Having A Bad Day

I’ve not had that many of these since arriving in Haarlem but every now and then the black cloud that represents the downside of expat living looms overhead.

Being on an overseas assignment gives you wonderful opportunities, but there are days when you just can’t appreciate them. I’ve seen the tulip fields, I’ve been up a windmill and I have taken a boat trip down a canal. So what next?

The worse thing about this ex-pat assignment (and funnily enough it was the best thing about our last one - payback time I suppose) is the weather. Dutch weather can be a tad depressing. Even on a bright sunny day there is still a wind chill factor of -10. So even when you think summer has arrived, an icy blast reminds you that it hasn't (and I am beginning to doubt it ever will).

This Tuesday was Liberation Day in the Netherlands, a national holiday celebrated every 5 years. Bevrijdingspops, huge free festivals are held at eight venues across Holland including Haarlem. So, just as the Kings Day funfair finally folded away in the Grote Markt,  hoards of young people arrived for the concert in the local park. Predictably, despite Tuesday morning dawning bright and sunny, at 12 noon the wind turned to hurricane force and the heavens opened. The Bevrijdingspop had to be gesloten – closed for another couple of hours.  When we strolled along at 5.00 pm the streets of Haarlem were littered with the debris of Dutch youth, having had two hours to kill and nowhere to go.

We went along for curiosities sake. As one female singer delivered a distinctly ‘Eurovision’ style song – lots of arm waving and a very repetitive chorus of Why, Why, Why (at least it was very easy to pick up the words and join in) I could see Mr T asking himself the same question. Why stand lost in a crowd of very tall drunken Dutch teenagers swigging beer and smoking joints when he could be sat in the comfort of his own home watching Pointless? (It must be an age thing.)

After narrowly avoiding being hit by a giant mud covered flying ball and a plastic cup of beer that some passing youth tossed over his shoulder with total disregard for whoever was behind him, I agreed that being back at home probably was the safest place to be. After all, we could still hear the music – did it matter that we couldn’t see who was singing it?

The tossed beer cup was just the start of a few days of Dutch bad manners, which although not normally bothering me (after all you get rude people everywhere) just seemed to culminate this week in darkening that ex-pat black cloud. Why did the man in the supermarket queue jump across to the newly opened checkout without letting those who had been waiting in the queue longest go first? (The poor woman in front of me was only buying a banana, she had even counted out the exact cash.) Why couldn’t the shop assistant sweeping the floor ask me to move out of the way rather than just shoving his broom into my feet? Is it that difficult to say pardon or excuse me?

Maybe I’ve just been pushed off the pavement one time too many.

Maybe I've got fed up of wearing my winter boots.

Fortunately, I know the feeling will pass. Meanwhile I think Ed has the right idea.

Top Tips

The expat  website this blog appears on has issued a call out for top tips on settling into the Netherlands. Actually I’ve found re-locating to the Netherlands comparatively easy compared to our last re-location to the US but in an effort to be helpful, here goes:

Learn the language.

Fortunately for us Brits, most Dutch people speak extremely good English, and unfortunately for the Dutch, I’m never going to pronounce 'goedemorgen' like a native, no matter how hard I try. In fact most Dutch people only have to look at me to know that Dutch is not my mother-tongue (I’m 5ft 2 so it’s a dead giveaway). The language barrier was probably more of an issue when we moved to the US – refer to an elevator as a lift and most Americans look at you as if you’ve just beamed down from Mars. Here in Holland it’s not a problem – there are no lifts, prepare for stairs.

Seriously though – it’s only polite to make the effort. You will receive post; you will want to read notices and endeavour to understand the parking permit and household waste bills that arrive with alarming regularity from the local Gemeente (another unpronounceable ‘hhh’ word). You might also want to be able to understand a menu  unless of course you don’t mind eating offal or wild hare. I know there is Google translate (do the Dutch pronounce that Hoogle?) – but that is not infallible. There are words in Dutch that just don’t exist anywhere else and NEVER jump to conclusions. For example, despite what you might think the first time you see it, oude kunst actually means OLD ART (masterpieces in fact).

Wrap Up Warm – it’s cold

We have yet to experience a Dutch summer and I can’t wait. The wind that blows down off the North Sea is icy. I can’t speak for anyone who lives in a modern apartment, but our 1930’s Dutch house is cold. High ceilings, lots of windows, and at least an inch of daylight around the front door. Invest in some warm clothing – I’ve yet to see my next door neighbour without his scarf (and that’s just for indoors).

Buy A Bike

If you want to blend in you’ll need a bike. There are no couch potatoes here – the Dutch are undeniably fit and they cycle everywhere. They start cycling the moment they are born (in fact I suspect Mama cycles to the labour ward and Papa straps her and baby on his bike for the cycle home). By the age of 3 they will have their own wheels and they’ll still be cycling at 80.

Keep an Open Mind

This is true wherever you go – not just the Netherlands. Every country has its own customs and habits and you just have to respect them. I didn’t like Zwarte Piet, but that’s just what the Dutch do, just like they sell cannabis in coffee shops and can’t make a decent cup of tea.

