Warning! This isn’t a blog post about traveling or moving to a new city. This is a wedding-related post and it is also an opinion piece: MY opinion #ShockHorror #DontJudge #NoPhotosInThisPost #YesIAmHashtagging.
Gordon and I consider ourselves to be a 21st couple. We lived together before we were engaged, we both work full-time as professionals in demanding fields and all household expenses are shared 50/50. Both of our opinions carry equal weighting and all decisions are made in consultation with each other (except the honeymoon location – that he needs to keep a surprise). But with some things I am traditional. He had to ask for my parents’ permission to marry me although I never told him this (good boy – he knew) and I want a traditional wedding with some tweaks because they look fun. I am also taking his surname. Yes, a self-proclaimed independent 21st century professional working woman is giving up her identity. What a load of c$%p.
I am not getting married for religious reasons – I was raised in a mixed religion household where I was whatever religion suited me at the time (simplified explanation: being Anglican got me into a very good private school and being Jewish gives me a German passport both of which got me to where I am today). I am getting married because I want to make a promise in front of every person who means something to me and I therefore respect that I will love Gordon for the rest of my life and I will be loyal to him and to us, no matter what. If God/Buddha/The Flying Spaghetti Monster bless us in the process then that’s great. The more who witness it the better. I am not getting into this marriage so that my father settles a debt with Gordon’s father or for us to breed a superior race of humans and therefore cure cancer. I am doing this because I love him and I’m going to spend the rest of my life with him as his partner. As a bonus, I get a new surname.
I will always be a Gans* and I will still be on the Gaggle of Geese whatsapp group that my immediate family has. For about a week I thought about getting a tiny tattoo somewhere of a goose but that means getting a tattoo which is something that I will never do. My legal surname will change but my email address will remain. Gordon has said a few times that he feels honoured that I would change my surname to his but for me it’s part of the Wedded Couple Package.
A friend of my parents’ kept her surname and she apparently found that it became awkward once their child was at school and people would ask why the child’s parents have different surnames – people assumed that they were divorced or never married. South African society is quite conservative about things like this – in NL people often don’t get married and it’s accepted by society as being as normal as being married. Our future as we currently see it is in SA but this is not the reason I’m taking his surname. Yes it means fewer discussions and raised eyebrows when we drop the kids off at school or birthday parties but that is an added bonus.
I know people who kept their surname for professional reasons but at age 27 I haven’t sat on the board of a Fortune 500 company so my name is not that important for my career – potential employers will still need to look at my CV to determine if I’m the right candidate and I haven’t worked at a company (until now) where if you ask for references and say “Louise who worked in Finance” the company doesn’t know who that is. My current employer is a huge global company but I’m here whilst changing my surname so my manager/HR will know me by both names.
My manager kept her surname when she married but she said changing it would have meant going from one long complicated name beginning with an S to another. And she said she was just too lazy to change it (I gather that it’s not an automatic thing in NL whereas in SA it is).
I could double-barrel the old and new surnames but someone once told me that double-barreled names meant there was a divorce in the family at some stage. I have subsequently learnt that this is not the case and in fact it indicates a marriage but I still can’t get the idea out of my head that I would be creating the perception that I was divorced. This is a good example of my stubbornness – I know my reasoning is wrong but I’m so set in my ways that I can’t overcome the thought.
So, then, why am I changing my surname from a 4-letter single syllable one to an 8-letter 3 syllable one with awkward capitals in the middle? I have 2 passports, a driver’s license (soon to have one for NL as well), an ID, 2 current bank accounts, 2 credit cards, a property plus all that goes with that and all of the usual bills and accounts that currently say Gans. It will be a nightmare to change all of these so why not just stay as I am? These are all just things. They do not define me. My current surname is simple and I enjoy the Dutch pronouncing it in Dutch – they will probably panic when they see the new one. To me, getting a new surname is one of the few traditional things that I’m doing in amongst the sea of New World things that I do every day.
I will miss Google automatically translating my NL internet banking name to LT Goose and Gordon’s silly laughter whenever he calls me Lieutenant Goose. I will no longer Google my name and see a New York Acting Chief Justice’s name but rather a freelance translator. I am looking forward to the day when someone calls me Louise Gans and I have to correct them. They will immediately know that I have married and I will quietly think to myself that I am still Louise Gans but I am also Louise McTavish. Mostly, I am still myself.
*Gans in German and Dutch (and some other languages) means Goose in English
Saturday, 10 May 2014
The Bicycle
The Netherlands is known for many things, but probably the one that has the biggest impact on daily life is the way that the Dutch are devoted to The Bicycle. Before we moved here I’d heard and read about how everyone is on bicycles but until you see it for yourself, you think the guide-books and blogs show posed photographs. Those pictures you see of a bicycle leaning against a pretty canal are real. Except it’s not one or two pretty bikes leaning against the canal, it’s thousands. Thousands of bicycles. EVERYWHERE. Arriving at Amsterdam Centraal or any train station will blow your mind because you can’t believe how many bikes can be in such a small area. And they are in all conditions – old, new, single-speed, 3 gears, pedal breaks, normal breaks, Omafietsen, racing bikes, mountain bikes, bent wheels, flat tyres, covered in plant life, wicker baskets, spraypainted neatly, spraypainted badly, beer crates, flower garlands, worn-spring-exposed saddles, tandem with kids seats and my personal favourite: the bakfiets* – it has a trunk on the front for loading groceries/kids/furniture/dogs/grannies. How you turn a corner when you have wriggling children in a huge bucket in the front of your bicycle is beyond me but this shows the capability of the Dutch on bicycles. These people can cycle before they can walk and the cyclist is king. Pedestrians and drivers must give way to a cyclist, even if the traffic light changed 15 seconds ago. The dedicated cycle lane system with cyclist traffic lights is really impressive and 99% of the time it can’t be faulted. It’s fantastic.
