Ten Things You Don't Know about The Netherlands and the Dutch Until You Move Here (Part 3)

The typical Dutch stereotype consists of cheese eating, clog wearing tall people talking a dialect of German with a backdrop of windmills sailing round on the flatlands. However, there is much more to this small country and the people who live in it than the rest of the world thinks. Here's the third part of a series on things you don't necessarily know about the Dutch and their country until you move here.

5. There's More to the Netherlands than Amsterdam
Sure, the capital city is quaint, interesting, unusual and a honey pot for tourists, but there are so many more places to visit when you hop over to the Netherlands. In fact, there's so much more I'm not even going to try to do a round up here. Suffice to say if you want to see the real Netherlands, venture further afield than Amsterdam. Visit www.holland.com for lots more information and ideas.

6. UFOs are Everywhere
That's 'unidentified fried objects' if you're wondering. To be honest, before I moved here I couldn't have offered any suggestions at all about what Dutch people eat (apart from cheese). Now I live here, it's an easy question to answer - anything weirdly shaped and fried! In Holland, most of these UFOs are known as snacks:

Kipcorn (chicken like sausage covered in breadcrumbs and fried)
Frikandel (indescribable contents shaped like a long sausage and fried)
Bitterballen (often seen on the menu in bars - small balls of fried things)
Picanto (thick sausage snack which is... you guessed it.. fried)
Patat (otherwise known as fries or chips and in any case certainly fried)

Traditional food at New Year, oliebollen which are in essence dough balls, are also fried.

In short, they've all seen the inside of a deep fat fryer. When you're in the Netherlands, go native and give snacks a try. Just don't ask too much about what is in them.

Ten Things You Don't Know about The Netherlands and the Dutch Until You Move Here (Part 2)

Photo: (c) Amanda van Mulligen

The typical Dutch stereotype consists of cheese eating, clog wearing tall people talking a dialect of German with a backdrop of windmills sailing round on the flatlands. However, there is much more to this small country and the people who live in it than the rest of the world thinks. Here's the second part of a series on things you don't necessarily know about the Dutch and their country until you move here.

3. The Dutch Don't Mince Their Words
The idea of a bumbling Brit trying to politely make his point heard is an alien concept to the Dutch who say what they mean and think nothing of it. It is not rudeness, it's simply honesty. A good example given by many expats is the Dutch reluctance to wrap up the message of "That dress doesn't suit you" or "That haircut is a disaster" whereas an American or Brit would tackle it a little more tactfully - if they'd do anything more than nod appreciatively and then bitch about it when they get home. At least you get to hear the truth.....

4. The Dutch Language is Actually Distinctive
I remember being on holiday in Turkey as a teenager, standing in line for one attraction or another in front of a group of foreign speaking tourists. It sounded, simply put, like a strange German dialect. Now I live here, I realise it really is a very different language to that of our neighbours in the east. I could certainly pick it out of a line up now.

Dutch is also a Germanic language (West Germanic to be precise) and whilst it has similarities to German, it also has word origins in common with English. Many Dutch have no issues speaking the German language but the same is not true the other way around.

Dutch is much less harsh when spoken, and I think a little more poetic than German. And besides, if I repeated my thoughts from my teenage years I may find myself homeless.......

Ten Things You Don't Know about The Netherlands and the Dutch Until You Move Here (Part 1)

Photo: Suresh

The typical Dutch stereotype consists of cheese eating, clog wearing tall people talking a dialect of German with a backdrop of windmills sailing round on the flatlands. However, there is much more to this small country and the people who live in it than the rest of the world thinks. Here's the first part of a series on things you don't necessarily know about the Dutch and their country until you move here.


1. Coffee is an Obsession
There is a fair bit of cheese here and the Dutch do miss their Edam and Gouda cheese when they leave the shores of the Netherlands but what comes as more of a surprise when you come to live here is the national obsession with coffee. The Dutch drink a lot of coffee. I mean an awful lot of coffee. How's this for coffee drinking? After the Scandinavian countries, the Dutch are the world's biggest consumers of coffee. The average consumption is about 150 litres of the stuff per year - three cups a day.

Photo: John Nyberg

It's drunk for every occasion and is usually accompanied by a sweet treat if you are visiting.

