Dutch snacks

I was tempted to entitle this post "Dutch food" but I think many Nederlanders would quickly point out that what I'm about to talk about is not a true representation of their "food", so I'll stick to what I know best from living here...  their snacks!

I've been living here for 8 months now and there are loads of foods I would definitely miss if I come back to the UK.

Firstly, they make the best pancakes in the world here (not really a snack but considered an actual meal here, and they are certainly the price of an evening meal back in the UK at approx. 9EUR for 1 pancake)... they taste like nowhere else in the world and I love them.  Back when I visited Radboud University in Nijmegen for a week, I found the canteen there served pancakes once a week... here in Leiden I've been here for 8 months and they've only served pancakes twice in that time... maybe I should be grateful for the sake of my waistline.  What a shame they don't celebrate pancake day here like in the UK... but I suppose you could argue that any day could be pancake day with the numerous pancake houses in each city.

Secondly, FOOD FROM THE WALL... yes, how can you possibly resist food when they put it in the WALLS?!  It looks at you as you walk along the street or the train station or the shopping malls... just begging you through the little glass doors, to eat them!  They're kinda like giant vending machines full of deep-fried meat.  Items range from huge elongated chicken-nuggets to frikandels (elongated meat thing in a sausage shape), crockets (kroketten) deep-fried bread-crumbed mashed up bits of meat (MUCH tastier than I'm describing, believe me), something when directly translated is called a "Meat staff" (you couldn't get away with that name in the UK) and other deep-fried items such as cheese, rice and even balls of noodles!


If you go to a pub for after work drinks or networking events etc, all drink occasions include plates of these crazy deep-fried snacks plus spring rolls etc... forget two pints of larger and a packet of crisps, here it's a heineken and a plate of bittenballen (deep-friend breadcrumbed balls of meat-goo!) - heavenly!

But what I can't understand, is that back in the UK for lunch, most people I know might have a sandwich, soup OR salad.  Here, people have sandwiches, soup AND salad.  And when I say sandwiches, I failed to mention that this would usually consist of half a loaf of bread in one day and often (but not always) contain smushed up versions on the deep-fried snacks I've just mentioned.  Not to mention then washing it all down with two pints of milk and some yogurt!

So why is it that the UK is a much more obese nation than the Netherlands?  Can it really just be the cycling they do here?

Right, all this talk about snacks is making me hungry.... gotta go look in the walls....

Dutch music

I don't know much about Dutch music since my time here... I mainly listen to a station called "Radio Veronica" (you can try it yourself here:  http://www.radioveronica.nl/player/radio-veronica)  and have developed an obsession with saying "alleen echte hits staan voor jou klaar" (Only real hits, are ready for you - or something along those lines)... it mainly plays English/American music with the odd bit of BLOF or Golden Earring thrown in (Dutch people believe these Dutch bands are really famous around the world but I would beg to differ having never heard of them before I arrived here) but I must admit, their stuff ain't bad!

However, the most entertaining aspect of Dutch music so far is their wonderful version of "Your sex is on fire" which in Dutch the lyrics are "Ik wil sex met die kale" - directly translated "I want sex with that bald man" (I kid you not) and this is a very popular song, I hear it on the radio a fair bit and during the carnival you couldn't escape it, it was blasting out from every pub on every corner for 4 days solid.

So... this is something everyone should have the opportunity to enjoy... here it is:

How English am I?

So, in one of my last posts I was busy wondering how Dutch I was after my time in the Netherlands.

Well, after a week back in the UK in June, I found all this stuff I'd been missing without even realising it... stuff like bread and butter with my meals, cheap pub grub, faggots and mushy peas, blackpudding, bacon and sausage sarnies, orange squash, cider, indian takeaways, hills and nice landscape, carpeted floors and big supermarkets.

There were other things I just felt really out of touch with... my boyfriend driving on the left constantly freaked me out as I thought we were going the wrong way... and having to walk up hill occasionally gave my calves something to moan about.

As an aside, earlier this year a new Scott exhibition opened up in the Natural History Museum in London to celebrate the centenary of his expedition to the South Pole.  I read at the time that “a shopping list on display conveys the very British character of the mission. One can't imagine Amundsen's team taking along 320 kilograms of marmalade, 225 kilograms of tea, 72 bottles of port or 540 kilograms of suet.”

