With just a few weeks of Dutch living under my belt, I already know that I’m thoroughly going to enjoy the experience of living in The Netherlands. So with my glasses still shimmering with a rosy glare, I thought it might be a good time to chronicle some of my impressions of Going Dutch.

Not too long ago Wim and I were still in the US, having proudly packed up nearly all our worldly possessions into a 10’ x 15’ storage unit (well, that is, having watched the movers pack everything up…but at least we "managed" the packing). A day later we were on a KLM flight to Amsterdam with our four checked bags, a mountain bike, and count them…SIX…carry-on bags. Okay, admittedly, we exceeded the carry-on limit by FOUR. The question is: if two passengers successfully sneak that many bags onto a plane in full view of five flight attendants, don’t you think they deserve to take them on board?

We arrived in Amsterdam the next day, greeted at the airport by Wim’s brother Bart who helped me navigate my bike as we exited customs (No, nothing to declare!) with our overstuffed luggage carts. Stepping outside, I learned that the Dutch have a multitude of colorful ways to talk about cold and rainy weather. Wim described the crummy conditions as snot weer, with weer translating as "weather" and snot translating as…well, actually, no translation necessary!

Our apartment is situated in the middle of Eindhoven, which is especially nice since everything we need is within walking distance. One of our first errands was a short walk to the Super de Boer, a supermarket just across the street. A first glance at the store shelves reveals the lack of selection, compared to grocery stores in the States. However since I have NO IDEA what many things are, the less choice the better. Some words are very close to English, for example "yogurt" is yoghurt and "milk" is melk. For the others I look at the picture on the container and venture my best guess. As I soon discovered, that’s not always the best way to determine the answer. Case in point, as we were unpacking the groceries, I pulled out a plastic bottle labeled Silan with a drawing of peaches on the front and the English words Freshness of Nature. So I turned to Wim and asked, "is this what we use to wash our fruit?" After a fit of laughter, Wim composed himself and said "no my darling, that’s fabric softener." Well, at least our fruit will be clean, fresh and soft…

One way to revisit the carefree days of childhood, and also a fun way to learn Dutch, is to watch kids’ programs on television. Watching Teletubbies and Mopatop’s Shop every day may sound like a mind-numbing experience, but when the shows are dubbed in Dutch, it becomes a linguistic challenge of epic proportions. After a few weeks of viewing though, I now feel fairly confident in my knowledge of colors, numbers, and zoo animals. Maybe soon I’ll be able to follow Expeditie Robinson Crusoe, the Dutch equivalent of the US mega-hit Survivor. Another way I’m expanding my vocabulary is by watching English programs with Dutch subtitles. Americans can be proud that quality programming such as Jerry Springer and Ricki Lake have made it to The Netherlands. Fantastic, I can learn useful phrases such as Wie is de vader? (Who is the father?) and Raad eens, ik ben geen vrouw (Guess what, I’m not a woman).

So until the next Going Dutch (to appear on www.wimlara.com), bye for now and tot gauw,

Lara

Last update 10 July 2005

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