SEPTEMBER 3, 2023

PEYTON JANE GIBSON

The balcony outside my home office window is about a meter deep, and its fencing is ugly, painted, peeling, and rusting wrought iron steel. If you walk out from my office and peer to the left, you’ll see a thick, deep green canopy of birch and chestnut trees hiding the boundary of the city's most popular and posh parks. Ten meters to the right, the view from my roommate’s bedroom obviously has the superior view. From her window, you can see the tops of the gabled brick towers, naturally highlighted during sunrises and sunsets (when not gloomy and grey) by a brilliant pink sky, whose building below houses works of Rembrandt and plundered treasures from the East Indies.

The main view from my desk while I’m staring into space during Zoom calls is a brick wall: the top two floors of a small boutique hotel with 3.9 stars on Google Maps—an unfair rating, in my opinion, for accommodation in this location with air-conditioning and semi-reasonable rates. I can peer into two hotel room windows and the housekeeper’s attic storage area while reclining in my “ergonomic” office stool or leaning against my adjustable standing desk. The cleaners’, guests’, and outside urban wildlife's daily routines allow me to feel I’m a part of the city, even if only as an outsider looking in. The rooms’ windows are tall, with thin white frames, sunken a foot back into the red brick building, allowing for sturdy, four-foot-wide sills.

The birds of Amsterdam love these sills. And I love watching them love them.

Like most major cities worldwide, the lowly pigeon is the majority avian species in Amsterdam. For most residents, they are nothing but an annoyance, particularly because of the daily close calls with these plump grey morons that freeze in our wheels’ paths as we commute around the city. As far as territorial warfare over the famous red bike lanes goes, pigeons beat out tourists at the top of my shit list.

Throughout the day, these bumbling birds clumsily flutter onto the sills and, occasionally, fly smack dab into the window. They stumble around on the ledges, swiveling their heads, cooing, and shitting all over their little slice of paradise.

A few times a week, the pigeons’ ignorant peace is abruptly and violently interrupted. First, I hear the screeches, quickly followed by a lightning flash of bright green. The fat, feathered rats don’t have enough time to react when two parakeets, interlocked in a raucous wrestling match, crash into the careless pigeon colony.

Raucous and mean-spirited, the parakeets began their invasion of Vondelpark in the 1970s, their arrival a familiar story of a pet from hell unleashed “into the wild”-- or rather, into a very urban, very public space. Although they’re still not exactly welcome in the neighborhood these days, the neon demon spawn have become a permanent fixture, an unofficial icon of the park, and, at the very least, an interesting oddity to point out to visitors.

Like the parakeets, I’ve also claimed a spot uninvited in the urban fabric of Amsterdam. As an American in Europe, I feel about as conspicuous as the little lime-green monsters. I do my best not to live up to the stereotypes of my loud, uncultured, and ignorant brethren that many outsiders think we are. But putting my home country in a dating app profile still feels like the modern-day equivalent of walking into the town square proudly wearing a dunce cap.

“You’re the only American I know that could pass as European,” my German friend tells me as we walk along the canals on a cold, rainy (classically Dutch) summer day.

Part of me revels in this compliment. Military brats are renowned for our chameleon-like social skills. I went from imitating thick southern drawls at crawfish boils as an eight-year-old to the only white girl in a Manga-obsessed Asian friend group at twelve to donning short plaid skirts and Birkenstocks through Chicago winters in Catholic school at fifteen. But Amsterdam has been a challenge. For the last two years, I’ve constantly questioned if my wardrobe made me stand out, lamented the jokes I’d made that hadn’t landed, and generally had an existential dread about the way I moved throughout this world. I’ve tried to be a good ambassador for my country, learning the local language, traveling the country extensively to understand its history and customs, and attempting to convince Dutchmen to date me.

The other part of me is conflicted– is this actually a compliment? After all, the only thing I really miss about America is… Americans. There are days I long for our constant curiosity, our generosity, our graciousness and helpfulness. The smiles and hellos and compliments I took for granted that Europeans think are fake. But I get where the negative stereotypes my friend was alluding to come from– like the parakeet, I’ve at times been self-righteous and outspoken (not to mention achievement-obsessed and a workaholic, but I’m not sure birds have non-primal goals or jobs yet).

As I continue to settle into the Netherlands and make it feel like home, I’ll endeavor to remain my authentically American self– just like the parakeets retain their brilliance and exoticism. But unlike the parakeets and some of my compatriots, I’ll also try my best to avoid the more controversial traits like ‘boisterously unaware and demanding.’ I’ll never feel as incognito in this city as a pigeon, but at least I won’t get hit by a bike.

The curtain has recently fallen on my hotel windowsills. Ok, not permanently, but they are doing temporary construction on the facade. Mesh screening obstructs the birds from their perches, and scaffolding is the new stage for the hours of Arabic a capella I now “enjoy” on the days I’m holed up in my home office, taking those dreaded video calls. In the meantime, I guess I’ll have to venture into the real world to figure out how I fit into this city I now call home.