So, that got me wondering what makes me English?

Let's start with what's not very English about me:

1)  People keep thinking I'm australian since I arrived... wonder why?

2)  I don't drink tea (unless I'm not feeling well)

3)  I don't eat jam or marmalade or scones

4)  I don't know what the hell "high tea" is but they seem to think it's very English over here!  People pay a lot of money to go for high tea.

5)  I don't drink beer and I'm not a larger lout!

6)  I know the difference between the "Netherlands" and "Holland"

My "English" traits:

1)  Cider drinker and proud

2)  I put milk in my tea (if and when I drink it)

3)  I cycle everywhere on a 21 gear mountain bike (despite the distinct lack of hills in the Netherlands!)

4)  Brown sauce eater

5)  I eat cereal for breakfast

6)  The things I have to import from home to live:  Brown sauce, cereal and crumpets

7)  Unlike the Dutch who quickly get off their bikes, flip a switch to lock it and walk away within seconds, it takes me 10mins to untangle my UK-style bike lock, wrap it around something, fiddle with the keys, get it all jammed up, unjam it all and then finally lock it and walk away with oily and dirty hands

8)  The ignorance of only speaking one language

My Dutch discovery of the week

Good news everyone (just in case you were all panicking)... I've discovered that Dutch baked beans (although they come in glass jars and are called white beans) are just the same as our baked beans back home.  I'm sure Rich will be relieved as there's one thing I won't be asking him to stuff into a suitcase (along with the regular supply of brown sauce and breakfast cereal).  Believe me I'm very pleased as I once tasted French baked beans and never, ever will again, put it that way!  - I'm pretty sure they had no flavour, just red food colouring.

Anyway, feet up now with a jacket potato, cheese, beans and brown sauce... you can take the girl out of England but you can't take the England out of the girl!

How Dutch am I?

So, the other day I found myself cycling in the rain with a bunch of flowers in my hand and I've never felt so "Dutch" since I've been here.  And I got thinking, just how Dutch am I after 4 months living in the Netherlands?

Okay, so this is my list of things that I think make me more Dutch:

• I have my Dutch name "van Carroll" :-)
• I have an addiction to HagelSlag
• I love the pea soup and the Dutch snacks (kroketten, bitterballen and frikendals!)
• I cycle everywhere
• Lovin' the Dutch cheese
• I now know more Dutch (in 3 months) than I knew of French after 5 years of studying for GCSE French!
• I like the fresh fish especially in sarnies from the fish sellers at the market (rather than chucked down my throat bread-less)
• I can cycle non-handed for 6 pedals - I've been practicing on my way to squash but that's a bit lame compared to the Dutch who seem to go for miles non-handed while texting or something else, but then my bike isn't one of these sitting up straight "grandma bikes"
• I have now cycled while taking a phone call, reading a text message and carrying flowers (not all at the same time tho).

But, the things I make me very "un-Dutch" are:

• I really like wishy-washy BIG English/American-style coffees (lots of coffee, lots of water, lots of milk), not these tiny senseo things that I feel like I could inhale within a few seconds
• I WILL NOT eat bread and cheese/meat for breakfast (aren't they sick of bread with cheese and meat by lunchtime?) and I really can't live without cereal
• I don't see the point in flowers
• I do not have to drink milk or yogurt with every meal (but I do like it)
• I use lights when I cycle and I have a 21 speed mountain bike
• I serve beer without an enormous head and everyone complains!
• I really miss cider while living out here
• ...and I'm still working on my pronunciation of Scheveningen!!

Frantic februari

Wow, yeah, so I'm not doing such a great job of blogging lately, my apologies!  But februari was heel druk (very busy).... and yes, I now write in a strange mixture of Engels-Dutch - you should see my emails to Dutch people (besides, some Dutch words just look better than English ones... for example "appel"  "wafel" "appartement" etc, my spelling in English is certainly going downhill!

So, my excuse for the lack of blogging activity is the fact that during februari I was actually only at home for about 9days in the whole month... I spent the first week with the nuns on my intensive Dutch language training course, then it was my birthday and I spent a long weekend in Maastricht with Rich (it was their "mardi gras" carnival... ik was een kikker) and the last week of feb I was away at a conference in Zurich.  Zurich is beautiful but you certainly pay for the experience, around £7 for a cup of coffee and the conference meal (3 (tiny, tiny) courses) cost £70!!  I wasn't even full afterwards!  So I'm glad I got to see it on a work trip as I definitely wouldn't go back for a holiday, not when lunch prices are like evening meal prices!

