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 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!!

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"!!

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?!

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.