Reflections on World Travel

Window Shopping in Amsterdam… for Humanity

Why don’t Netherlanders cover their windows?

The city was shrouded in darkness, save the luminescent glow of large, plate-glass windows offering unobstructed views of the locals, simply living their lives

I know what you’re thinking. The infamous Red-Light District may well be the first thing people recall as the defining characteristic of this northern European city. But that’s not where I’m headed with this.

Other than changing planes at Schiphol airport over the years, last week was my first visit to Europe’s Venice of the north. We only had one day there, most of which we spent at a beautiful spa north of the city. (See story about European spas below) We chose a hotel just a few blocks from the central train station so we might grab dinner new the old town while positioning ourselves for an early morning departure. Perfection.

Our daughter came up from Paris to join us for the day. She’d been to Amsterdam once before, but that visit was over a New Year’s Eve weekend, and suffice it to say, she wasn’t much help in recalling useful information for navigating the center city. So, we just set off on foot toward Dam Square, hoping to encounter a few photo ops of those iconic wood-framed houses that all look like they could topple into the canals at any moment.

“Are we near the Red-Light District?” my daughter asked, “How do you know when you’re there?” Some tour guide she turned out to be!

No sooner had she uttered the words, we turned a corner to find a smattering of red lights here and there down the street lying ahead. How does one not grab at least a momentary glance through the windows and open doors where women of all shapes and sizes are “advertising their goods and services” to potential clients passing by.

All that was exactly what I had anticipated, if not a bit understated compared to similar streets we had walked down in Tallinn and Riga on previous trips.

Walk through the Red-Light District in Amsterdam — CHECK!

But what I had not expected was the voyeuristic qualities of the rest of the city. Simply stated, is there an over-arching homeowner’s association in the city of Amsterdam that forbids the use of window coverings? By 9:00 pm, the city was shrouded in darkness, save the luminescent glow of large, plate-glass windows offering unobstructed views of the locals simply living their lives.

At the street level, we saw people working at their desks, or sharing meals with family and friends. Across the street from the local tapas bar where we ate dinner, a young woman was hunched over her desk, quite possibly writing a story for Medium. Around the corner, a guy was stripping down to his boxers and climbing into bed. I suppose we could have paused to see the live action show of him drifting off to sleep. It seemed strangely invasive, but is it though? He could have covered his bedroom window. Worn sweats to bed? He had options.

Over the course of the evening my eyes couldn’t help but fixate on the literal transparency of Amsterdam and its people. Keep in mind, we are confirmed naturists who are well accustomed to seeing naked people doing normal everyday things. Ironically enough, other than the guy in his boxers, we didn’t encounter any nudity in Amsterdam. Not even in those houses with red lights over the doors. Those inhabitants were bedecked in evocative lingerie that covered more skin than most of the people we met on the streets.

It wasn’t just seeing the people of Amsterdam that was intriguing, but how they lived their lives as exhibited by their home décor. The artwork on their walls. Enormous, over-stuffed bookshelves. Spartan furnishings embracing those ideals of northern European minimalism.

We already knew that Netherlanders are not particularly modest people. We had been naked with quite a few of them earlier that day at the spa. But is there some underlying philosophical principal related to living in a house where your life is literally on display to the public at large?

I grew up in a neighborhood of tract homes, moderately spaced, with back yards barricaded with six-foot privacy fences. And while we might have left the curtains open during the daytime to capture natural sunlight, come dusk, my mother would hastily draw the drapes, lest someone driving by catch a glimpse of an empty living room, or perhaps the glow of the evening news from the television in the corner.

Here on the street, I stood less than a meter away from a thin sheet of glass as I gazed — as discreetly as I could — at a couple finishing off a bottle of red wine. If they noticed me, it was apparently of little consequence.

It’s times like this that I feel short-changed while traveling. That realization that I’m merely a spectator at an exhibition named Amsterdam, or Munich, or Dubrovnik. We spend a lot of time in the spa town of Erding in Bavaria so we can get naked with the Germans in the nearby therme, but the locals there aren’t nearly as “transparent” as their neighbors to the north. Window treatments notwithstanding, even the architecture serves to provide a sense of privacy through the manipulation of sight lines. But Amsterdam? It’s truly window shopping in full living color.

Were I not just passing through and was able to spend say, a year or two living in Amsterdam, perhaps I would come to know the locals and we could have that conversation about their windows.

“Are you simply happy to share your life on display?”

“Is this related to your philosophy of openness and acceptance?”

“Are window coverings simply too expensive for those large picture windows, so why bother? Don’t you have an IKEA nearby?”

Those are simply not questions you ask of a stranger in the local pub. At least I don’t think so. Those seem like intimate questions. But then again, taking your clothes off and climbing into bed seems pretty intimate as well. Maybe I’m just overly sensitive.

Epilogue

What strikes me as ironic about all this is Amsterdam’s reputation focused on the streets bedecked in brothels. Truthfully, I feel rather ambivalent about legalized prostitution, finding it neither offensive nor alluring.

But people sharing their everyday lives through glowing plate glass windows? Certainly not offensive. Definitely most intriguing. And without a doubt, the very last thing I had anticipated to be the thing I will remember about Amsterdam.

And in the same breath, incredibly alluring as the transparency of those windows makes me so much more curious about the people behind them. Who they are? What they are thinking?

And whether they sleep naked, or wear boxers to bed?

ADDENDUM: Turns on a CNN reporter got there before I did. (Thanks for the tip, Adrienne Beaumont) A good follow-up read in case this piece caught your attention.

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