The Dutch
Netherlands. Wooden shoes, windmills, tulips, cheese, dijks
and beer. Except for the wooden shoes,
everything is pretty much as expected.
The shoes as it turns out were a product of necessity when the Dutch
were so poor they couldn’t afford leather.
Tulips are out of season and the only dijks I have seen ride motorcycles
and wear wooden shoes. Hans Brinker was American. The beer is good stuff though; I have sampled
about 10 breweries. And there are so many kinds of cheese I can’t even choose
one at the market. Learning the proper way to pronounce Gouda is among my
greatest accomplishments so far. Dutch language
is kind of complex, much more than I expected.
The cheese is actually pronounced GHow – dah with my tongue touching the
back of the roof of my mouth somewhere between a Hebrew ח het and a hiss, like the
sound a cat makes when it’s pissed off. And the “ch” making almost the same
sound but with a little more of the guttural sound, distinctly different to the
Dutch but virtually imperceptible to me. You roll the “r” in the back of your
throat like the French do and the vowels have about 30 different sounds. When my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth
or I have a couple of beers, however, everything comes out unintelligible,
including my spotty English. I can say “Hi”
in Dutch… “Oy!” Enough about language,
though. The people here are helpful and
friendly, everybody smiles (I’m thinking it’s the beer) and almost everybody
speaks fluent English. I don’t even ask
anymore because when I ask do you speak English they say, “of course” as if it’s
silly of me to ask at all. And they generally speak French, German and Italian,
as well. And the kids I work with are
from all over the world including Turkey, Estonia, 
Poland, Italy, England,
Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands and a few from the USA, so I also get to practice
my language skills, such as they are. I am about 15 minutes from the German
border and 25 minutes from the Belgian. Today was the first day of full sun all
day. Usually it’s cold and it rains at
least half the day but the nice weather is supposed to continue for a few days
with highs in the low 70’s and nights above freezing. I went last weekend to Aachen, Germany (seat
of power of Charlemagne in the 9th century and the church he built is
still in use) and to Valkenburg, Netherlands with ancient castle ruins and
caves and a cool village-wide market. Oh yeah and Holland is a precinct in the
north country where Amsterdam is. The
whole country is not Holland. I live in
Limburg, a precinct in the deep south of Netherlands where “Hi” is prounounced,
“Oy, y’all”.
And the pics are me in trouble already, The Octagon Church built by Charlemagne,
a sample of the Dutch language, and the village of Valkenburg.
Netherlands. Wooden shoes, windmills, tulips, cheese, dijks
and beer. Except for the wooden shoes,
everything is pretty much as expected.
The shoes as it turns out were a product of necessity when the Dutch
were so poor they couldn’t afford leather.
Tulips are out of season and the only dijks I have seen ride motorcycles
and wear wooden shoes. Hans Brinker was American. The beer is good stuff though; I have sampled
about 10 breweries. And there are so many kinds of cheese I can’t even choose
one at the market. Learning the proper way to pronounce Gouda is among my
greatest accomplishments so far. Dutch language
is kind of complex, much more than I expected.
The cheese is actually pronounced GHow – dah with my tongue touching the
back of the roof of my mouth somewhere between a Hebrew ח het and a hiss, like the
sound a cat makes when it’s pissed off. And the “ch” making almost the same
sound but with a little more of the guttural sound, distinctly different to the
Dutch but virtually imperceptible to me. You roll the “r” in the back of your
throat like the French do and the vowels have about 30 different sounds. When my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth
or I have a couple of beers, however, everything comes out unintelligible,
including my spotty English. I can say “Hi”
in Dutch… “Oy!” Enough about language,
though. The people here are helpful and
friendly, everybody smiles (I’m thinking it’s the beer) and almost everybody
speaks fluent English. I don’t even ask
anymore because when I ask do you speak English they say, “of course” as if it’s
silly of me to ask at all. And they generally speak French, German and Italian,
as well. And the kids I work with are
from all over the world including Turkey, Estonia, 
Poland, Italy, England,
Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands and a few from the USA, so I also get to practice
my language skills, such as they are. I am about 15 minutes from the German
border and 25 minutes from the Belgian. Today was the first day of full sun all
day. Usually it’s cold and it rains at
least half the day but the nice weather is supposed to continue for a few days
with highs in the low 70’s and nights above freezing. I went last weekend to Aachen, Germany (seat
of power of Charlemagne in the 9th century and the church he built is
still in use) and to Valkenburg, Netherlands with ancient castle ruins and
caves and a cool village-wide market. Oh yeah and Holland is a precinct in the
north country where Amsterdam is. The
whole country is not Holland. I live in
Limburg, a precinct in the deep south of Netherlands where “Hi” is prounounced,
“Oy, y’all”.
And the pics are me in trouble already, The Octagon Church built by Charlemagne,
a sample of the Dutch language, and the village of Valkenburg.
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