2. Part-Timers Rule
Despite the government trying every way they can think off (aside from compulsory work laws) to incentivise women to work full-time, it has failed miserably. The Dutch have the most part-time workers in the whole of the EU. To quote the European Commissions statistics group (Eurostat),

"All regions in the Netherlands record a remarkably low average (ed: of working hours) compared with other regions. The highest value in the Netherlands was found in Flevoland with an average of 31.6 hours per week, which is still 2.4 hours less than in Martinique (France), the region with the lowest value of all regions in the EU, not counting the Netherlands. This supports the conclusion that the Netherlands is a special case regarding the average time spent at work."

And the best thing is that Dutch women are extremely happy with their working lives and the home-work balance. They simply have better things to do. Read the article on Slate for more explanation.

The Modern Day Dutch & British High Street

At the end of last year I watched a series on the BBC called "Turn Back Time; The High Street". It was a weekly series which placed modern day shopkeepers and tradespeople on business on a high street and then turned back the clock. The viewer was taken back in time to 1870 when the High Street came into being, through the Edwardian and Victorian eras, to the 1930s, to rationing during World War 2 through to the 1960s and 1970s. It was fascinating.

Photo: Jelmer Rozendal

Each shop owner was only allowed to stock what was actually available in the time period, and sell their wares in the manner of the era. From small, family, specialist businesses the high street turned into a dead, empty shells as large self-service supermarkets took over. The High Street changed in response to customer demands and trends; cheap, disposable goods. And nobody seemed too thrilled with the way it developed - yet that is the reality of our high streets in Britain - chain stores and large supermarkets.

It's not hugely different in the Netherlands. I read that up to 90% of high street stores belong to a chain and that certainly fits with how I see each new town I visit - the standard shops strewn across every town centre. International branded shops are emerging on a regular basis (like Starbucks and the Apple Store). One difference in the Netherlands though is the absence of superstores and huge out of town retail parks.

Photo: Petra Giner

I also think local shopping still plays a big role here. Within walking distance of where I live there are two bakers, three supermarkets, two newsagents/bookstores, a post office, two delicatessens, two takeaway shops and two chemists. None of the shops are very big, including the supermarkets. In fact they are barely the size of a Tesco Extra store but for many locals these supermarkets are where they do their main shopping and visit them daily.

The specialist shops nearby do tend to be independent, family businesses so whilst the average high street is dominated by chains, the local arena does seem to be open to smaller fish.

Is your local shopping area dominated by chains or is there still room for independent shopkeepers where you live? What do you think about the way High Streets have developed?

The Hell of 1963 - An Elfstedentocht To Remember

Photo: (c) Amanda van Mulligen

The Elfstedentocht (Eleven Cities Tour) of '63 took place exactly 48 years ago today. The Elfstedentocht is a 200km skating marathon that takes place on frozen over canals, rivers and lakes in Friesland, in the north of the Netherlands - the country's biggest natural ice marathon and the world's longest.

1963 saw a particularly harsh competition, hence the label of "De Hel van '63". Temperatures dropped to -18 degrees centigrade. Only 126 of the 9,000 skaters who started the race crossed the finish line. Thousands of skaters suffered from frost bite, frozen eyes, broken bones and other similar horrible injuries

Dutch director, Steven de Jong, directed a historical drama based on the twelfth Elfstedentocht - 'De Hel van '63' was released in 2009 and it had very mixed reviews. However, I really enjoyed it and it's a great way to spend 108 minutes to get a good idea about the Dutch culture around skating, the importance of the Elfstedentocht, how the Elfstedentocht works in practice and how severe the 1963 drama actually was.

In a nutshell, the skaters pass through eleven Frisian cities, starting and ending in the Frisian capital of Leeuwarden. In each city participants collect a stamp (as well as in two secret locations along the route to stop cheating) but they must pass though all checkpoints by midnight to qualify as a finisher. The winner of 1963 was Reinier Paping - in conditions so severe he became somewhat of a national hero.



The last Elfstedentocht took place in 1997, but every winter the rumblings and hopes of the event taking place 'this year' surface. In fact, at the end of last year, there was a flare of (unfounded) optimism when weatherman, Harry Otten ( Wereldomroep) said if everyone went out to clear the snow from the ice there could be an Elfstedentocht 'next week'. In reality, the ice was not thick enough (it needs to be 15 cm thick across the entire course).

I am looking forward to the year it can be held - what an event that will be!

