Life in Amsterdam these days feels as scattered as my thoughts
On Teslas, *babyccinos*, eccentric rental prices and good, very good marketing. Or life in Amsterdam after ten + years.
Saturday morning. After a stormy night, the road shines with moisture. Fat rain drops are slipping from the tree leaves onto a maze of bicycles parked in front of my apartment building. Stretching over a number of soaking-wet seats, I insert a key in the frame lock of my oma fiets’, which opens up with a sharp clack. Sticking out from all directions are pedals, baskets and bike stands. Grabbing the handles, I free my vehicle from their grip. I remove the impermeable seat cover, that indispensable gadget for those who - like me - are neither giving up their biking for no weather circumstance nor getting a wet rear. My middle-aged Turkish neighbor from the ground floor is already out, doing maintenance on his car, and I wave as I cycle past him, receiving an asalamu alaykum and a polite nod back.
Sweet sense of belonging
My rusty BSP has a marigold for a bell that jingles every time we’re on this now-empty cobblestone street I know so well. I’ve been living in this apartment for almost seven years, a true Amsterdam miracle considering that rental contracts nowadays typically last for two years, at most. My eyes meet the mini street library, the DIY greenhouse, the orange cat sleeping on a motorbike seat, and one, two, thr… dang, five Teslas. I don’t remember seeing this type of wealth when I first moved into this neighborhood, I think to myself.
As I’m turning right towards the main road, miraculously free of traffic, I congratulate myself for becoming someone who's prepared. The pink rain poncho I’m wearing has side buttons that enable me to lift the top part over the handlebars so as to create a knee-protective tent. This thing is not only practical but also aesthetically pleasing, in true Amsterdam fashion. Routine brings me comfort now, especially when days are soft and tranquil like this.
Enjoying a cup of coffee in my favorite Amsterdam café.
Babyccinos: the opium of the new generation?
It’s nearly 9 am and I have two hours of peace ahead. At my favorite cafe, tablets and laptops will have given way to dogs and toddlers. I’ll secure a cozy spot among them and get myself a latte depicting a virtuous tulip shape that vanishes as soon as I take the first sip. I let my mind wander and observe my thought waves getting more animated as the beverage in the cup diminishes. That’s the peak of Saturday morning bliss, followed by thoughts of breakfast and an increasing fixation with the sounds of tiny humans - implausibly color-coordinated - in excitement for croissantjes and babyccinos.
Recent years brought babyccinos to the Netherlands: they are what you imagine they are, except there’s no coffee but just milk in it (I know). Part of me feels the urge to ridicule the trend. But, at the end of the day, I'm a millennial who can't but empathize with her cohort’s effort to include their offspring in their morning ritual. It occurs to me that hipsters are the new boomers. Raised to believe that everything was possible for us - a delusion akin to the spiritual bypassing of LSD-fueled hippies - we ended up embracing the neo-liberal market as much as our parents did. We just became better marketeers.
Quiet hopelessness and fat bikes
Unable to rebel and create tangible systemic change, we submitted to unpaid internships, hustle culture and the gig economy. We partook in the airbnbzation of the city with gusto, ubering from nightclub to nightclub in our Zalando outfits, Hello-fresh-ing our workweeks away. We also ritualized Netflix-and-chilling with our weekend Bumble dates, Thuizbezorgd sushi on the side. Kindly facilitated by our newest three-camera-Iphone. We also decided turning inward was the answer to our maladies, establishing identity through instagram grids, consumption, and carefully curated aesthetics. We embraced individualistic new-age values as a way of self-empowerment. And even after succumbing to burn-out, we kept going, with the aid of mindful meditation and Better Help. As long as we work on our limiting beliefs, and learn to manifest, we can everything still, just like our parents promised us. I could be projecting. I've certainly become a tad more bourgeois than 10+ years ago. And you could say I’m new-age in many respects. I’m an Amsterdam kid. I just don’t have a fatbike. Yet.
Coffee & Cake in Amsterdam, TOKI.
On the flip side, mass protests have been growing in recent years, and my generation is a part of that too. Extinction Rebellion, for instance, a grassroots activist group committed to fighting for climate justice, was born in England in 2018, but already has 37 chapters in the Netherlands alone. In 2022, they organized over 300 protests throughout the country, forcing the government to pledge the end of subsidies to fossil fuel companies by 2020, something the Dutch cabinet failed to fulfill. These movements have got to mean something, I tell myself.
Weekend shenanigans & hard conversations
I regroup my energies for a yoga class before lunch, which I spend ten minutes selecting on my OneFit app, a gym and wellness subscription that enables me to pick a class from roughly 500 gyms and movements studios in Amsterdam. In my neighborhood alone, I can choose between five different yoga studios. That was the amount of options in the entire city, back in the day.
