Freezeland with a Friend

This weekend I traveled to Fryslân as it is known in Dutch, or Friesland, the northernmost province of Holland. It should be called Freezland. Here is a short outline of our trip.

My traveling buddy was my fantastic neighbor, Jitske. I go to Jitske's apartment for tea, pancakes with apples and cheese in them (not together) and borrow her books. For her bachelor’s Jitske (pronounced Yitskuh) studied American studies at Utrecht University (my current institution.) I, too, studied American studies at Brown. We have some of the same favorite authors.

In Friesland, Jitske showed me her family’s working farm. The farm belongs to her grandparents, aunt, uncle and two teenage cousins who help run the farm on weekends.The cousins were tall (according to Jitske, Freisans are the tallest people in the world.) It is a hard task to run a farm. You can never leave for holidays. The farm is connected to the house her grandparents live in, a house that was built in the 1700’s.In Friesland I learned that the people are not as reticent as they are rumored to be. According to Jitske, they may not show their emotions much, but they sure welcomed me warmly. There was laughter in the grandparent’s cozy home, and tea. Always tea.

Five calves were born the night before we came and lay under heat lamps in the barn. Yellow and white buckets of milk stood by the door. The door of the barn opens directly into the house. Most homes in Friesland are made from bricks. Though not as common as in the past, small family farms can still compete and sell milk. Still, the price of milk is unpredictable and most families hope to break even. The cows are Friesan cows (that look like American Holsteins, though stockier) or Holsteins, which, are probably the best milk cows around, as Jitske’s uncle put it.

Thankfully the sun made a mid-day appearance. I wore my winter coat and two scarves. I still froze. Cafes are always good for this sort of weather, and we found one, where we both had apple tart (a common Dutch item) and a café latte (always served in a mug, not a paper cup.)

The skin on my cheeks was tested by the wind as I climbed over the cement dykes which reinforce the entire country and prevent it from floating away. Dykes are natural looking hills with cement on the side facing the sea and grass and grazing sheep on the side facing the town. It is said that at low tide (in warmer weather,) you can walk through the mudflats to the islands off the coast of Friesland and take a ferry back. However, it takes hardcore training to be able to walk through that thick mud for such a long distance.If you get stuck, you are stuck!

Holland is human constructed. Its land is assiduously maintained by government crews that pull weeds from the canals and repair wooden beams that buttress every inlet. It is impressive to think that humans created a country. It is a peculiar landscape for this West Virginian. Flat, flat, flat. You can see why many Dutch people immigrated to lands in America that were flat—a reminder of home. These lands are planted with corn fields and are spotted with wind turbines. On the way home at sunset, I saw a line of wind turbines behind a blue, fading to red sunset sky that made me think wind turbines were as pretty as Renaissance art.

The Friesan flag has blue and white stripes interspersed with red hearts. About a half million people celebrate this flag. Notwithstanding the topography, Friesland is sort of like the Appalachia of Holland. It is considered backwoods and backwards. When really, it is beautiful farmland with highly educated people. They speak a different language, Freisan, a language that branched out of Old English--according to one of my University friends. It is softer, more like cursive than the hard block letters of Dutch. The primary difference, however, is the pace. There is less hurrying.

There are about 195 windmills in Friesland. Jitske and I saw five windmills on a day when the sun made a halo around the blades in the frigid October air. We even went inside one mill that processed and sold flour (Jitske bought some cheese and pepper bread mixture for her parents.)With a curious cat and mill owner looking on, I hoped on a working scale (used for grain) to see if I had gained any weight while in Holland. Maybe I did, maybe I didn't. In any event, it will all come off on the bike.