Life in Zaandam, the Netherlands...

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Life in Zaandam, the Netherlands... (Reading time 7-8 minutes)
​Days of financial strife, patience and personal growth and...
A realization and declaration about my future...

After arriving in Zaandam and meeting up with Arthur a brand new chapter of my life was about to unravel...

Arthur and Inge, his sister, were extremely generous and offered me shelter while I was waiting for some funds to come from Mexico, we just had no idea how long that would take...

I guess I was expecting the money that was owed to me from my previous job in Mexico would come in at the beginning of July, so in my mind, and I guess also for Arthur and Inge, I'd be at their place for a week or two tops...I arrived there mid-June 1981...

We had no idea I'd be staying there much longer than expected...

Zaandam is a small city...It is actually like a suburb of Amsterdam, only 15 minutes north by train...

There isn't much to see or do there but many people live there and commute to Amsterdam where they may work, as rents are much lower there than in Amsterdam...

Nonetheless, Zaandam has its charms...and...it was the place where the very first McDonalds opened in Europe in 1971! (pictured above)

There are some beautiful Dutch Windmills and a couple of picturesque canals and parks...and not much more after that...

Arthur lived in an apartment, part of a housing complex...(pictured above)...and although they were quite small and simple apartments they were all kept extremely tidy and their grounds were well-kept as well...
It was humble living but in a really nice and friendly complex...

My time spent living in Zaandam was sincerely a trying time for me and also rather difficult for Arthur...

Reading over my diary I realize now that times were really tough financially and if it hadn't been for Arthur and Inge and some financial support from Mexico I would have had to fly back to Mexico halfway through my intended stay in Europe...that would have been the easiest thing to do, but... I wasn't going to give up so easily...

I've just read in my diary that by the time I reached Zaandam all I had left was $350 USD...
Not enough money to survive for long without a source of income...

I tried to keep my expenses to a minimum ...I only had to pay for my breakfast stuff, cereal, yoghurt and milk, and by reading my diary I realise that breakfast for me was practically lunch, as I used to get up a bit late every day, around 11 am or midday and...most evening meals were covered by Inge...she was so generous and kind with me...

I probably just wanted to make the days as short as possible and hoped that they went by quickly...I was truly killing time while waiting for some cash...

I did try, as intended, to get a couple of jobs, I tried to get a job working with the Tulips in the Greenhouses but there were no vacancies, I learned that normally they give those jobs to students while they are on school holidays...understandable...

I tried also for a couple of jobs that Arthur's brothers tried to help me with but to no avail...
It was sincerely hard going and I was demoralised and in all honesty, I wasn't job hunting with enough hunger to get anything...

I mostly slept, read a lot and wrote a lot...
I was constantly looking out for any mail from home and from anywhere else in the world...

I got letters mostly from Mum who wrote weekly, and sometimes more often...They were beautiful letters...

Even my Dad wrote me a letter all by himself while I was at Arthur's...
The only one I got from him on his own, rather than just a footnote at the end of my Mum's letters... According to my diary, he didn't say much but brought me up to speed with the possible cash I'd get from my previous employment...which at that stage was going to be delayed for another month or so...
It was quite a surprise getting a whole letter from him, that in itself, was like a thousand words!
​
I got letters from my sisters and brothers and from some of my friends back home and I would usually write them back right away...

Oh boy...all those letters kept me alive...

They were like food for my heart and soul and I'd crave them every day...I'd sometimes go through them again and again...
In some cases trying to read between the lines...

This line of communication with my parents allowed me to let them know, safely at a distance, that I would not continue with my studies any further when I'd get back to Mexico, instead, I was thinking of working for a bit and saving money again to continue travelling...

Those conversations by mail about my future were a bit tough to write and, I guess a bit difficult for them to read, as I think my parents were expecting me to follow the steps they had lined up for all their children...

'Go to school, go to Uni, get a degree, get a job, get married, have kids'...

Only after a few months overseas, I had realised there were other possibilities and paths that I could follow to live the life I wanted to live...and I wanted to pursue a new path...and somehow I would keep on travelling around the world...

So in a sense, I made a declaration about my future life right there and then...and in my own, hardly legible, handwriting...

