Going to McDonald's in Leiden: Reflections on the Concept of Self and Society in the Netherlands

Almost every Sunday I cycle to the train station for the "foreign" papers. This is a particularly pleasant trip because very few people are about, and since traffic is light, one can pedal along in a relatively unconcerned manner. This kind of nonchalant attitude while cycling in the narrow and usually congested streets of old Leiden is simply impossible on any other morning. To daydream while dodging through the complex pattern of densely woven traffic would be a very risky lapse, except during what Wallace Stevens referred to as "the peculiar life of Sunday."i The quiet interregnum of commerce on this particular Sabbath is nicely mirrored by the calm canal waters of the "Old Rhine" as it threads across the center of this most stolid Dutch town. A few of the Reformation era churches in the centrum district are actually still used, and the trickle of faith-