Happy New Year

I would like to wish you all a great New Year's Eve and hope you are celebrating with loved ones, no matter where you may be. Here in the Netherlands today is marked by a stupendous amount of fireworks (from morning to the early hours of New Year's Day) and the stuffing of faces with oliebollen (oil balls literally translated - and literally tasting too). 

How is the New Year marked where you are?

Where ever you are, however you are celebrating - 

all the best for a great new year! 

Photo: Madhavan

Well, That Was 2010

Photo: Billy Alexander

It's end of the year and so time for a little reflection. I purposefully don't do too much reflection on the year that has just gone as there's not a lot I can do to change anything that hasn't gone quite as I had liked but a little look over the year does help to create a little focus for the next year.

Without a doubt the highlight of 2010 for me on a personal level was the birth of my second son, and the time since his birth has been busy manic chaos and I've not had the time to do as much writing as I would have liked - but I'm not going to beat myself up about it because I know what it more important right now!!

Away from me, this year has seen some big events in the Netherlands. Here's an overview of some of the things to have hit the Dutch headlines this year - in no particular order. There's lots more of course and NOS and RNW have good summaries.

Politics: Extreme right MP Geert Wilders somehow ended up with a major say in political matters in this country. It took almost all of this year to get a minority government formed after the last one collapsed due to disagreement about the future Dutch presence in Afghanistan. After talking to just about anyone who had ever uttered anything political, Mark Rutte managed to scrape a government together. He then went on to be named politician of the year - was this for his perseverance? Determination? Strength in the face of adversity?

Crime: The most notorious criminal of the year (and not for the first time I suspect) has to be Joran van der Sloot. Currently awaiting trial for the murder of a Peruvian woman, Stephany Flores Ramirez, van der Sloot was arrested in May this year. He hit the headlines with his suspected involvement in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway.


Sport: The sports highlight of 2010 can be no other than the Dutch team reaching the World Cup final in South Africa. An amazing achievement, despite the loss and the after party also hit headlines across the world.

Showbiz: Footballer Wesley Sneijder and Yolanthe Cabau van Kasbergen are a bit like David Beckham and Posh Spice but then a little less well-known and Yolanthe never belonged to a girl's band (she's an actress/presenter). They did, however, get hitched in Italy in the summer - barely giving Wesley time to recover from the world cup hangover. There was romance, glamour and a dispute over unpaid bills - showbiz in true style. It was all over the press  - whether you wanted to know about it or not.

Volcanoes: The best volcanic action this year was definitely the Icelandic one which no one can pronounce. It stopped air traffic everywhere. In fact, mother nature has done her best this year to ground planes across the world. She even tried to ruin my Sinterklaas celebrations.

What's the highlight of your year been? What has stuck most with you from events in the Netherlands or your home country in 2010?

Keeping the Bike Wheels Turning

Photo: A van Mulligen

An article on Nu.nl last week reported that many cyclists are complaining that cycle paths are icy and slippy. My initial thought was "Well d'oh! That white stuff keeps falling from the sky, it keeps freezing - and besides the paths are no party either, and even local roads are a mess."

And then the penny dropped - this is what makes the Netherlands that bit different from many other European countries, particularly my country of origin, Britain. Cycle paths here are a way of life, much more than they are in the UK and cycling in the Netherlands is an accepted means of transportation. Getting on your bike is not just a fun Sunday afternoon out, it's a way of life, it's a way of getting from A to B. So snow and ice on the cycle paths is cause for a moan - in the same way the Brits would moan if most of the roads were not cleared for driving safely on.

I read a blog post about cycling in the snow and ice - and at the end of it there was an interesting comment from a Brit living in Sweden. There, many cycle paths are cleared before roads. Culture plays such an important role in how we get about when winter hits.

I witnessed a young man cycling yesterday on my way to the shops and I wasn't sure if I should admire his determination or have him committed. He hared across the icy path in front of me on his two wheels, pedalled across the slushy road and careered onto the snow covered cycle path. And he came to a wobbly grinding halt. Undeterred, he picked up his bike in a graceful motion, placed it on the road and tore off again. Even those in cars were edging their way cautiously along the road but this young cyclist obviously had no desire to be held back by a bit of ice and ten centimetres of snow. However, other cyclists are a little more cautious - hence the complaints pouring in to the Fietsersbond.

The Fietsersbond (Cycling Association) is calling for all main cycle routes to be cleared (not just gritted but swept of snow too). However, we are already hearing mutterings that the salt supply is running low across the country.... and we have much more winter to come.

Are you braving the snow on your bike or have you tucked your bike away until the snow clears?

