Quick facts:
| Crash course in geography: For those who don't know, the Netherlands is in Europe, and it lies between Belgium and Germany on the North Sea... |
We live in the municipality of "Schinnen" (# 14 on the map below). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Ours is the southernmost province, called "Limburg"... | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Now that you know where we are, you might be wondering (like most of our friends and family) "What's it like over there?" I'll make some observations.... As you might imagine, living here is quite a different experience from living in America. We're very fortunate that most Dutch people are excellent linguists,and very rarely do we encounter someone who doesn't speak fluent English. However, that's basically where the similarities begin and end! The first unusual thing we noticed here is the driving. Many of the roads we use daily are paved in red brick. Most roads are very narrow. (Gas being quite expensive means that European cars are tiny.) The most popular form of transportation here is the bicycle, and bicycles and mopeds travel on the same road as cars. It's not uncommon to see an old lady in a skirt riding a moped! Dutch people are also big on walking places. You use the saying "walking down the street" in America all the time, but how often do you REALLY see someone walking down the street? I think that phrase must have been coined in Holland. Most of the time, pedestrians will have dogs with them. We've noticed that you usually see a big dog and a little dog, and usually one of them is on a leash, and the other one isn't. One or both dogs frequently carries a stick in its mouth (we have no idea why).All Dutch people have dogs! I think they're issued to them. People take their dogs with them everywhere, including restaurants and stores (and I don't mean Petsmart). Speaking of restaurants, there's another big difference. For one thing, the Dutch do not believe in drinking cold drinks. This means that when you order a Coke in a restaurant, it probably won't have ice in it. If it does, consider yourself lucky to get two little chips. Also, they seem to have something against seasoning their food. Food served in restaurants is very bland, and they don't have salt and pepper on the table, either. Another thing people often ask about is television. I, personally, can't tell you how thankful I am for BBC One and Two. Since it's British, it's in English, and that's a very cool thing. There are some great shows on during the day, and I really think I'll miss them when we go back. We get CNN Europe in English. We also get Discovery, Animal Planet, and National Geographic Europe - all in English with Dutch subtitles. This is a handy way to learn Dutch. I can carry on a pretty in-depth conversation about animals now! Sometimes the Dutch TV channels show American shows and movies - all in English with Dutch subtitles. We also get some German and Swiss channels - it's pretty funny to hear the A-Team overdubbed in German and CHiPS in French! And, finally, I'm glad we have AFN (American Forces Network) which brings us Oprah, Judge Judy, and the Today Show each day. Thanks to the fine folks at AFN, I was able to watch 90% of the Bucs' games this past season! =) Now, if only they'd show the Price is Right... Enough about all that. On to the touristy stuff... |
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Très Européen, non?