A really busy but interesting month!

Here are some pics of the crazy carnival:



Unfortunately I have no pictures of Zurich as my camera was stolen on my last day :-(  Terrible timing as two days later I managed to explode the back tyre of my mountain bike, so it's been an expensive couple of weeks.

Well, the problem is that work trips go hand in hand with free food, free alcohol and no exercise so I'm feeling pretty unhealthy right now.  I thought I'd give up alcohol for lent but then I realised that St. Patrick's day is in the way and that would be a great shame!  Also, in an attempt to make up for the lack of sport and too much eating, I set my alarm 45min early every day last week planning on going for a 30min run before work each day, however, each time the alarm went off I just switched it off and went back to sleep again... this week I didn't even bother!

I did have a sporty weekend tho, Sat I went for a 2 and a half hour cycle ride (I cycled to the Hague, ate dim sum and cycled back again!) and Sunday I got my ass kicked in a squash tournament!

Until next time....

Lovin' the language

Sooooo, I've been learning Dutch for a few months now, mostly using the computer program Rosetta Stone but also learning from my many new Dutch friends and colleagues and I've also started having a few one to one lessons (I've had four so far).

And what have I learnt so far?

1)  It's really hard (I don't speak any other languages)
2)  You need a lot of saliva to speak this language, after an hour and a half lesson I feel hoarse!  Dutch people must feel thirsty all the time.
3)  I hate languages with male and female objects!

BUT I'm off to the "nuns" next week for intensive Dutch language training from 8am until 9pm!  I've heard I'll start having nightmares in Dutch! I was tested last week at a level A2 which I was really pleased with as it takes 6 months of university lessons to get to that level (and that's 6hours worth of lessons a week not including homework!).

But what's been the most interesting parts of learning Dutch so far?

Well, learning to tell the time was a real revelation, when my tutor showed me pictures of clocks I was thinking to myself, I need to learn how to say the time in Dutch, not how to READ the time off a clock face... boy was I wrong. So, if we say "half 6" in England, this is short for "half past 6" i.e. 6:30, but half 6 in Holland is 5:30... why? Because a half is smaller than a whole, so half of 6 is obviously 5:30! Not only that to say 5:25 you would say (literally translated) "five before half six" and 5:35 "five after half six"... go figure. It's amazing that I've been turning up to meetings at the right time. They also like to give everything in 24hour clock time here.

My favourite literal translations so far are:

Stropdas which means tie (as in a neck tie) but literally translated is "noose tie" or das can also be translate as badger so I like to think of it as a "noose badger"

Hagelslag, these are the choc sprinkles you put on your bread, this literally means Hail stones

Pindakaas, peanut butter (but literally "peanut cheese")

Handschoen are gloves but literally "hand shoes" (I suppose at least they don't have "foot fingers" I've heard a number of other languages do!)

Watje means wimp but lit. "little cotton ball" :-)

Slices of bread are called boeterhammen but lit. this means "butter ham"... what?!

They also don't say, I'm going to play squash, they would say, I'm going "squashing" etc

People also don't type "haha" to laugh, they type "Whahaha"

My favourite Dutch phrase that I've learnt so far is "there are bears in the road", i.e. stuff just keeps getting in the way! Nice. (cuz you obviously get a lot of bears in the road here).

And "tot" means "to", but if you say Monday to Friday in the UK, we mean Monday to Friday. If they say Maandag tot Vrijdag in Dutch, it means Monday to Friday but not actually including Friday, so you have to say Monday "to and with" Friday (tot en met)... so opening days of shops and museums has become a bit confusing!

I also went down to our department's basement last week and learnt the word "Eng" which means creepy... but "land" means country, so Eng-land literally means "Creepy/scary country", so now you know what the Dutch really think of us!

And finally... the @ sign is called "aap staart" here, that means MONKEY TAIL... how cool, so much cooler than "at"!!

