This will be a bit different than studying abroad because not everything is brand new like it was then, but there are still some challenges and things that surprise me and if I've got nothing deep to share with you I can always tell you my anecdotes of living here, I tend to attract weirdos so I get lots of those! Plus, I've been getting to know more about the Dutch-- more on that later.
Well I'll begin about my journey over here. Packing. Yikes. I sent a lot of my stuff ahead of time, keeping just the necessary things for those last few weeks. Or so I thought. As I packed my bag I was thinking, "This is great, hardly anything and it's all summer clothes, so they're lighter and thinner!" Wrong. You don't realize just how much crap you have until you're trying to fit all that crap into one suitcase with a weight limit. I got everything in the bag more or less just fine and since it was all summer-y things, well, surely the weight wouldn't be a problem. Wrong again. I go to weigh my "light" bag and find out that it is in fact a whole 9 pounds overweight. Oops. Here's my advice to anyone trying to fit months or more clothes into a suitcase, ONLY BRING WHAT YOU NEED. As I went through the bag again I came across tops I never wore, things that didn't fit me anymore, and god, the atrocious things I never wanted to see again. Why? Because they were sentimental. Sort of. Not enough to pay an overweight bag fee though, so into trash they went (and the charity bag)! When I had finally sorted through the suitcase and got rid of things that I wasn't really going to miss I weighed it again, just a couple pounds over. Now here's my second bit of advice to you. When you put your suitcase on the scale at the airport, if you think it's going to be overweight just have it hanging off a little, a tiny bit, that's what I did. Cheating? Yeah, it was. And no that's not good if you're bag is tons overweight, don't go knocking planes out of the sky with your heavy bags and cheating, but the odd pound here and there, that's fine. (Whether that's moral or not isn't the point of this blog!) So yay, I had my bag checked in and I headed into security saying goodbye to the airport that shuttled me to and from Miami a few times a year for four years.
Now I had immigration to think about. I haven't always had the best of experiences with immigration officers so I wasn't too keen on showing up and rather than my usual "leaving in a week" spiel saying, "Actually, I'll be applying for a residence permit and staying." I connected in Heathrow on my way to Amsterdam so I had to go through immigration twice-- I arrived at the immigration hall in Heathrow with my documents folder out, preparing answers in my head and all ready to defend my right to enter. I go up to the counter, the woman asks the reason for my stay, I tell her I'm actually going off to the Netherlands and applying for a residence permit since my husband lives there. Her response? "That's nice! You look young for your age, you'll like that when you're old, have a nice day!" Easy enough! Now just to enter the Netherlands... again, though, surprisingly no problem. I think I spent a total of about 30 seconds with that officer who stamped my passport and just said, "Now don't stay longer than 3 months, unless you have a permit. Then you can stay. But only with a permit." I know nice immigration man. So I have arrived in the Netherlands!
Have I lost you yet? Boredom? Too long? Well I guess it doesn't matter anyway because then you won't be seeing this, but if I haven't bare with me just a bit longer and I promise I'll be done!
As I settle into living in The Hague I have come to learn more and more about the Dutch as a people, and a very strange people they are. They're a bit brusk, abrupt and sometimes just downright rude. Their favorite phrase seems to be, "That is not possible." I don't know how to spell it in Dutch so I won't try, but you get that a lot when someone just doesn't want to do something. It might very well be possible, but once they decide they don't want to, sorry, that just became an impossibility. This can be very frustrating at times as you can imagine.
The Dutch also don't have an exact word or phrase for "excuse me" as I recently learned. I wanted to know how to say excuse me when I'm in the grocery store and trying to push past people with their carts, but as I learned they just push, then after pushing say sorry. I guess that works too!
The most interesting part of the Netherlands is that Dutch and English are basically interchangeable, even when talking to other native Dutch speakers. The other day I was sitting on a plane and this Dutch man was speaking to his children and all of his scoldings such as, "Don't touch that" or "put that down" or "don't say that" were all in English, but the rest of what he said was in Dutch. If it makes you happy I suppose, but those kids will grow up associating bad things with English I'm guessing. I also was in the grocery store the other day and the checkout woman greeted me in Dutch, spoke to her friend in English, then me in English, then asked me if I wanted my receipt in Dutch, it's all very confusing sometimes!
Whew, that was longwinded. Thanks for sticking with me this long, this will probably be one of the longer posts I write, but to reward you below I've put some pictures from my journey here, of The Hague and of my recent day trip to Paris. I hope you enjoy, aren't totally scared by my rambling and come back!
Dank je wel & tot ziens! (Thanks a lot and see you later!)
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