An Unexpected Reunion
The spire of Cologne Cathedral
They had been planning a holiday to Lyon and southern France, but just then a war broke out and their flight got cancelled. Since they already had their Schengen visa, they figured: why not fly to Paris and spend the holiday in Belgium?
That was on a Thursday. By Saturday, they were in Brussels.
I heard about it on Friday, shuffled my agenda around, and already by Sunday morning I was sitting on a terrace on the Grand Place. And there, for the first time in two years, I saw my Lebanese friend Maya and her brother Fadi again. We could spend just a couple of hours together, but we were to have a second chance. They had already prepared a great travel plan that would take them through Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp and Luxembourg, all the way to Cologne โ where we could meet up again one weekend later. When we indeed met again this past weekend, we had more time, and we were in a bigger company. My girlfriend Marjon hopped on a train to Cologne, and my friends Richard and Shirin joined as well, kids in tow.
Motley crew
All in all, we were quite the motley crew: two Lebanese, five Dutch, and one Dutch-Iranian. Old and young. The combination surely destined to produce a wonderful vibe. I would never in a million years have thought to visit the Chocolate Museum, but it turned out to be a great destination. A trip to the Lego store was equally unavoidable and equally worthwhile. Richard, a devoted lover of Gregorian choral music, had probably been eyeing Sunday mass at St. Aposteln, but could forget about that. The kids took charge of our program, and nobody minded one bit.
The Rhine
Mostly, we just walked. Not only horizontally, but also vertically โ a good 600 steps straight up to the spire of the Cathedral, where the view is absolutely jaw-dropping. It tells you something about the relaxed pace of our holiday that the visit to the famous Gothic church lasted three hours.
What does an Irano-Libano-Dutch group talk about? Well, for starters, we bickered over who got the privilege of paying for coffee, lunch, tea, or dinner. We established that children in every country share an inexplicable love of playing with slime. Maya told me she didnโt see Cรณrdoba as her own heritage, even though Arabic was spoken in El-Andalus. But then again, she pointed out, the British and the Americans are two separate cultures too, arenโt they? She was absolutely right, which makes it all the more puzzling to me that Iraqis do claim the Andalusian Ibn Firnas (the worldโs first aviator) as one of their own. The plurality of modern Arab culture is something I cannot always get my head around โ which, I suppose, is exactly what makes it so endlessly fascinating.
Gerling Quartier
And then, of course, politics
Of course, I donโt always understand my own culture either. I genuinely cannot fathom why we Dutch allow our conversations to be hijacked by windbags like Mark Rutte and other such characters. Their bullshit is simply wrong, requires no debate, therefore deserves none, and I fail to see what we ourselves can gain from chewing over their manufactured nonsense. And yet politics keeps sneaking its way into our conversations. The same happened in Cologne. Inevitably.
At one point, we came across a demonstration by people who wanted to restore the Pahlavi dynasty in Iran. It was unavoidable that our conversation turned to politics. Just briefly. Shirin offered no opinion but told us how difficult it was to stay in contact with her family.
On Friday and Saturday, the Lebanese members of our group still laughed their countryโs troubles off with a shrug. Oh well, yes, there is a war going on, but โthat is just the usual state of affairsโ and โweโre used to chaosโ. But later, on Sunday, as their journey home came into view, the tone shifted. Fadi showed photos of a devastated city to which people will not return any time soon. There you sit, as an inhabitant of Amsterdam, with no greater worries than the invasion of a horde of out-of-towners who think the kingโs birthday is best celebrated by trashing the capital.
The train back to Amsterdam
Bittersweet
Goodbye was bittersweet, but I cherish these wonderful days. Itโs a privilege to have friends abroad with whom you can spend a few days. No agenda, no grand plans, just companionship and the quiet knowledge that there is always more that connects people than divides them. Itโs also a privilege to have Dutch friends who can, at short notice, carve out a few days from their obligations, just to be with people we love.
#Brussel #IbnFirnas #Keulen #MarkRutte #vriendschap
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