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