Retain Your Sense of Humour

Remember to keep hold of yours and learn to tolerate theirs. The Dutch have a particularly wacky sense of humour; even the most straight laced looking of middle-aged shop assistants can prove to be a right tease. You just have to go with the flow.

Be Realistic...and patient

Moving anywhere new is always going to be a struggle; it's an upheaval, it's stressful and it will take time and effort to settle in. See it as an opportunity to overcome adversity and find an inner strength you never knew you had.

And finally, when all else fails, sit back, relax and enjoy the apple cake!

International Relations

I’m ashamed to admit that our attempts to learn Dutch are failing miserably.  It’s very easy to have good intentions, very hard to put them into practice when everyone you meet responds to you in perfect English. So far the only problem we have encountered is being unable to read our post – but at the moment we get very little of that and Mr T has very helpful work colleagues who have been able to translate the payment schedule for our waste collection and parking permit.

Now that I’ve met up with a  few ex-pats the incentive to learn has diminished even further. The general opinion of the Dutch language (even from the Dutch themselves) is that it is complicated, impossible for anyone who wasn’t born with a guttural frog in their throat to pronounce, and spoken by no other nation in the world.  I know it’s lazy, and not exactly helpful for integration, but when you’ve met other travellers who have lived in the Netherlands for a dozen years and still don’t speak any Dutch, you do start to wonder what’s the point? If I had children at school, yes. If I planned to spend the rest of my life here, yes, but just passing through? Although I would genuinely like to learn to say more than hello, goodbye, count to ten and understand the days of the week, with ready access to the BBC, English language films at the cinema, and English books and newspapers, it's very easy not to.

Initially I thought a lack of Dutch would prove a major hindrance to my social skills. I worried about making small talk. What if someone I sat next to on the bus or met at the swimming pool wished to stop for a chat? I need not have feared.  The Dutch are remarkably subdued - polite yes, friendly and helpful yes, but this is not America and no-one is going to recount their whole life story to me in the check-out queue.

However,  at least here in the Netherlands people have heard of our home town of Southampton. Back in California whenever we were asked where we were from I got fed up of trying to explain I was from a large shipping port on the south coast of England.  Even mentioning the Titanic still drew a blank. It became easier just to say I was from south (of) London, which wasn’t exactly a lie, just an exaggeration  of about seventy miles. However, here in the Netherlands, it’s a completely different story.

‘Southampton? Ah  Ronald Koeman……’

Yes, dear Saint Ronald. His arrival in our home city couldn’t have been more fortuitous, and not just for the football club.  Everyone from waiters to windmill curators has heard of Southampton.  We have an immediate rapport - in English, of course!

A series of fortunate, and unfortunate events....

This is the post I was going to make before I became totally sidetracked by Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet.

Last week was a bit of a week. First, came the high of finishing an unprecedented fifth in the pub quiz.  I think we’ve probably peaked. There are a handful of teams who regularly  finish in the top three and I’m pretty sure the reason why these guys have welcomed us so readily is because they recognise we are not a threat. But still, it’s the taking part that counts, and it remains the highlight of our social week.

However, that may change because I have now made some new friends. My ‘lonely hearts’, or rather ‘middle-aged empty nester seeks others in similar position’ ad attracted a handful of replies on the English Speaking website.  I spent a very happy afternoon taking tea with three other ex-pats, all of whom seemed eager to meet up on a regular basis.  Ex-pats tend to forge friendships pretty quickly, and as much as I love my cat, and my computer, I do need to start getting out more.

The lowlight of the week was the serious incident with the boiler. We’ve had problems on and off with our heating system since our arrival.  The instruction manual kindly left by our home owners is as incomprehensible in English as it is in Dutch. Our super smug brain thermostat relays messages from the boiler in the attic, and this week’s message was ‘pressure low, refill’. This is the second time this message has occurred, first time we followed instructions as best we could and all seemed well. This time not so good. As soon as Mr T had left to board the train for an overnight meeting in Antwerp, there was an almighty bang followed by the ominous sound of gallons of gushing water.

Fortunately my next door neighbour was in, and who better to rise to the challenge of halting a flood than a Dutchman.  To my great relief he bounded up the stairs and managed to stem the flow of water, not by sticking his finger in a hole but by switching off a tap that Mr T must have inadvertently left loose in his haste to head off to Antwerp. Fortunately there appears to be no permanently damage to the house, or the boiler, which was repaired the next day by a handsome heating engineer who reassured me there was an underlying fault in the system, and the problem was not entirely caused by Mr T’s (lack of) plumbing skills.

The main damage appears to be to my nerves. I now find myself stealing closet glances at the ‘brain’, waiting for the next incriminating message to pop up.  I’m as jumpy as the cat. The slightest noise, a rumble of an aircraft overhead, a slamming door, and we both start twitching. Ed currently spends about ninety percent of the day hiding in the closet, and it’s actually quite tempting to join him.

Cats hate change, and we have moved him from a cul-de-sac where he was pretty much the only moggy on the block, to a terraced house which backs onto an alley way frequented by several other felines. We’ve so far encountered a slinky-malinky sort of Burmese thing and a giant Tabby which although looking as harmless as fluffy pyjama case, probably isn’t.

