Never in a million years would I have thought that I would climb to the top of a windmill one day.
Climbing up a series of ever narrowing ladders inside a dark, dusty, and still operating windmill is not exactly a popular addition to people's lists of things to do before they die. Seeing the Seven Wonders of the World, skydiving, and writing the great American novel are perennial favorites on such lists, but climbing a windmill rarely, if ever, makes it on - just as the country known to most of the world as Holland rarely makes it on to people's lists of countries to study abroad in, much less visit.
The Netherlands' relative obscurity - most people cannot even place it on a map or tell you what language they speak there - is attributed partly to its small size and partly to its history. In the preface to his collection of Dutch poetry, Landscape with Rowers, the South African author J.M. Coetzee writes, "Dutch is a minor language in the sense that it is spoken only by some fifteen million people, and its literature is a minor literature in the sense that it is not widely read. The impulses behind it are multifarious. Not since the seventeenth century has the Netherlands been able to assert itself as a power on the world, or indeed European, stage." Italy may have Ancient Rome and the Renaissance and France its revolution and famous philosophers; but the history of the Netherlands, although lesser known, is far from lacking. This is a country that - as its poet likes to point out - wrested its land from the sea; a country that served as a safe haven for the persecuted, from the French Huguenots to Spinoza; a country that during its Golden Age produced artists like Rembrandt and Vermeer, and during the same Golden Age claimed a position as one of the most powerful countries in Europe.
And yet it is here, at the end of the seventeenth century, Golden Age Coetzee makes reference to that the story of the Netherlands changes from one of a people who defied the great powers before them - from the sea to Spain, from whom they won their independence - to become a great power in their own right to one of a country left playing second fiddle to its neighbors.
The Dutch during the seventeenth century had a colonial empire of their own, although few people realize this mostly because the Dutch were not able to hold onto it. South Africa, before it became part of the British Empire, was originally a Dutch colony, which explains why speakers of Afrikaans and Dutch can understand one another. New York was once known as New Amsterdam, before it was given over to the British in 1674 in exchange for Dutch control of Surinam. While the remnants of its empire can still be seen today - Amsterdam is still considered a diamond capital thanks to its South African diamond mines, there are still places in New York with Dutch names - however anglicized they may be, and Amsterdam is probably better known for its Indonesian food (another former Dutch colony) than it is for traditional Dutch cuisine - there is a certain sense of something having been lost. As my poetry professor remarked after I told him my home county was named in honor of the Dutch royal house of Orange-Nassau: "if things had gone differently, you and I would probably be speaking Dutch right now."
Today, the Netherlands is mostly known for three things: clogs, windmills, and tulips. One of the advantages to studying abroad in a country is that you get to play the role of a tourist, visiting clog factories, climbing windmills, and cycling out to the tulip fields, but still stick around long enough to gain more than just a superficial knowledge of the country's history and culture. Just a short walk from the Anne Frank Huis is the lesser known statue of Multatuli, the Amsterdam-born author of Max Havelaar who used his novel to criticize the Dutch colonial government in Indonesia, a major work in Dutch literature rarely taught across the Atlantic.
My first day in Amsterdam, a Dutchman who I met at the airport informed me that Amsterdam is not representative of the rest of the country; yet after living here for almost three months, I have to disagree. In Amsterdam, what you see - and hear - at first glance is not always the full story. The modern architecture and immense harbor - one of the largest in the world - of Rotterdam are impressive, especially in the nice contrast they provide from Amsterdam; but it is its vast harbor that made Rotterdam a target during the Second World War resulting in its almost complete destruction. Forced to rebuild postwar, the city's modern architecture was more of a necessity than an artistic choice. The tulip fields themselves, while today add to the image of 'Holland' as a quaint little country, once played a dramatic role in Dutch history. Tulip mania refers to the period in Dutch history when the demand for tulips exploded, causing the price of a single bulb to reach astronomical amounts. The tulips - originally brought from the then-Ottoman Empire - fared well in the Dutch lowlands, and by the 1630s, they dominated the Dutch economy; fortunes were made off of the flowers, and when the market eventually crashed, fortunes were lost, and more than one suicide followed.
Never in a million years would I have thought that I would climb to the top of a windmill; more importantly, I never thought I would be living in Amsterdam until an unexpected turn of events brought me here. Like most people, I previously had no idea what country Amsterdam was in, much less where you could place it on a map. Before deciding to come here, Amsterdam did not even grace my list of places I wanted to see in Europe, and yet now that I'm here, I can't imagine having missed out on it. It would be ridiculous to say that climbing that windmill changed my life - though at one point I thought that it might shorten it. It is just another amusing story that I will able to tell about my time abroad, just another unexpected experience from a semester of unexpected experiences.
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