I read quite a few books, I was practically reading constantly...a habit I picked up in my kibbutz, and all the books were in English...this new habit helped me expand my vocabulary in English...I remember I used to have a small English to Spanish dictionary handy when I was reading to be able to understand the books I was reading...

Most of my writing was obviously in Spanish and that kept me living with my first 2 languages on a daily basis...

Over the time that I stayed with Arthur, I visited a couple of beautiful places...
I went up north with Arthur to visit a couple of friends from our Kibbutz Jan and Harm, up in Workum Friesland...
They were living on a farm and had beautiful Holstein Friesians cows...the same kind we had in our Kibbutz!

We also went down to Vlissingen, to visit a couple also from our Kibbutz, Cobie and Joel...
Vlissingen is a huge port town in the Zeeland province...

Note: At that stage, I had no idea that New Zealand was named after this province.
Dutch cartographers named NZ after the Dutch maritime province of Zeeland. Located just northwest of the Belgian city of Antwerp, Zeeland is more than 17,700 km from New Zealand. To provide some perspective on that figure, the maximum distance between any two points on Earth is about 20,000 km, so New Zealand is practically as far as you can be from Zeeland without leaving Earth...

I also went to a magical fishing village nearby Amsterdam, called Volendam, this place is absolutely incredible and the moment you arrive you feel like you are walking into a fantasy land in Disneyland, all the tiny colourful wooden houses are so beautiful, and there are lots of people walking around and working and living there still dressed in their old costumes and wearing wooded clogs...

Living in Zaandam was getting harder...
Reading my diary I can see that we were both, Arthur and I, getting tired of each other's company and had had enough...

We had a long chat about it and we came to an understanding, once everything was out in the open he said...
"Glad we talked about it" with a big smile...and I said Yeah, me too... I apologized for overstaying my visit and said that as soon as I had a chance I'd make a move...and he said kindly...
"Don't you worry about that Hector, you can stay here as long as you need"...

We were more relaxed after that so we grabbed a couple of beers, rolled up a couple of 'Samson Tobacco' cigarettes and sat on the balcony to smoke and enjoy the moment, just like what we might've done back in the kibbutz...

Then, just as I was getting close to my last $50 USD, towards the end of July my brother Mario sent me a rescue cash booster...approx. $200 USD!!

Thank you so much Mario...thank you...

This cash boost helped me leave Zaandam and Arthur for a while and go up to Sweden to visit some friends from my Kibbutz and also a friend from Amsterdam...They all said I could stay at their places for a few days...

So at the beginning of August, I started preparing for that trip and once the funds that my brother sent me were cleared in my Dutch Bank account I was able to purchase my train ticket for a 21-hour journey up to Stockholm...

I had no idea what was going to happen up there and had no idea what would come out of that, all I knew was that I was set free to move again...at least for 15 days while the funds from my old job in Mexico came through...

On August the 14th, after 2 months in Zaandam, I took that train to Stockholm at 8 pm...

I jumped on board the '2nd class wagon' and stepped into a 6 passenger cabin, there were 2 guys already in there, so I asked...
Are these seats free?...pointing at the empty seats..."Yup", they said... "come on in make yourself at home"...

I put my backpack and hand luggage up on the luggage rack above the seats and sat down and said... Hi, I'm Hector...where are you guys from?

And they said..."We are from Sweden, I'm Lars Olof, you can call me Lola, and he is Mike", one of them said...and they asked me "and where are you from?"

I said...From Mexico... "Oh, buenas noches", Lola said in Spanish..."I studied a bit of Spanish in high school"...

Oh cool, I said! what else do you know in Spanish? and he went on to say...

"Alvaro Conqueiro es un Pescador, el vive en Barcelona"... and I was staring at him not knowing what to say... then he said that that was in one of the lessons he had to memorise back in school...We cracked up!!…that totally broke the ice...

After we finished laughing he said..."Want a beer?" ...
Sure thing ...he handed me one from his bag...and that was the beginning of an amazing friendship which at that stage I didn't know how it would evolve over the years...

After hours and hours on the overnight journey by train and ferry, we arrived in Stockholm...

And my first Swedish adventure would start from that moment onwards...

So good to be back on the move again...
"Tjena Stocholm"...Hello Stockholm (more on this on my next story)