Jordaan

This past weekend, I had dinner with a friend who wanted to know all about my summer in Amsterdam. I admitted that I was a wee bit homesick for the place. When he asked for details about my home exchange, I told him that the best thing about it was its location right next door to the Jordaan.

Developed in the seventeenth century, the Jordaan was originally a working-class district of artisans and builders. Some say its name comes from jardin, the French word for “garden.” I would believe it, as so many of the canals are flower-laden, although it is more likely those flowers are a recent phenomenon. My favourite was the Bloemgracht and I made a point of walking along it every chance I had.

By the nineteenth century, the Jordaan was overcrowded and could no longer sustain the 80,000 people living there. (By comparison, its population today is a much more reasonable 20,000.) The houses were little more than tenements. Running water and a sewage system were not installed until the 1930s. Prior to that, the canals were — well, you can imagine. After World War II, there was talk of demolishing the dilapidated houses and replacing them with modern flats, but, thanks to the many protests, that never happened.

The area gentrified and today is home to young families, artists, and students, as well as many of the original residents. Cafés and bars and restaurants dot the streets, along with trendy shops and four weekly street markets: a flea market at the Noordermarkt on Mondays, a textile market along the Westerstraat, also on Mondays, and food markets at the Noordermarkt and along the Lindengracht on Saturdays.

And then there are the churches. The Noorderkerk was the church for the working class and the Westerkerk, technically across the canal from the Jordaan, was the church for the upper classes. (It is also the church where Rembrandt is buried. He moved to the Jordaan after his bankruptcy.)

The bells of the Westerkerk are the only church bells in Amsterdam to ring 24/7, which is done at the specific request of the Jordaan’s residents. Amsterdam’s most famous resident, Anne Frank, wrote in her diary about the comfort the bells gave her and how she and her family told time by them until the Nazis hauled them away to be melted down.

It was those same bells that taunted me on one of my first nights in Amsterdam — thanks to them I knew I was still wide awake at 4 a.m. But by then I was already in love with the view of the Westerkerk from the streets of the Jordaan.

The other night, after I said goodbye to my friend and began the short walk home, I came across two people enthralled by a skunk sniffing around in the grass. The couple told me that they have never seen a skunk before, not even in a zoo. I could tell from their accent they were not from Vancouver and so, due to my recent resolution to be friendlier with the tourists, I stopped to explain that it’s “skunk season” in Vancouver — the time of year when baby skunks leave their mothers and go off on their own — and that is why you see so many of them.

“Really?” they said. “You see them every night?”

“Well, no,” I said. “But often enough.” I asked them where they were from.

“Holland,” they said.

“Oh!” I replied. “I just spent the summer in Amsterdam.” They asked me how I liked it (they were from Amsterdam) and I told them I loved it. We chatted about Holland for a bit, and then, after warning them not to get too close to the skunk, I said good night.

As I am still settling back into my life here in Vancouver (and let’s be honest: it takes a while when you’ve been a way for a while), I thought it was a happy accident that a skunk drew me into conversation with a Dutch couple only minutes after I left my friend, with whom I’d been regaling with stories about my summer in Amsterdam.

And about how lovely the Jordaan is.