I went to the Sinterklaas parade on Sunday. It's when Sinterklaas arrives in Amsterdam by boat from Spain (where he lives, obviously!). It was really rainy when we got there, but it still seemed like all the little kids in Amsterdam were also there to watch the parade. Before it started, the kids all started yelling "Sin-ter-KLAAAAA-AAAAAS!" like crazy. Some were dressed up as Sinterklaas, and some were dressed up as Zwarte Piet, Sinterklaas's helper. In my opinion, Zwarte Piet is pretty much the most politically incorrect and offensive holiday tradition ever. There were probably fifty to a hundred people dressed as him in the parade, all complete with blackface. Supposedly, Zwarte Piet is either of Moorish descent or gets covered in ashes because he takes the presents down the chimney for Sinterklaas. It's hard to tell if most Dutch people are okay with the idea of Zwarte Piet and people dressing up as him. All the kids were glad that the people dressed as him where giving them pepernoten, small Dutch holiday cookies similar to gingerbread. One of the moms who was watching the parade let my friends and I try some of the pepernoten, saying "have some--the kids get these for the next three weeks!". She was referring to December 5th, which is Sinterklaas Day. My favorite part of the whole parade was that everyone suddenly started singing a song about Sinterklaas when he rode by on his horse. It was happy.