Merry Christmas

Photo: Kurhan

A very quick post before Santa arrives to wish you all a fun filled festive few days.

Merry Christmas!!!

And for anyone out there who hasn't quite finished their Christmas shopping... give a gift with a conscience!!

A December Winterland

Photo: (C) L van Mulligen

The Netherlands (and much of Europe) has turned into a white winterland in the last few days. Last Thursday it started snowing and a major downfall over the weekend topped it off. For those with no place to go, it has been a few days of sledging, snow boarding and even langlaufen on the unusually quiet roads. 

Photo: (C) A van Mulligen

For those with some place to go, it has been chaos. A quick trip to the supermarket on Saturday for my husband turned in to a scene from a strange movie - he waited with a cyclist for an ambulance to turn up after she slipped on her bike and cut her head open and he witnessed the fire brigade pulling a car from its side in the shopping centre car park after the driver had skidded, hit the kerb and turned the car. It's mad out there!

Photo: (C) A van Mulligen

For those heading abroad for Christmas the recent weather has certainly scuppered travel plans (see Chelsea Girl in China's tale of her quest to get home). I just hope that any of you heading somewhere to spend Christmas with your families make it there in the end. There is a thaw scheduled this week - so the weathermen say.........

Killing Two Birds with One Stone - Zebra Crossings and Police Targets

Photo: Christian Kitazume 

There has been a bit of attention in the press recently for the scrapping by the Minister of Security, Mr Opstelten, of ticket quotas for police officers.

The management team of Utrecht's boys in blue has instead issued a "guideline"of around 160 tickets per year and this will also take account of those police who are not consistently out patrolling the streets. Police performance assessments will still include this element.

Some of the police on Utrecht's force say it is pestering the public. I say "get your butts out to the nearest zebra crossing and meet your quota in a week." Seriously - public safety and a good performance assessment - win win right?

There was a recent article in the Dutch press that stated that more and more drivers are not stopping at zebra crossings. Worse still, many drivers don't actually realise they are required by law to stop and allow pedestrians to cross (the law states those persons clearly about to cross the road). This isn't the first post (or second or third) where I've touched upon this topic - and it won't be the last - but it is a pet peeve.

There is a zebra crossing on the road I cross to get to my son's school. I have stood there in a group of mothers, prams and toddlers whilst cars race on through and we have been collectively amazed that our invisible cloaks really do work!!!!! Mutterings in the group standing with me of "I'd like to throw a brick at cars that don't stop" tell me I am not the only one this bugs....

So anyway - two birds, one stone.

Christmas Tree Top - Dutch Style

Photo: Ugur Vidinligil

In the run up to Christmas in my first year in the Netherlands, my husband and I set out to buy decorations for the Christmas tree we would buy. I We decided on a colour and collected the necessary shiny Christmas balls, snowmen, reindeer and tinselly decorations together.

I then went on the search for a fairy for the top of the tree. Not a single winged-like woman to be seen. Instead some rather odd looking pointy thing that may well have doubled up as a lethal weapon.

"What's that?" I asked my evidently bored husband.
"It's a top," he replied.
"What?"
"A top," he clarified.
"Ok. Top of what?"I asked.
"Top for the Christmas tree," he said as if talking to a toddler.
"Right. That isn't like the 'top' of any Christmas tree I've ever seen. Where are the fairies?" I asked.
Blank look back. So off I went to resume my search of winged decorations. After a fruitless few minutes I returned to my husband.
"I can't find any fairies." I announced.
"Nope," he said.
So I picked up a silver 'top' for my future Christmas tree and mumbled all the way to the checkout about the insanity of a stupid, long pointy thing sitting on my Christmas tree, serving no decorative value whatsoever. But a Christmas tree with nothing on top is like a ballerina sans tutu. It just doesn't cut it.

So since that fateful day in 2000, this silver top (called a kerstpiek I believe) has intermittently sat on top of our Christmas tree. I say intermittently because the stupidness of the long pointy design has been proven time and time again: the top of a Christmas tree is often long and thin and it CANNOT HOLD THE WEIGHT OF THE BLOODY 'TOP'! So we either have a precariously hanging piek (and I am sure the inevitable will happen one year and someone will lose an eye) or a piek that lasts five minutes before I yank it off and put it back in the attic because it looks ridiculous.

But not this year! Finally, I have remembered the loathsome kerstpiek in good time, reminded by the Christmas decorations in Intratuin last week - so I sent an SOS text to my dad. And he has bought me a Christmas fairy. Finally, my tenth Christmas tree here in Holland will have the topping any good Christmas tree deserves.

