Haarlem

It costs about half as much to stay in Haarlem as to stay in Amsterdam, which is why we spend our two nights in Holland there. That, and the great sage Rick Steves says that if you have two days to spend in Amsterdam, spend one in the city and one in Haarlem. I know, enough with the Rick Steves already, but I wish I paid even more attention, because he gives the hotel we booked indifferent reviews. There isn’t much wrong with it, except that it’s a bit remote from the train station and breakfast isn’t included, so our 20 minute train ride to Amsterdam Centraal takes longer and cost twice as much because of cab fare and our stay costs more than advertised because of the costly—albeit delicious—morning buffet. That 20 minute commute from Haarlem to Amsterdam would make an excellent bike ride, though, through the beautiful Dutch countryside.

The town of Haarlem, home of Corrie Ten Boom, is like a Dutch Bruges with fewer tourists. After getting past the obvious comparisons with the Harlem of New (Amsterdam) York, the town offers serene walks along the canals, winsome shopkeepers and museum guides, plenty of pedestrian-only areas, and (sniff sniff) a few of the other delights this country is famous for.

The Corrie Ten Boom house, we find by accident, is just off the Grote Market square. A pilgrimage for many, including the Van Dykes, of Boston, who make up the other half of our tour group, the house is restored to look like it may have in those horrible days when she had to hide Jews in a false wall (aka “the hiding place”). Pictures of family and friends line the walls and the piano is in good repair (the Ten Boom family and guests kept busy by singing and staging plays during blackout hours). The refugees in her house certainly led a better life than Anne Frank’s family, 20 minutes away by train. Fun at night and sun during the day (an enclosed area on the roof allowed them to sit outside unobserved from the street below—or the Gestapo headquarters 200 meters down the road), they were the ones taking heroin from clean needles. Corrie Ten Boom’s story during the war is compelling, and her thirty years of charity work and evangelism after speak to the passion alive inside her. She died on her birthday, as did so many other saints.

Also highly recommended is the Adriaan Molle (or, you know, the big windmill). It’s reconstructed in the old style, with wooden pegs keeping the all-wood gears, pulleys, shafts, and brakes together. We learn how the position of the sails sent messages across the town and how they can turn the turret to face directly into the wind, and enjoy the warmth of all-wood construction after spending so many months living in marble. We also have a wonderful view of the town and the yachts sailing up and down the main canal.

Within sight of the windmill is a playground on the banks of the canal. For a sitting fee of fifty cents, we eat our packed picnic of cheese and fresh bread, tomatoes and olives and an inexpensive merlot. Aryn plays and plays as the sun trickles through the boughs of a great willow tree.

As the sun sets, Aryn settles into bed and Julie rests her legs in the bath with her book. Jake and I have a drink and discuss the incredibly long twilight this far north. The conversation turns, as it does when someone like me talks with someone like Jake, to politics, poverty, development, literature, economics, God, and Garrison Keillor. Someone once told me that great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, and small minds discuss people. I took issue with it then, and I still do. Not because ideas aren’t discussed by great minds, but because it implies that an amiable and edifying conversation among friends about this person’s pregnancy or that person’s recent trip to Barcelona is somehow inferior to an angry and divisive dispute about integrating Muslim immigrants into European society or whether six-day Creationism is the only possible interpretation of Genesis. Here’s an idea: edifying conversation among lifelong friends strengthens the most important thing in heaven or on earth—our relationships. Discuss.

So thanks, @Jacob Steele, for the conversation and the memories. May we meet again soon in another corner of this wide world.