All right, let's get this blog going! First impressions first. And I am going to fully admit that I've only been here for about 60 hours, so my impression is somewhat limited.
1. The Dutch are line-cutters. Watch out at the airport or a train station. Going through customs. Waiting to enter an elevator. Waiting in line to buy something. Walking on the sidewalk.
2. The Dutch really like bikes. There are way more bikes than cars here. The bikes are huge and black. The Dutch are also huge. They tower above me. Also, no one wears helmets. Not even the babies.
3. The Dutch have a real way with their heating/plumbing/etc. There is some cool shit in this apartment. Also, my internet access is a thousand times faster than my old Madison wireless (see my first post for reference).
4. No one has spoken to us yet unless we've been buying something from them, or they were also foreign. Or, to refuse to help us with directions when we were trying to find the apartment.
But, aside from all that it is very beautiful here, very clean (more on that later), people buy flowers a lot, the weather is nice, there are lots of parks and people out playing soccer, everyone is polite if not particularly friendly. The picture above is of the center of our neighborhood's little shopping district. It's usually not so dirty -- Justin took this on Sunday, when all the shops are closed and the foreigners roam the streets looking desperately for food.
7 comments:
I just heard part of a piece on NPR about floating Dutch houses. That made me remember to come read your blog which answered at least one of my questions about your studies abroad. Keep it coming.
i'm working on it. it's hard to filter what's interesting to me but probalby boring to the rest of the world, from what's interesting to us all...
Dude, the pictures totally jazz it up - love it.
I remember fondly my visit to thee Amsterdamn and seeing complete families on one bicycle. weird, but so economically friendly. They won't have any emmissions debt....keep on, doobie-ing on
I am fully in support of not putting helmets on babies, within reason. Sunday I heard a report on NPR of a woman campaigning to get sledders to wear helmets! Whatever! (This is Colleen O' by the way). I like the blog, its all interesting to me.
thanks for id-ing yourself colleen. i was wondering... yeah, dude, some people have these huge wooden carts that they attach to the front of the bikes and the toddlers sit in that. they're like wheelbarrows.
Stepping away from my Dutch alter-ego:
Wait until spring/summer, when everyone starts bringing their dogs to public areas again. The amount of dogshit I stepped in could power a reasonably-sized Midwestern tech company.
that is one of the other points i've been considering pointing out on this blog -- pick up your dog shit, people!
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