Roving Pinoy: Of Windmills, Tulips, Museums, and Red Light (?)

It took seven long years before another opportunity to travel abroad came to me. Like my “visit” to Australia in 1995, the main purpose of my visit to the Netherlands in 2002 was to participate in yet another three-week training course (this time on Participatory Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation) under the sponsorship of the Netherlands Fellowships Programme. There were three other Filipino-participants from different government agencies. I met all of them in the departure lobby of the Manila airport.

We took a connecting flight in Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris and waited for six long hours until we finally flew to Amsterdam. From the Schipol airport (which I think is one of the better airports in the world), we took an hour-long train ride to Wageningen. The International Agricultural Centre accommodated our stay and at the same time hosted the training programme.

Weekends are always a welcoming respite from intensive trainings like this. Thus, we maximized our free time by visiting some of the Netherlands’ tourist attractions. First stop was the “outdoor museum” of Zaanse Schans, home to historic windmills and houses. I even went inside one of these windmills to see how they do the oil-milling process. To my amusement, the woman in charge of the windmill visit gave me a brochure written in “Tagalog” (my native tongue) when I told her that I am from the Philippines. Well, it simply means that there are many Filipino-tourists in the area. Anyway, I climbed up the stairs to reach the deck of the windmill. That moment, I felt like I was Don Quixote while staring at the windmill blades!

From there, we went back to the Amsterdam Central Station, rode a tram, and visited the famous Van Gogh Museum and the House of Anne Frank. We then decided to take a walk around the city and passed by the famous Red Light District. It was really a culture shock to see the “live mannequins” (sex workers) from behind a window or glass door and shops selling “grass” legally. Anyway, so much for the culture shock. As we rode a train back to Wageningen, we almost got lost as we prematurely got off the train thinking it was already our station. As it was getting late, there was no bus in sight. We were fortunate that a nice chap came by and called a taxi to fetch us from the station. Dutch are (really) nice people!

The next weekend, the training facilitators arranged a visit for the whole class to the Floriade (World Horticultural Expo), hosted by the municipality of Haarlemmermeer. The Floriade is held only once every ten years in the Netherlands (from April to October). It was a perfect timing that we were there in 2002 during that period! The experience of seeing those beds of tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, carnations, and other varieties of flowers of different colours was exhilarating. It was as if we were in the Garden of Eden. They even built a “hill” (called Big Spotters’) for the occasion. As we know, the Netherlands has a flat topography, thus, that hill could qualify as a “mountain” for the Dutch!