Passing on Festive Traditions

 On Sunday morning my son woke and decided to treat us to a medley of various Sinterklaas songs; this despite the fact that Pakjesavond and the celebration of Sinterklaas passed a week ago. Obviously spurred on by the theme he hurried downstairs, took one of his shoes from the hall cupboard and placed it in the living room, in the same magical place that had proved profitable just a week or so before. He placed a carrot in his shoe and put some milk in a Tupperware bowl for Sint’s horse. And all this by 9am.

Explaining to my nearly three year old son why putting his shoe out last weekend was redundant was easy.
“Sinterklaas has gone back to Spain, with his horse and all his Zwarte Pieten,” I explained. “He’ll be back next year.”
“The shoe is for the Kerstman,” replies my smart son.
“Oh ok, well Father Christmas doesn’t put presents in shoes. He only comes to the house on Christmas Eve and that is a lot of sleeps away,” I told him.

He looked stumped. And of course why shouldn’t he. Looking deploringly at my husband, I tried to scramble an answer together that explained that Sinterklaas and Father Christmas are different beings (when in fact they are not), that they have different modes of transport (one has a horse and the other reindeer and a sleigh), they come at different times of the year (5 December and 25th December), put presents in different receptacles (one preferring a shoe over the stocking) and they have different types of helpers (Sinterklaas opting for Zwarte Pieten and Father Christmas making use of busy little elves to make toys). I did not even attempt to go into their living arrangements: why one chooses the warmer climate of Spain and the other lives in the rather cold, snowy Lapland. That is a conversation for much later, if he ever asks.

Of course, the one thing he got loud and clear was that Father Christmas also brings presents to good boys and girls across the world. So he placed the carrot back in the vegetable rack, his shoe back in the cupboard and handed me the tub of milk. Then he pointed to his stocking, and I reiterated that on Christmas Eve he could hang it on his bed and Father Christmas would fill it with presents, as long as he is a good boy…….

And that closed the conversation out for now. The discussion we would eventually have with our children about the Dutch Sinterklaas and the British version, that of Father Christmas, was a topic of conversation between me and my husband some time ago, long before our son was even born. To reconcile the two events seemed quite difficult when we talked about it, but it is something that needs to be done in a multi-cultural household.

The Dutch ‘do’ Christmas much more than they used to. The main celebration used to be Sinterklaas on the 5th December but Christmas has become more commercial here and now it is also a time of giving gifts. However, my husband’s childhood memories, and the traditions around Christmas are very different to mine. In England we do not celebrate Sinterklaas. Until ten years ago, I had never heard of it and knew nothing about it. It was all about Christmas for us.

So our first Christmas together was a unique and new experience for my Dutch partner: Christmas stockings, Christmas pudding, brandy butter, presents under the Christmas tree, mince pies, turkey with stuffing and cranberry sauce and pulling Christmas crackers before tucking into lunch. This was all new to him, but for me, all traditional.

So now, every year, he directs the Sinterklaas celebration and I organise Christmas. This way we pass on our own holiday traditions to each other, and our children, and share the uniqueness of our culture with each other. Our son of course benefits as he gets two rounds of presents……. the luck of a child with a mother from England and a father from the Netherlands.

Expat Royal Wedding Fever

According to an article in The Telegraph this week, there has been a significant surge in flight searches within the Netherlands for the dates around THE royal wedding planned for 2011.

For those of you living under stones or who have been incommunicado in recent weeks, the British crown prince, Prince William, is due to marry Kate Middleton on April 29 2011. It is the first royal wedding of interest since Prince William's father married Lady Diana Spencer in 1981 (and no I won't say "and look at how that turned out").

Is this surge in flight searches British expats scrambling to get back to the UK for the big event? Or does it reflect wedding-happy Dutch travellers keen to compare this British royal wedding to the Dutch royal wedding of Maxima and Willem-Alexander?

The fact that so many Brits are looking to escape the UK around the time of the wedding and take advantage of the additional time off work might give us a clue......

Who's heading back for the royal wedding? Anyone? Or are you staying put to celebrate Queen's Day like only the Dutch can? Any Dutch expats in Britain planning to head to London for Kate and William's special day?

Rent or Adopt a Christmas Tree

Now that Sinterklaas is on his way back to Spain, those of you with Dutch partners will be allowed to set up your Christmas tree (at least that is how it works in our household - something about it being sacrilegious to put up a tree when the dear St Nicholaas and his Pieten have not yet visited).

