Dublin and Amsterdam had more in common than you think. Both acutely aware of their history, both served by trams down the middle of main thoroughfares, both dominated by an iconic beer brand in their taverns and restaurants, both places where you could get by entirely in English without a bit of bother, and – on this trip at least – both gray and rainy almost the entire time bar one morning and early afternoon of pleasant sun without being too hot.
But Amsterdam, for all the novelty of the canals and the road system they create where pedestrians, bicycles and tiny speck city cars can occupy the same space, felt to me like English-speaking Paris. It came off as a bit smug, a bit spiky, a bit “oh it’s you,” and this was not helped by the preposterous light rail system where you are obliged to tag on AND off while also entering and exiting the car through different doors. More than once the doors were slammed on us before we could get out of the train and in one case they actually pulled out while we were still trying to disembark, and we had to make our way back on foot.
And the other thing that was hard to square was that you got that “oh…Americans” that almost everyone gives you in Europe (there’s a reason I always identify myself as Californian), but Amsterdam – for all the pot and prostitution – is the country that gave us colonial capitalism, chattel slavery, the Orange Order in Ulster and Boers in South Africa. It was tough not to have a snarl of “we learned it from you.”
Ireland…well, I’ve mentioned before Pete Brown’s like about how most countries have a motto like “God and my right” or “Get off my land” while Ireland’s is “a hundred thousand welcomes” and it certainly felt that way. The person behind the counter will give you what you need, whether it’s a pharmacist sizing you up for decongestant and cough suppressant or a barman offering you a cup of coffee to space out those pints. Every time I’m in Ireland, all I can think is how human the scale of life is – I know my cousin and I joke about the Irish retirement plan, but whether it’s Dublin (larger than San Jose) or Galway (the size of Mountain View) or Ballyferriter (the size of a peanut butter sandwich), every Irish place feels like somewhere I could be comfortable and not feel like the world around me is going to Hell. Which is probably why I need to spend two and a half weeks living in Dublin so I can see the downsides and have some perspective, or at least find some more political podcasts to see what’s wrong there.
The other thing that sticks out to me from this trip is the specialization. There were drugstores, but they weren’t all purpose like a CVS or Walgreens, they were strictly selling medical stuff. There weren’t any big box stores, just clothing stores or electronics stores or grocery stores. It felt like a throwback to the main-street pharmacy of my small town childhood, which coupled with everyone’s personable nature…well, it’s hard to explain, but it feels like what Alabama could have been like if the state had made better choices for the last hundred years or so.
So that’s pretty much the story. The obvious question now: lessons learned? Things to bring back? Of which.