Deputy major Carolien Gehrels took the opportunity to welcome to Amsterdam those visiting the city for the first time, and to encourage expats—new and old alike—to feel at home in the city she has lived in for almost 20 years.
 
“I am not a tourist either”
Alderman Gehrels applauded the name and the spirit of the Fair: to embrace your new home, whether it be temporary, and not be a tourist there. She recommended trying to become a local—and less of a tourist—as the best way to get to know a place, and even confessed to trying this in the cities she’s only visiting.

“Sometimes this works. But unfortunately my efforts all go to waste when they ask me where to find the nearest bakery… Sounds familiar?“

In Amsterdam though, where she went to university and has lived now for almost 20 years, Gehrels truly feels at home and is proud to be the deputy mayor for arts, sports and city marketing.

“In my opinion Amsterdam combines the strength of a metropolitan environment with the intimate experience of a village. A city where you can find all you need in one square mile, where you can cycle to the office, or to anything else for that matter. A city where you can truly work and live. I truly hope you will experience this if you haven’t already, and agree with me on this.“

She wants to share this sense of belonging with the international community: “Because it is my hope that all the expats gathered here will see themselves not so much as expats but more as Amsterdammers. Hopefully I can contribute a bit to that goal by telling you about this city … showing you how important it is to Amsterdam that you are part of it." 
 
A brief history of Amsterdam
Gehrela went on to recount the history of the city of Amsterdam from Jan Paul Schutten’s prize-winning book ‘Kinderen van Amsterdam’ (‘Children of Amsterdam’); how a series of great storms turned an area of swamp land into inhabitable land.

“Though you may not always enjoy the Dutch weather, you can say we otherwise wouldn’t be here today.”

On that land, people who had lost their homes to the storms started rebuilding, and turned it into a place of craftsmen and merchants. The great mercantile city of Amsterdam was born from these humble beginnings. Through extensive trading links with other parts of Europe, Amsterdam became a haven for ideas and a site for intellectual debate. Publishers and artists like Spinoza and the cities bourgeoisie as patrons brought about the cultivation of arts and letters.

Modern day Amsterdam
“The world has changed significantly since then," noted Gehrels, "but centuries later Amsterdam’s cosmopolitan culture still attracts people, businesses and ideas from all over the world,“ pointing to the 1,750 foreign companies in Amsterdam, bringing with them more than 50,000 new Amsterdammers.

“They not only provide new investment and employment opportunities: they also reinforce the multicultural character of the city – a city where 177 different nationalities feel welcome and at home.”
 
The alderman stressed how valuable Amsterdam’s international businesses, visitors and inhabitants are to it, and went on to list the ways in which the city has recently tried to improve its services to them:  relaunching the Iamsterdam.com website, where comprehensive information about Amsterdam can be found, in English, all under one ‘roof’;  hosting its first Expat Welcome Event in June 2009 for senior management level expats working in Amsterdam; opening the Expatcenter for assisting expats living in the Amsterdam area, including the Haarlemmermeer and Almere.
 
“We’re also working on extending our services in English, in public transport for instance. We are looking into ways to improve the housing market for all expats,” said Gehrels,  aware that one of the biggest problems for expats is finding an affordable living space in Amsterdam, as well as finding international education for their children.”
 
Amsterdam’s three X’s
Gehrels ended her speech by referring to Paul Lavoie, cofounder of the advertising agency TAXI and expat Amsterdammer.  While considering Amsterdam as his company’s European base, he noticed the city logo: the three X‘s. He learned that, rather than being three kisses, they represented the city’s traditional core values: courage, tenacity and generosity (heldhaftigheid, vastberadenheid en barmhartigheid).
 
“These are the values we strive for as a city, but which we also see in you. The courage to leave behind your own countries and cities for an unknown one; the tenacity to make this new city your own, despite the problems you might have with finding houses or schools, understanding the language, riding a bike or eating haring and kroketten.
 
“And the generosity you have in giving back a bit of your culture to Amsterdam and its inhabitants by representing one of the many nationalities that makes our city strong, interesting and open.
 
"And this truly makes you into Amsterdammers.”

Read more about the 2009 "i am not a tourist" Fair here.

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