Typisch Heemstede
In 2019 we moved to a smaller city, near Haarlem. There are two contradictory things I heard about this town, either that mainly rich people live here or that Heemstedenaars want to give the impression that they are rich.
Speaking at a birthday party to two sweat Dutch neighbours, Jimmy and Bianca, we found out there’s a small series on TV about what’s typical in this city. Bianca made some funny remarks about it, enough to make me very curious about the series.
I was hypnotised immediately by the normality portrayed. The series is built around what’s typical in the city, depicting ordinary people and describing their characters. The producers selected entrepreneurs like the librarian (Arno Koek from Blokker Boekhandel), the dog walker or the wine seller. It also depicts family stories. There’s one family who invited their 17th au-pair to take care of their youngest daughter, a father who lost his sun, a lady who helps a Syrian refugee to integrate in the society, a real-estate agent who was involved with a married man, a music teacher, a young student who thinks about her present and her future or the rowing club community. The stories just roll on the screen in a very tranquil manner. You get to see how people spend their day and also learn about the past and recent history of the city.
The pace of this NPO production is relaxing. The stories are being presented so that any curious viewer can discover the voice of the city. The production depicts diferent realities form different cities, as if meant to inform the viewer who plans to relocate in one of the smaller cities of the Netherlands.
The best characters, from Bianca’s point of view and mine, are the empty-nesters ladies drinking white wine outside on the terrace and smoking a cigarette. I saw them in 2019 on the terrace, but after the pandemics I think they either found a new favourite pub or they broke their friendship, because I do see them on the street but I don’t see them sipping their wine anymore.
The reason why I am writing this story above, is rooted once again to my own personal bias towards government and the feeling of opening letters from an official institutions of the state. In 2019 we received a letter at home, asking us to go to the town hall. The first instinct was to think about what might we have done wrong, however, reading that letter I was shocked in such a pleasant way that I wanted to frame the letter. It’s a coffee invitation signed by the Mayor meant to get new citizens to know the city they are living in, on a Saturday morning.
We could not make it in 2019 and we did let them know. Second shock was the fact you can write to an institution and tell them you cannot join their employees for a coffee. In 2020 and 2021 this meeting was postponed due to the pandemics, so we received it again in 2022 so on the 10th of September we were invited one more time. This meeting usually happens in September, it’s on their agenda every year. Unfortunately we were not able to go, again. With a newborn at home is difficult to get in time anywhere, but I felt the need to write this and thank them for inviting us once again. I recommend anyone to visit smaller cities in a country, where one can discover gems that are not on the usual tourist map, one example for Heemstede being: Groenendaalse Bos and the Heemstede Geemente.