Another fun packed weekend

Had a fantastic weekend with Rich, he arrived nice and early on Fri evening and got to meet all my work colleagues, I then took him to see the wonders of our canteen where we had a couple of snacks before hiring a bike for the weekend and wandering back home. We then went for a nice evening cycle ride and stopped off at our favourite place for dinner, Easie (a great noodle bar) and then stopped for beers at a crowded and old fashioned bar in the south of the centre.

Sat we took it easy, we went to the new observatory musuem, went for a mooch around the markets, had coffee in the bar above which Rutger Hauer was filmed in the movie Soldier of Orange. After this we went to Naturalis, a very impressive museum! Then we had friends over for dinner in the evening.

Sunday, I suggested a gentle bike ride to the beach, the sky was clear, the sun was shining! I thought it would take about 50min but it was actually a LOT further. We were actually heading to the Space Expo European Space Station museum but it took an hour and a quarter to get to Noordwijk centre just for us to find out it's not in Noordwijk centre but about another 20min away and by that point we were freezing to death, so we cycled another 15min to the beach, stopped for a coffee to warm up, and then took a look at the beach. Despite temperatures near freezing the beach was heaving! We were too cold after an hour and a half cycling to walk along the beach, so what did we do? Spent another hour and a half cycling home! So instead of my original plan (50min cycling, 2hours in the museum, 50min cycling back) we ended up going for a 3hour cycle ride only stopping for 10min for a coffee! Whoops, I felt really guilty. Not only that but the sunshine didn't last, it was cloudy and freezing all the way home, not to mention windy! Oh well, nice to get some fresh air! We did have a really nice late lunch when we got back to Leiden and at least we made the most of the railway bike rental for Rich!

 

Did you know...?

Did you know...

...baked beans come in glass jars in the Netherlands

New Year

Happy new year (althought rather delayed).  Hope everyone had a good Xmas break.

So, what's been happening my end?  Well, things have been really, really busy, hence the blog silence of late.

Had a great Xmas break, never seems long enough tho, but since I've been back in the Netherlands things have been non-stop.  Never been to sooo many New Year's celebrations in January, there were at least 2 or 3 a week for the first two weeks!  So much for laying off the snacks and alcohol after Xmas!

Other than that my schedulde has pretty much looked like this:

Mon - Work, Dinner, Dutch lessons
Tues - Work + squash
Wed - Work + table tennis (tafeltennis)
Thurs - Work + learning Dutch + resting
Fri - Work + squash
Sat - cleaning, shopping, socialising
Sun - learning more Dutch, squash + watching mythbusters

Pleased to have found plenty of sports to play!

Fijne Kerst Happy Xmas from the Netherlands

Will anyone read this blog post? Doubt it, while you’re all enjoying your Xmas holidays already some of us are still working hard. Things I’ve learnt about working in the Netherlands:

1) 52% tax… what? Yes, I hadn’t realised how cheap the UK was until I moved away. My gross salary here is greater than my old salary in the UK but my take home pay is the same…?! Shocking. The UK is cheap but I figure you get what you pay for… the country is a bit of a dump in comparison!

2) Compulsory stuff… yes, pension and health insurance NOT optional.

3) BANK holidays…. If they fall on the weekend you lose them, so while you guys are all putting your feet up and getting all festive with your Fri 23^rd and Mon 2^nd bank holidays in lieu, spare a thought for me, slaving away!

So, as Xmas fast approaches, please take a moment to reflect upon these differences and count yourselves lucky. On the other hand, I’m having more fun than I was in the UK so that makes it all worthwhile :-p

As they say here "FIJNE KERST"... have a great break everyone x

What to do, what to do?

My blog post title reminds me of those vultures at the end of the jungle book... the ones that hop around going "whatchya wanna do?"  "I dunno, whatchya you wanna do?" and so on.  Gotta love them vultures.

Yeh, I've been really spoilt for choice this weekend (my last weekend in NL before heading back to the dready midlands for Xmas).  Here were my options:

 Deventer - they have a Charles Dickens festival once a year this coming
 weekend, looks weird but wonderful:
http://www.dickensfestijn.nl/

I'd love to go but it takes over 2 hours by train and I've heard you have to queue for over an hour to an hour and a half to get into the streets to see :-(



 Dordrecht - I'm going there on Sunday with friends, they have Xmas markets and it’s not too far away.