Expat Book Review: Postcards from Across the Pond by Michael Harling

Michael Harling is an American who accidentally ended up living in the UK. He met his future wife in Ireland and moved to Sussex to be exact. And having been raised in a rural area of corn fields and cow farms, a twenty minute drive from the nearest shop, Sussex must have seemed a little crowded to this new immigrant in town. In any case, the move from the US to the US certainly gave Harling enough fodder for an amusing book about life in Britain through the eyes of a foreigner.

This book is not only a funny read, but highlights something interesting: For an American, a move to the UK would seem an easy one to make - the language is (almost) the same, the culture is not worlds apart. However, Harling soon discovered that the differences lay in the small things in daily life. He found that everything "is just off-center enough to give you a sense of permanent imbalance." This struck a big, clanging chord with me.

I wrote an article for The Telegraph last year about the differences between life in the Netherlands and life in my native Britain. A reader commented that adjusting to life in in the Netherlands was in fact a piece of cake and the two countries really are very alike. But they are not - and I think Harling hits the nail on the head with his observations of life in Britain: When you move to a far off land you expect life to be very different, when you to a country nearby or one with much in common you don't expect your life to be rocked. But it is - just by leaving your home country.

The differences lie in the little things like posting a letter, getting a parcel delivered, getting a social security number, driving, shopping, sports, weather, TV, queuing, bureaucracy.... Need I go on? 

Luckily, this book is not a mammoth whinge about everything in the UK being inferior to its US cousin. Au contraire, Harling doesn't see all the adaptations he needs to make as a step in the wrong direction. In fact, he gives the impression that he actually quite likes a lot of the differences - once he got used to them.

In this book, which is actually a collection of blog postings he has made over the years, he shares his astonishment at the lack of St. Patrick's Day celebrations in England; his difficulty buying shoe laces; his confusion playing the game of rounders (which he likens to baseball until he sees the bat. "The bat resembles a giant rolling pin with only one handle," he explains); the haphazardness of the local bus schedules; and trying to recreate Thanksgiving away from the US ("Last Thursday was Thanksgiving, and 60 million people on this island didn't give a shit," he tells us).

This book is 172 pages to make you titter (a word us Brits can use without sniggering) and it's a great read for all expats everywhere, for Brits who can laugh at themselves, and Americans who want to know how different life is on the other side of the Atlantic.

His blog of the same title (where he describes himself as an "American author living in the south of England, sort of like Bill Bryson but without the best selling books and gobs of money") is http://postcardsfromacrossthepond.blogspot.com/ 

Could There Be A Firework Ban in the Pipeline?

Finally! Some sense! At their next meeting, Dutch Mayors will be discussing banning firework use by individuals after spending yet more of tax payer's money to repair the damage after another New Year's Eve in the Netherlands. I won't bother ranting about it all again, but suffice to say I am pleased that there are those in the local councils across the country that recognise this 'blowing up and vandalising at new year' culture isn't normal and shouldn't be accepted as a way of closing out the year.

This move comes after the mayor of Schiedam spoke out and said enough is enough. 85,000 euro is what the damage there alone is costing. 

I love the fireworks at midnight here but the fireworks all day long makes no sense...... but I guess there is no happy medium so it will be interesting to see what they come up with.......

Guest Post For Clogs and Tulips

Photo: (c) Amanda van Mulligen

If you have any interest in what it's like to have a baby in the Netherlands, then I've just written a guest post for Tiffany's blog, Clogs and Tulips.

"If you trawl expat forums, you are likely to come across some heavy criticism of the Dutch maternity system. And yes, I agree, having a baby in the Netherlands may not be the same as having a baby back in your home country but there are worse things you can do. Here’s what I’ve learnt through two pregnancies and births in the Netherlands."

Read the full post here.

Keeping It Local to Rebuild Shattered Lives

As you may know by now, I love to shout about expats who are doing great things in their host country. If you have missed it, check out my latest article to be published. Ode has run it and the thing I love most about Ode is that they only share positive news. It's an article about British expat Figen Cakir who is using her art and design skills to do her bit to help her community in the Turkish city of Golcuk. Nice news to start 2011 off with.

Interview With Me On Orangesplaash

Orangesplaash, an expat blog with tales of travel adventures, cross-cultural dilemmas and expat tips has published an interview with me. It was great fun and made me realise what fun my journey has been in the Netherlands.

"Amanda van Mulligen is our expat guest for this week, sharing tips and tales from her expat  life in the Netherlands spanning more than 10 years. A fellow expat blogger, Amanda writes passionately about all things expat related, along with managing her own company The Writing Well,  that provides English language writing services. I personally enjoy her writing style and insights into expat life in the Netherlands."