We both have to learn to relax, and breathe…..

That Monday Morning Feeling....

It’s five years now since I’ve held down a proper job so I’ve not had to suffer  ‘that Monday morning feeling’ for some time. However, this week I realised there is something worse than that Monday morning feeling, it’s that dropping someone back at the airport on a Monday morning feeling.

The university fledgling paid her first visit this weekend. We did our best to give her the ‘taste of Holland’ experience – we took her down a canal and up a windmill. The only thing we didn’t quite manage to do was get her on a bike, but there’ll be plenty more opportunities for that. 

First thing yesterday morning she was off, and back on my own in the house I had my first ‘wobbly moment’ since arriving in Haarlem.

I know from past experiences that there is no point dwelling in despair – the why did we have to move here, I miss everybody, how am I ever going to make any friends,  blah blah blah; it gets you nowhere and the truth is I was more than happy to come to Holland because the last thing I wanted was to face that ‘empty nest’ back in the UK.  It takes time to establish a social life, and after all, we have only been here just over two weeks.

So, determined to beat those Monday morning blues – I focussed, and set out to discover the swimming pool, not because I wanted to swim, but because I was adamant those cycling Dutch Google map guys were not going to defeat me.  And there it was.  I had been looking for a vast sports centre, when in fact it was a modest brick building down a suburban side street - very easy to miss. I was welcomed by middle-aged receptionist who happily translated the timetable for me. Even more morale boosting rather than suggesting I might want to join the ouderen zwemmen – elderly swimming sessions – she thought I might wish to come along with my kinderen – children.  I could have hugged her.

Totally buoyed up, I cycled home and tackled a trip to the grocery store. I had prepped a list in advance and managed to successfully return home with three days’ worth of meals planned. That’s a first.

Could the day get any better? Yes it could. A colleague of Mr T’s had mentioned her husband was a regular at an Irish bar in Haarlem where they have a Monday evening quiz. Last week we’d gone along and although we’d finished second to last we’d had a pretty good evening. This week we returned for more, and finished 7^th out 11 teams, not too bad considering most of the other teams have at least four members and there's only the two of us. Even better, we won the ‘free drink question’ - how much of the Netherlands are actually below sea-water -  a question which Mr T had posed for our own quiz team back in the UK just weeks earlier (it’s 26% in case you are wondering). The day was rounded off when another couple stopped us at the bar as we made our triumphant exit and suggested  if we were all there next week maybe we should join forces and become a regular team…..

Waking up this morning to another day of leaden skies, heavy rain, gale force winds, and no-one but the cat to talk to until tea time, doesn’t seem half so bad as it did yesterday.

The Great Outdoors

We’ve now been living in Haarlem a week, and I think we’ve settled in remarkably well.  In fact – apart from not being able to speak a word of the language - I think I was born to be Dutch.  I’ve taken to my bicycle like a natural.  Nine kilometres to the beach? No sweat. After a week of  rather grey damp weather on Sunday the sun came out and it was time to finally unleash the bike.

Our nearest beach is Bloemendaal-aan-Zee and it’s totally accessible by bicycle path – no traffic to contend with apart from maniacs on mopeds and roller skates. Even the humiliation of being over-taken on an uphill (OK a slight incline) stretch by a couple of 70’ year olds on their racing bikes couldn’t spoil the pleasure of the afternoon.

Who needs  a car? The Dutch are fit. They may well drink a lot of beer and eat hearty,  heavy food, but it seems to get burnt off – either that or it goes upwards rather than outwards, which might explain the height issue.

We’ve met our neighbours – fortunately both sides are fluent in English and it is embarrassing that so far I can do little more than mutter a hesitant ‘goede morgen’ in Dutch.

However, the Google-translate is proving invaluable in sussing out the inner-workings of our new house.  The word for today is verzekering - insurance. Not that exciting, but unfortunately a necessity and something we take for granted back home.  We have accrued a fair pile of correspondence already and although we don’t need to know what each letter says word for word, just being able to get the gist of what we are paying for helps. In Holland personal liability insurance is compulsory. It's all back to those bikes again - doesn't matter if one hits you or you hit one, it's always your fault.

Modern technology too is proving difficult to comprehend. Our state of the art central heating system appears to have a mind of its own (it seems to come on when the house is already warm, as opposed to when it’s cold). Despite being  left an instruction manual in English, the messages that appear on the programmer (which rather smugly refers to itself as ‘the brain’) are all in Dutch. 

But still, its early days and after a re-shuffle of the furniture, the purchase of some lamps, and the arrival of some plants, the house itself feels like ‘home’. Ed has been allowed out in the garden, and quite naturally the first time he was left unsupervised he disappeared straight over the back fence.  After an anxiety ridden hour he was sensible enough to return, so can now – like us - be trusted to explore the great outdoors. This is good, because to be honest he was beginning to get under my feet.  The entire upstairs of our house has black carpet. It’s a good job Ed has white paws.