Our first four months of being in NL were spent living in Ede and once we moved to A’dam I wanted to get a feel for how things worked so I used public transport to get to the office (and it was February so still a bit cold). One mid-March Saturday, Gordon and I decided to test out my route to work. Google said it was 10.2km door-to-door and would take 34 minutes. Considering the metro takes 28 minutes, cycling supposedly was a good alternative. That first attempt showed that I have an easy route but it did not flow well as there was a huge rowing regatta happening on the river so we had to negotiate screaming crowds for the first 5km. But I knew how to get to the office on Monday which was the purpose of the excursion.
Monday morning, I left the apartment 45 minutes before I was supposed to be there so that I had a buffer. My ride was lovely. The first 1.5km is city cycling but along the Amstel river. Then the city suddenly disappears and for 3.5km I’m cycling with the river next to me on the left and beautiful parks and gardens on the right. Across the river is farmland. It’s lovely and a popular route for runners, serious cyclists and commuting cyclists. It looks flat but has a few sneaky rises which you notice when you are on a single-speed bike.
At the 5km mark there is a typical Dutch windmill and that’s there I turn onto a lovely country road with canals on both sides with farmland, sports fields and cute little houses for about 1.5km. This is also popular with trainers and commuters. After that I turn onto the final stretch which is a main road (with more-than-sufficient cycling lanes) that basically takes me to my office. This road also looks deceivingly flat and is lined with apartment blocks, canals and patches of tulips and daffodils. Just before my office, I have to go under the metro which means a ramp down then up the other side. Thanks to the gentle undulations and the last (significant) ramp, I was drenched in sweat and about 5 minutes late. This was not a good start to a Monday morning! I’d packed my deodorant as a precaution but that wasn’t sufficient – I needed a shower and a fresh shirt. I hastily dabbed toilet paper wherever possible in the bathroom and took deep breathes to dry mitigate the problem but I knew the damage had been done. This was not mentioned in the guidebooks and blogs, which is why I’m telling you here – NL is not flat and cycling 10km in 45 minutes on a heavy single-speed Omafiets will leave you sweaty.
There have been several cycles to work since then and I am slowly mastering the art. Tip 1: Don’t trust Google – I give myself an hour so I don’t have to rush which means a) less sweating and b) I can enjoy the scenery more. Tip 2: Don’t ride with your handbag strapped across you – it will hold the back of your shirt against you which leads to sweating. Air flow is good. Tip 3: Even if it feels really cold, don’t ride with a warm jacket because after 3km you will feel those evil beads running down your back and it’s really hard to recover from there. Remove the jacket asap. Tip 4: Take an umbrella and a scarf just in case. No explanation required. Tip 5: Crossing the road can reduce the number of undulations on a particular stretch – this is worth investigating. Tip 6: Enjoy it. The days when I cycle to the office always seem better than the days using public transport. The endorphins and lack of sneezing passengers make you feel great and it’s a sneaky way to burn a few more calories – very useful in the weeks before your wedding!
It’s a hard feeling to explain, but riding through the city surrounded by traffic and other bicycles is when I feel the most like a local. I feel like an Amsterdammer even though I’ve only been living in this city for 3.5 months. It’s by far the best way to experience NL and we are planning a countryside adventure on our bikes over the long weekend in June – route still to be determined. When we were living in Ede we would often ride through the forest and farmlands on the well-marked cycling routes. It was a fantastic way to spend an afternoon. This country appreciates bicycles and I love it.
*A colleague of mine says only people who aren’t from Amsterdam ride a bakfiets and he means that in a not-very-nice way.
A lone Omafiets alongside the canal
Our first four months of being in NL were spent living in Ede and once we moved to A’dam I wanted to get a feel for how things worked so I used public transport to get to the office (and it was February so still a bit cold). One mid-March Saturday, Gordon and I decided to test out my route to work. Google said it was 10.2km door-to-door and would take 34 minutes. Considering the metro takes 28 minutes, cycling supposedly was a good alternative. That first attempt showed that I have an easy route but it did not flow well as there was a huge rowing regatta happening on the river so we had to negotiate screaming crowds for the first 5km. But I knew how to get to the office on Monday which was the purpose of the excursion.
The view from the first 5km of my daily commute
The windmill and a serious cyclist (note the helmet) at the turning point in my commute
The middle stretch of my commute - my favourite part
Gordon's commute is through the city - the red lane indicates a bicycle lane (see how close to the tram line it is!)
*A colleague of mine says only people who aren’t from Amsterdam ride a bakfiets and he means that in a not-very-nice way.
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