I spend the rest of the afternoon listening to episodes of Schaamteloos Randstedelijk, a Dutch wordplay that means "Shamelessly Randsterdammer". The Randstat is a heavily urbanized area that comprises the four main Dutch cities that have grown to practically merge into each other. In this podcast, the hosts “hold a mirror before young townspeople”. Together, they reflect on urban culture and sociological issues. I grab my arts & crafts box and spread a number of newspapers and magazines open on my living room floor. I listen to the episode entitled ”You don’t hate expats, you hate their tax benefits”. You could say they took the bull by the horns here.
I cut a female head with scissors, aghast at the opening question: "What do you think of expats?" When nuance enters the conversation, she's glued onto a piece of paper on a backdrop of forest and bodies of water. I nod in recognition at the words I hear. I feel a pang of jealousy at the ease with which the hosts, Doortje and Perre, discuss their opposing points of view without a raised voice. I marvel at how complex problems are dissected without a hint of hesitation or bitterness. I listen to the one episode where Doortje and Perre talk about not being happy in the city and yet, being hooked on what the city has to offer. It me, I sight to myself. I listen to the one where they speak of music festivals as “bourgeois escapism”. I decide I like them and cannot hold a grudge. Dutch culture still amazes me in more ways than one. These people don’t avoid difficult conversations and have an outstanding ability to be self-critical, certainly when compared to where I come from.
*Investors* coming for our apartments was all we needed
My mobile rings. It’s the upstairs neighbor, a bohemian Dutch dude in his mid-thirties. The landlord is selling our apartment complex as well as the adjacent buildings to an investment fund. He suggests we gather with all residents to discuss ways in which we can protect our rights, might the new owners have *ideas*. I squeeze the phone between my shoulder and my ear in a balancing act, while I hear him complain about renovation plans the landlord postponed throughout the years. Now, he’s selling the properties in a state of disrepair and will earn millions without ever having fulfilled his promises towards the tenants. I desperately try to remove contact glue from my fingers so I can finally hold the phone. My voice sounds strained when I express concern that the new owners might want to tackle those renovations so they can push rents up in apartments that have been rent-controlled for decades (unlike my neighbor’s, my rental contract is liberalized, but still not as high as what many friends of mine have to pay for accommodation in the city).
Amsterdam buildings at night.
A parade of wealth we may or may not partake in
People of my generation living in Amsterdam have more access to wealth, technology and material goods than ever. They have a paraphernalia of ways to entertain themselves that include a record of more than 300 anual music festivals. They also have to pay record prices for basic goods. Four euros is the price I got used to spending on my daily cappuccino, a little luxury for someone who has been described as frugal.
Private investors own a third of the city’s real-estate, and rents now cost an average of roughly 1500 euros / month. Only 5.6 per cent of the housing market is aimed at those on lower mid-range incomes, and inequality is at an all-time high. The price of groceries rose almost 10% in August 2023 alone. Inflation has been a thing everywhere, but it feels to me like it’s been fully embraced in Amsterdam. We pay because external socio-political events we cannot control unfolded but, also, we pay because we can. The Teslas parked on my street - a former working class neighborhood - suggest disposable income hasn’t waned, quite the contrary. Not for all of us, though. My upstairs neighbor mentions, in passing, that the Englishman from the third floor has seen his car (not a Tesla) vanish from his parking spot without a trace, last year. I tell him I saw a woman last week chasing a thief across the street who had snatched a new brand smartphone from her hands. If empiric observation of petty crime means anything, then this is a sign of the times.
Still fond of my little Amsterdam life
Amsterdam has become shinier than ever in recent years, busier than ever, the boulevards enlarged, and there is a new humongous spacecraft-y underground bike parking under central station. There are more bars and restaurants than ever before, with a wide variety of dietary choices and cuisines. There is an abundance of babyccinos, electrical cars and bikes, subscription-model apps, yoga studios. There are plenty of 1-bedroom apartments sold for half a million euros, and investment funds block-purchasing properties. As consumers, we are spoiled for choice. We are also getting squeezed by a variety of pressures, especially those who don't earn an average Dutch salary, and / or don’t have a strong support system.
I still deeply appreciate my smooth little life here. It feels shielded from the gravest evils of the world. My yoga classes, tulip shaped lattes and (still) reasonable rent definitely help. Personal freedom is a cornerstone of local culture, which is one of the reasons that attracted me to this country, after all. I remember Extinction Rebellion’s actions. I’m afraid of further disillusionment, but I may gather the courage and join a chapter. We’ve got to start somewhere. I start by subscribing to their newsletter. They sign off with Love and rage, XR Netherlands. A sign of the times.
♒︎
Ana V. Martins is the founder of & creative brain behind amsterdive.com. Ana Searches for Meaning is the venue for her most personal writing. Get in touch: anavmartins@amsterdive.com.
