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Today, on December the 5th, the Dutch celebrate Sinterklaas. In the past month, I noticed that this occasion is somehow anticipated quite a bit. One of my classmates mentioned that she is happy about the weather because it goes nicely with the Sinterklaas atmosphere (city was covered in a layer of mist for most of the day) and she’s been loving the little hints of Sinterklaas’ coming for the past two weeks. It’s been mentioned in a class about the ethics of decolonising museum with the case of Zwarte Piet (https://kozwartepiet.nl/,…).

After I mentioned that we would just get coal or get kidnapped in a potato sack, it was brought to my attention that Dutch children would be threatened with being sent to Spain (how that is supposed to be a frightening concept is over my head, especially in this weather – but these people are just built differently). There are many cute little traditions associated with it, my favourite probably being a public roasting of your own family members with personalised poems and then making up for it with handmade gifts, nurturing both the “dutch directness” and “thrift-sell-buy-whatever-everywhere” aspects of the local culture.

We decided to take a good look at this Sinterklaas thing with my other friend from far overseas. After locating a willing local, we embarked on our bikes to the closest Albert Heijn in search of chocolate letters. These are apparently placed by Sinterklaas in your shoes after you go to sleep and sing a special song, which describes the journey of Zwarte Piet on a bike through the Netherlands. After puncturing his tire, he’s told by a blacksmith that this puncture was caused by a pepernoot (which is not surprising at all since they are very hard). His flat tire is fixed and then he proceeds to bike around with some kind of Saint on the back rack.

I am not sure whether you first sing and then go to sleep or the other way around.

We did not find chocolate letters in Albert Heijn, but we did in Hema. After this initial success, we felt obliged to perform the ritual in full since our willing local was still present to guide us, so we moved to a secluded place nearby (indicated on the map) where we found refuge in a structure resembling a christmas present. Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of that.

We proceeded to take our shoes of as demostrated by the local. Looking away for a little bit, the letters were indeed placed in our shoes, waiting to be eaten.

We cycled home after and I cycled some more in the afternoon, taking my racebike for a little outing. Had no flat tire. The chocolate was quite nice.