Every year we traipse in search of a prize specimen to grace our front room, hoping that the tree we pick will actually last until we have seen the new year in and doesn't lose so many needles that we are still finding them under the sofa at Easter. For this reason we have actually considered an artificial tree until we see the price of the things, and wonder where we will store it in our 'loftless' house. So each year we end up getting a real tree - though still not exactly cheap. I also can't help considering the environmental impact of this tree that sits in our house for a month. One of millions chopped every year......

According to www.milieucentraal.nl, there is little between an artificial tree and a real tree when it comes to is environmental friendliness - they just have different impacts. Of course an artificial tree can never give off the seasonal, festive smell of the pine needles of a real one; an artificial tree does of course mean you are not extracting pine needles out of your feet for six months of the year....

One suggestion on www.milieucentraal.nl is to rent a Christmas tree - this gives the tree a longer life as it can be used three to five times before its life is over. The idea is that you pay a 'statiegeld' (yep, like you do with some bottles) and after Christmas you deliver (or it gets picked up) the tree back for it to be replanted. This is popular with companies.

You can also adopt a tree, returning it every year to the kwekerij where it is replanted and looked after so you can pick it up again the following year. Visit http://www.adopteereenkerstboom.nl/ for more information.

Guest Post: Robin Pascoe looks back on her visits to Holland

Author, inspirational speaker, writer, mother of third culture kids, traveller and once an accompanying spouse. Many words to describe my guest blogger today. Two words sum it up better: Expert expat. I am delighted that Robin Pascoe has written a guest blog for A Letter from the Netherlands - here she takes a look back at her visits to Holland. Over to Robin.......


I decided this past year to stop traveling around the world on speaking tours primarily because I had visions of people saying, is she still doing that? But I overlooked one huge downside to my decision:

I wouldn’t be visiting Holland on a regular basis anymore!

When my husband left diplomatic service for the private sector and we repatriated to Vancouver, Canada, I never figured I would lecture ever again. Until one day, in our first year back and out of the clear blue, I had a fax (yes, that’s how long ago it was) from my original publisher in Singapore: a group in The Hague called “Outpost” was interested in inviting me to Holland to keynote their first Global Conference.

Immediately, I called my best friend who was living in Holland at the time and asked her to investigate just who this Outpost group might be. At the same time, I played a heavy guilt card on my husband (who was travelling more, if that was possible, in his new job) that it was time for me to have a go at getting out of town.

Shell Outpost as everyone knows, became the role model for all the corporate spousal organisations that have followed since. It turned out that a survey had revealed my very first book about being an expat wife was very popular with Shell spouses. Who knew? Not me. I always have claimed I have a life I don’t personally participate in!

Shell kicked off for me over ten years of coming over to Holland from my side of the world to speak to so many groups, I had to really think hard to remember them all.

There was the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) in the early days; the American School of the Hague (twice); and the International School of Amsterdam  (also twice). Expatica.com, a great site I contributed articles to on a regular basis, organised a conference or two (I think one was in Rotterdam).

Then there were the women’s clubs: the American Women’s Club of Amsterdam (twice); Global Connection (also twice); Connecting Women in The Hague; the European Professional Women’s Network and of course, Shell Outpost in The Hague (too many times to remember after that initial conference).

The list (and I know I’m forgetting others) doesn’t do justice, though, to how much fun I always had visiting Holland and how much I miss it.

From my very first trip, where I insisted (even knowing I have no sense of direction), “oh, please don’t go to the bother of picking me up at the airport” because I would rather catch a train and go in the opposite direction of The Hague... to my last one, when my non-stop KLM flight back to Vancouver was the only flight on the board at Schipol Airport to be cancelled that day.

Robin travelling in traditional style in Amsterdam 

There was also the time I met over lunch with my Google doppelganger, the British journalist living in Holland also named Robin Pascoe and then wrote a funny piece about ‘meeting myself’ for a Canadian newspaper.

Finally, they say a picture is worth a thousand stories. This one of me sitting in a Dutch bakfiets which was my means of transport to my AWC meeting by my hostess made it to the cover of my re-issued wife book. I was certainly glad my hostess was very fit as I watched the streetcars whiz by me in the opposite direction.

Too many stories (Queen’s Day celebrations one year in Hilversum would be an entire blog posting on its own) and too many memories (most of them involving getting lost!)

One day, I simply must get back, as my good friend and partner-in-expat-writing crime Jo Parfitt is living in The Hague inspiring new authors.

And where does her husband work? Shell, of course.  What goes around definitely comes around!

Author and ExpatExpert Robin Pascoe doesn’t travel anymore so she created an on line global lecture tour at www.youtube.com/robinpascoe