Valkenburg - this is near to Maastricht and they have what looks like a beautiful Xmas festival inside a real cave!  But again over 2 hours away and queuing to get in.


 Playing squash in Warmond - Sat they have a ladies day... I'm missing sport so much I'm genuinely starting to feel ill!

So I think the plan is Leiden market Sat, shopping, cleaning etc then squash, then feet up, then Sunday Dordrecht!

What a busy but excellent week

Had a fantastically busy week:

Mon - went to play ice hockey in the evening, the hockey itself was great (but I hate ice compared to wheels, too damn slippy and it made me miss roller hockey even more that I was already doing), but it nearly killed me getting there with my enormous hockey bag on my back (big enough for me to fit in and yes I have tried) and my hockey stick in one hand, precariously balanced on my bike, cycling for 15minutes in the rain.  15 minutes doesn't sound long but half way there I had severe back, shoulder and chest pain!  It only took 2min to kick in on the way home!  Won't be going again, too impractical to reach.

Tues - had my work Xmas meal.  Great night, we went on an outing (uitje) first to the university observatory where we viewed jupiter and it's moons, very cool.  Had a lovely meal (I really, really miss cider here tho, I'm not a beer drinker so I'm finding the pubs rather restricting) and I must remember to ask for my meat well done, everything comes rare and bloody as standard here, hate my meat half alive on my plate!

Wed - At work in the afternoon I had a FOUR hour web-editing course.  For all you guys at Warwick, you are never, ever, ever to complain about SiteBuilder ever ever ever again, Sitebuilder is literally a palace of dreams compared to whatever they call their old fashioned system.  I genuinely feel like I've woken up and it's 1998 and I have to try and use the internet... I was hoping I would learn new skills in this job but now I'm worried in my next job I'll look like a total Neanderthal from being used to working on this old thing... WYSIWYG?!  What's WYSIWYG they ask?!  Blimey!  Not only that, but they're all still working on office 2003.  It's nearly 2012 right?!  ARGH!

Thurs - I had my first actual proper Dutch lesson (I'll do a separate post all about language, this could be a biggy!)... After my weekend in Antwerp and practising in my drunken Dutch at my Xmas do where I feel I absolutely blew people away with my "would you like some water, it is cold" and "why is mummy washing the dog?" sentences (good huh?) I was BRIMMING with confidence.  That was until I turned up to my lesson on Thurs where the bloke talked to me in Dutch the entire time (what was he thinking?) :-p  More to come language wise, I'll check back into this later!  Right now, confidence not so brimming, perhaps I need some more gluhwijn?

Fri - Was at a medical conference all day, felt a bit out of place, I've never heard anyone speak so openly and unashamedly about vaginas for a whole hour.  Other than that I'm now left wondering about a whole variety of diseases and also wonder how many mice the med. dept get through here each year?  The food on the other hand was brilliant (I will also post about food later, the food here (esp the snacks) are AWESOME (I wonder how much weight I've put on?)), I had a nice evening meal too.

Mijn fijn weekend met Rich

Had a brill weekend with Rich.  We went to Antwerpen for the day on Saturday.  The trains were jam packed, I think Belgium must be a popular weekend destination for Hollanders esp at this time of year.

I was expecting Antwerp to be a lot smaller but it's massive, like a capital city and the architecture was beautiful.

The Xmas markets were nice and the mulled wine (gluhwijn) much cheaper than back in the UK but believe it or not, although it sounds more exotic to head to Antwerp for Xmas markets, the Brum one is much bigger and better, the one in Antwerp didn't sell Xmas decorations or toys or trinkets or much food.  In fact watching this video made me miss Brum (which I didn't think was possible!!):

Other than that, bought an enormous Nepalese jumper as thick as a sheep and warmer than my coats, that ought to help in my freezing cold office, and I practised more Dutch in Antwerp than since I've been in the Netherlands ("hoeveel kosten de chocolade appels?" for example!).

Oh and also, I've never seen a "fresh" hot chocolate before (I imagined hot choc with fresh cream) but no... it's a massive mug of steaming hot milk with chocolate on a stick on the side.  If I hadn't seen someone else order one I would have assumed you ate the chocolate on a stick, but you stir it into your hot milk!  Never had the chance to try one (I was having a regular hot chocolate when I saw someone else being served this), can't wait to have one at some point tho, hope they do them in the Netherlands, suppose I could always dunk my twix into a glass of milk but it just wouldn't be the same right?!

