem

My host encouraged me to stay in bed as long as I wanted and to take the morning easy. I did not stay at his house very long because I had an even longer ride that day to get to my next destination: Haarlem, which is the home of Corrie ten Boom, my role model. Okay, pardon me for this aside, but for those of you who do not know the name Corrie ten Boom, I want to give a little information. She was Dutch and lived a simple life as a single woman helping her father with his clock shop in the years leading up to WWII. When the Germans started to persecute the Jews and when they took over her city, she became active in the underground movement to help the Jews and those being persecuted, even hiding eight people in her own home. Eventually, she and her family were caught and sent to the concentration camps where her father and beloved sister died. She survived and her story is one of forgiveness through God’s love and the power of salvation in Jesus Christ. Anyway, that is why I admire her life so much. Her hometown was my final destination in the Netherlands.

Never have I been in so much pain. I can say this with confidence. My shoulders were burning from the weight of the bag and my butt was under so much pressure that it ached beyond words. I rode about 6 miles per hour and had to stop every 30 minutes or 45 minutes to take off my pack to give myself a little rest. I just kept telling myself that I could do it and that God had given me the strength in Christ Jesus to do anything. These little couching sessions, believe it or not, really helped. I had some great moments where I really appreciated the ride, such as stopping at a small farm where they sold huge apples for 25 cents each. They became my sustenance for the journey. Or, when I looked at the clear blue sky and stared into the iconic canals, I was filled with a sense of deep contentment. At those moments I almost forgot the pain, but not for long. Well, I survived, and now I am convinced I can do anything, which is an empowering feeling.

I knew that my fourth host worked at a bar, which was perfect because it was the big semi-final game of the Netherlands against Uruguay, playing for the final game. The team that won would advance to the final game of the World Cup. It was a historic event for the Netherlands, which has never advanced this far. I watched the game and the fans, and I think that the more interesting part of the night was hearing their exclamations and watching their facial and body expressions. They all really got into it. Then, when the Netherlands won, people went crazy. They blew horns and rode their bikes through the streets waving flags everywhere. It was really fun. I ended up crashing on the bar couch at around midnight, then we left the bar at 6 am once everything was cleaned and ready.

I fell asleep in full daylight because the sun rises around 4 am in the Netherlands during the summer and does not set until about 10 pm, so there is a lot of sunlight. It had been a very interesting night. Everyone had been really nice and my host was very kind and accommodating. He got breakfast for us, including some of his friends who had also stayed the “night.” You just never know what kind of fun things to expect from couchsurfing hosts, and that is what I like. It makes travel an even greater adventure.

I had excellent experiences in the Netherlands, which is one of the friendliest countries I have ever visited. I took the train from Haarlem to Amsterdam because I could not even think about riding my bike again with my bag. I did take a 12-mile bike ride to the beach before leaving Haarlem, but that was without my bag and quite leisurely. After returning the bike, I took the time to enjoy some Dutch frites, which quickly became my favorite treat in that country. I was not obliged to hurry at all and made my flight quite easily at the airport. For being a surprise addition to my travels, the Netherlands was really a blessing and quite memorable. You just never know what is going to happen.