If you want to read the full interview visit Orangesplaash. Thanks Arwa for asking me to participate.

A New Year's Dip

Aside from blowing things up and spending over 60million euro on fireworks, the Dutch traditionally take to the water at New Year by means of a nieuwjaarsduik. At different events across the country brave souls don their swim gear and charge into a body of freezing water. I went to watch them in Zoetermeer at the Noord Aa.

To say it was all as mad as I had expected is an understatement. Two hundred people stood together on the Noord Aa beach wearing woolly red Unox hats with towels and dressing gowns covering their swimming shorts, bikinis, T-shirts and swimsuits. They all waited in good spirits for a local councillor to give them the go ahead at 13.00 to start their run into the water.

Photo (c) Amanda van Mulligen

As preparation there was a few minutes warm up before everyone shed their dressing gown and towels....

Photo (c) Amanda van Mulligen

 and then they were off....

Photo (c) Amanda van Mulligen

Two hundred Zoetermeerders pelted it down the beach into the water. There were a few minutes of screaming, laughing and splashing before the last dipper was back on shore, dabbing themselves down with towels, blankets and warming their tummies with a hot cup of Unox soup.

Now.. er.. happy new year!! You can see more of the Noord Aa event in the video below.

Deaths, Injuries, Vandalism - Just A Peaceful New Year's Eve in Holland

Photo: L van Mulligen

Growing up in England, New Year's Eve was about seeing the new year in with friends and family. We would spend the evening in a pub somewhere talking and drinking and maybe dancing. In England, you can even post a letter on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day if you want. Here in the Netherlands, pre-empting the destruction, TNT blocks up all the postboxes across the two days so no fireworks can be put in the postboxes. In some high risk areas, they remove the postboxes altogether. Parking meters are covered up, letterboxes for apartment blocks are covered over in plywood and public transport shuts down before the night even gets going. But that isn't enough to stop some.

Despite ten years here, the activities on Dutch streets on New Year's Eve never cease to amaze me. Children as young as five and six carry around rucksacks full of fireworks, letting them off as they walk around their neighbourhood. Grown men demonstrate to their toddlers how fireworks can blow up a snow mound or a drain. Children still in junior school set fires in the streets, burning anything they can find around them on the paths and when that runs out going door to door to ask for paper. In some areas,  residents feel trapped in their houses as fireworks are thrown at their houses and cars.  40 cars were set fire to in The Hague, just like last year. Bus shelters, shop windows, post boxes and bins are blown up as a matter of course. Fires burn in streets - anything from Christmas trees to mattresses thrown on as fuel. The fire services were busy across the country - they put out 200 fires in undergrounds bins in Amsterdam alone.

And that is to say nothing of the human cost of New Year's Eve in the Netherlands. This year two families lost a child to the culture around fireworks on New Year's Eve in the Netherlands, both as a result of homemade fireworks. Others spent New Year's Day in the hospital with loved ones. Police officers were injured in some of the big cities and in other areas the police seemed to keep a low profile to avoid confrontation, meaning gangs of youths ruled the streets for the night. Other emergency service workers risked being attacked whilst trying to do their jobs.

642 people were arrested in total across the country on New Year's Eve for attacking others (including public service workers such as firemen, ambulance personnel and police), vandalism and other offences.

The thing that really amazes me every year is the media quoting high ranking police officers and mayors saying "New Year's Eve was relatively peaceful". Try telling that to the car owners who have nothing but a burnt out wreck left over, or the family of the police officer with a serious head injury caused by yobs with fireworks, or the families in Ypenburg who are busy replacing their windows after yobs went on the rampage there.

For some reason, New Year's Eve is about disorder and destruction to many in big cities across the Netherlands. It is an opportunity to attack, destroy and be violent and each year it gets no better, despite steps taken by the police. And to call New Year's Eve 'relatively peaceful' seems to me to be accepting the violence and destruction as the norm. Violence and damage aside, I can't even get my head around children spending New Year's Eve letting off fireworks.

Naturally, the majority of the population see the New Year in in a sensible and gezellig manner - with champagne, oliebollen and appelflappen shared with family and friends. And unfortunately, it is usually these people that spend New Year's Day cleaning up the streets they live in and sweeping up the damage caused by others. What a way to start the year.......