Bikes

Ooooooh I could go on about bikes in the Netherlands for hours....

From the outside looking in you think, how lovely and quaint all this bike riding is... how novel, how old fashioned (even to the extent the "old fashioned" sytle bikes here are called "oma fiets" which means grandma bike, ah how sweet!)... but oh no, once you've spent a bit of time here, cycling in the rush hour traffic every day (yes, I had no idea there was such thing as bicylce traffic) you realise what aggressive nutters all these cyclist really are!

I've never, ever seen anything like it in my life.  It's dark right, it's winter, we're an hour ahead of the UK, so yes, it's pretty dark every morning and every night after work.  But do they care about being seen?  No, you wouldn't believe how many people cycle with no lights.  The cycle paths are amazing, the UK is totally rubbish in this regard, and I thought it would be confusing learning to ride on the "wrong" side of the road, but it only took about a day to realise that even the Dutch don't cycle on the "correct" side of the road, they cycle any old how... they cycle on the wrong side coming right at you and high speed with no lights, they jump out from everywhere and anywhere with no regard for who's right of way it is, they'll cycle side by side having a leisurely chat ensuring that this chain goes right into the path of cars or into the other lane of the cycle path (oncoming cyclists) and so that you have to overtake the gossipers on the "wrong" side in oncoming traffic.  They'll also spot someone on the pedestrian path and just abruptly stop causing you to cycle into the back of them.  Oh yes, and don't even get me started on the pedestrains who will also step out in front of moving bikes with disregard (it only took me a week to cycle straight into someone who despite being hit REALLY hard (I had to check my wheel for damage after the fact) just shrugged it off and said "sh*t happens"... well, yes, I thought, sh*t does happen if you just saunter on into the middle of flowing traffic.

You need the wits and reaction speeds of a jet fighter pilot to cycle here, you have to avoid other cyclists, pedestrians, and motorcyclists (who use the cycle lanes) whilst being blinded by car traffic all at the same time.  Also, being the "low" countries and incredibly flat, it is really, really windy, I was blown into the curb three times yesterday while cycling and even got blown off a roundabout.

Having said that I absolutely love it.  I'm just as mad and aggressive as the rest of them, in fact it's only taken me less than three weeks to wear out the brakes on my bike!

Also, I've got so, so, so used to cycling that I can't bare the thought of walking anywhere, it already seems a foreign concept.  Ricky is coming out to visit this weekend and I'm already putting an order in for a bike card (so you can hire a bike from the railway station for a fantastic 3euros for 24hours, what a bargain... Boris - take note!), because I fancied taking him around Leiden on Sunday and also to a museum and the thought of having to walk the whole 30min to the museum sickens me (even though by the time I chain, unchain my various locks, clip and unclip my ten million lights (they're all over me and the bike, I look like a Xmas tree) and tuck my trousers into my socks it probably takes the same amount of time)!

So bikes... I may well moan but it really is amazing here... you've never cycled until you've cycled in the Netherlands.

What I've achieved so far

I recently sent an email to a friend summarising the stuff I've been up to since being in the Netherlands and thought it would be a nice idea to post that here, so here it goes (in a nutshell):

• Eaten far too much unhealthy but very tasty and interesting Dutch snacks especially with the lead up to Xmas (and they celebrate Sinterklaas on Dec 5th/6th)
• Got sent home early to celebrate Sinterklaas today
• Celebrated ThanksGiving with new English, American and French friends
• Tried the Italian spirit Genepy for the first time, quite nice!
• Celebrated an early Sinterklaas last week which involved trying lots of Sinterklaas related biscuits and reading Dutch poems that I couldn't understand or pronounce!
• Played table tennis twice
• Played badminton three times
• Played squash and even had a go at doubles (I'd heard of such a thing but thought only suicidal people would play)... foruntately not only did I manage not to kill anyone, I also remained injury free.
• Met a new friend from China.
• Bought tickets to Anwerp for when Rich visits this weekend!
• Sorted out a bank account, a train travel discount card and a mobile sim card.
• Went out for Friday drinks with work people
• Went around Leiden market on the last two Saturdays (lovely)
• Got chatted up by a random African guy who told me he wanted to be my lion (can't work out if he was just being friendly or was a potential rapist)
• Ohhh, and am off to Zurich with work in Feb!
• I also got published in Library connect, check me out on page 8 (http://libraryconnect.elsevier.com/lcn/0903/lcn0903.pdf)

Confirmed stereotypes so far

Dairy products:

Yep, the Dutch really do like their dairy products, I've never seen so many different types of milk, buttermilk and yogurt in my life... they take up isles and isles of supermarkets and people drink gallons of the stuff at lunch time.

Laws:

We don't seem to have coffee breaks in our office and when I was telling people at work about the regulations in the UK (i.e. 15min coffee break is provided if you work for more than 4 consecutive hours) the reply was simpley... "we don't like laws".

Health and safety:

What health and safety?  On my first day I was toured around my office building and shown the emergency exit.. followed by the statement "oh yeah, but if the alarms ever go off, don't go this way because we keep the door locked"

Windows:

Oh yes, they like their windows here, the bigger the better and they keep their curtains open into the night so that people can admire their houses through them.  They also enjoy getting their windows cleaned as often as possible!

This week's take on exercise

So what have I learnt this week in the Netherlands? It takes me 12min to cycle to work along the beautiful canals but somehow it takes me an hour to half cycle and half shop my way home along the high street!!! Gotta stop going that way home, my purse can't cope!

I also attended my first Sinterklaas evening on Tuesday night, we swapped presents and poems (yes, I was even forced to read a Dutch poem out loud to the group despite the fact I only understood about 2 words on the page and ended up getting a poem about 24 lines long!).  We drank wonderful chocomel and I was introduced to all the traditional Sinterklaas biscuits.  My office has also been full of these everyday so I'm getting really unhealthy especially as I still haven't had any exercise.

So far I went along to a badminton club a few times... despite being a popular sport in this country and the club I joined were in a league, the standard was fairly low and I don't even play badminton regularly.  After spending two hours without breaking a sweat I won't be signing up long term... means I still need to find a sports club to join.

Went along to table tennis, probably more exercise than the badminton but still it's not a sport, it's a game!  Still need to find some exercise.

I cycle around everywhere but the country is so flat and I have a 27speed UK mountain bike so I literally have to pedal twice every 20minutes or so.

May pop along to a squash club this weekend... it's a 40min cycle ride away so even if the squash is lame, I should get a bit of exercise getting there and back.

So, the sport and exercise is the thing I miss the most about the UK.

Food here is also rather unhealthy (but wonderful).. the snacks are every where and absolutely delicious, but if they're not beautiful waffels and biscuits, they're various deep-fried reconstituted meat products... but oh yes, they're tasty!  I got free lunch in the canteen on Thurs and ate about 3 lunches and tried all the snacks.  Also had a lunch meeting with free sandwiches today, was much amused to see that you can even order a "hagelslag" (chocolate sprinkle) sandwich for your lunch meeting if you're so inclined.

My first week

So, I've been here exactly a week now and what have I learnt so far?

Good things:

I could spend hours going around the supermarkets and canteens, the food here is fascinating and I want to try it all.

People have been really, really friendly.

I've tried out a fair number of sports clubs, all great fun so far.

I went to my first ever Thanksgiving Dinner.

Not so good things:

I was told my birth certificate is too old to be valid here... should I be insulted?

Online banking is a palaver.. they give you an enormous calculator type device which you plug your card into and then you plug it all into your pc.  Every 2 minutes you get an error message.  It took me three days of trying to buy a train ticket.

I got turned away from the volunteer Dutch conversational buddying place because I couldn't speak good enough Dutch... it's not my fault that Rossetta Stone taught me to say "The white horse doesn't swim, the white horse runs".  Besides, I've taken to only saying things that rhyme so I'd feel sorry for my conversational partner.. I like to order white wine (witte wijn - pronounced vit-er vain) and tell people wij kommen uit Rome (we come from Rome - pronounced Vie Voner In Romer).  Never mind!

My favourite Dutch words so far:

Stropdas - Tie
Grootsteen - sink

Oh yeah, and I love the fact that they don't have gloves here, they have hand shoes!  Very cute.