Day 319 - Honestly, this country....

.... never ceases to amaze me.

Yesterday I sat in the sun in the garden out the back of our guesthouse flat studying. The mercury hit 30C at some point during the day (truly amazing for the Netherlands and about bloody time!). At some points I even broke a sweat (although I wasn't quite to the point of wanting air-conditioning like some of the other foreigners here!). Nonetheless, the point was it was hot... Today I wake up ... and it's RAINING! and I mean really raining. So far the maximum temp has been 14C and I got absolutely drenched cycling home.

                              
Felt like this was me on the way home today! 


<= Me yesterday in the garden (happy snap by the housemate Emma)


I honestly can't believe it - a 16C turnaround in less than 24 hours. And we're not talking a 'cool change' like we get back home. This was literally "Netherlands: summer one day, winter the next". And remember this is one day from the official start of Summer. It did get me thinking though about other things that surprise/amaze/dumbfound/disappoint/confuse me about the Netherlands, so here's a few:

• People here walk their dogs ALL the time - seriously, day or night - and in whatever weather. So of course I saw people in ponchos walking their dogs today as I was cycling home against gale force rain. And the other night Emma (my housemate, Sydney) and I came home from the pub about 1.30am and a young girl was walking her dog!
• No fly-screens on the windows: even though they have just as many bugs as the next country here it seems the Dutch haven't heard of fly-screens :( which means no opening windows on muggy nights (its MUCH more humid here than back home) or playing mozzie hunter before bed
• Non-poisonous spiders: even if they get inside, apparently none of the insects here are poisonous. I really found this hard to believe when I was first told - that their spiders aren't poisonous. But enough people have told me now that I suppose I have to believe it. Coming from Oz though it just doesn't seem possible!
• Pre-cut food: it seems the Dutch are as time-poor as any other western nation but what really gets me is the staggering variety of pre-cut, pre-washed, pre-flavoured food you can get at the supermarket. In addition to the usual freezer pre-cut chips or pizza, there is a literal WALL of refrigerated peeled, cut potatoes at our supermarket in EVERY shape, size, flavour and filling.Our Dutch teacher said most Dutch families don't like to spend a lot of time cooking during the week. "Choose and cook" fridges like this are common:
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• Dairy products: there's also about a bajillion types of yoghurt/drinking youghurt/cream/milk etc variations in the dairy section. Lot's i've never heard of obviously, like Vla, Slagroom, just plain Room or Kwark... (whatever that is)!
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• Missing words: language-wise, one of the funniest things is the missing words. For example an English speaker would say "I play tennis" or "I use the computer", but in an effort, perhaps, to be efficient the Dutch simply turn the activity into a verb. So, one "tennisses" or "computers", or my favourite, "I internet" - sounds like Apple's next venture.
• Mutant words: the Dutch also have the LONGEST words I've ever seen (except maybe in German). Apparently, in many cases it is okay to join a number of words together in the Dutch language to describe something, and there's really no limit to the length of the combination. Perhaps they were the true inventors of 'supercalafrajilisticexpialadocious' (or however you spell it!)
• One word for too many words!: one last thing about language, it seems the English have a lot more words for things compared to the Dutch. There are a number of little words in Dutch that cover so many meanings, depending on context, which can make it really hard to make sense of a sentence. For example, the word 'nog' can mean yet, still, besides, further etc etc.

And this brings me to a brief piece of other news - my narrowly passed Dutch course. I'm sure I complained to a number of you that I was surely going to fail my Dutch course... but I managed to scrape through. While I now feel after 28 weeks of lessons once a week (and admittedly VERY little homework in between) I can understand about 60/70% of everything I read and hear (ie. government letters, announcements at the train station, speaking to the lady at the supermarket counter) my speaking and writing is not so flash. My grammar in particularly is atrocious, which was pretty embarrassing to discover given my profession of choice! The problem is I tend to think in English and then put Dutch words into the English grammatical structre - which is COMPLETELY different to Dutch. For example, the verb always comes at the end so when in English you say "I went to the beach with my friends", in Dutch you would say "I to the beach with my friends went". Hence I messed it up a lot!

However I saw the classes as much as a cultural experience as anything else - a chance to ask our Dutch teacher questions about the country and lifestyle as well as the language, and figure out some of the oddities of this place. As a result I feel a little bit more like a resident and less like a tourist. It's also a humbling experience to realise how hard it is to learn another language, let alone become fluent - and therefore makes me appreciate the across-the-board English skills of almost Dutch person!

So before I go, some funny Dutch words or phrases from our last few classes:

• Kater = hangover (NB: overgeven = vomit!)
• de voedselvergifiging (yes, that's a real word!! an example of those combination-long-as-you-like words) = food poisoning
• magnetron = microwave (i just love this one cos it sounds so futuristic :P)
• Jeetje = aw geez! or oh gosh!
• borsten = breasts!, or elleboog = elbow, or billen = bottom :P
• Trouwens = "by the way"
• handschoenen = gloves (literally, handshoes)
• beha = bra
• ontzettende = very, very, very, very, very, very, very .... you get the point, it's a very emphatic word!
• ging = going, which isn't anything very interesting but I just think its a cute dutch word, only missing one letter and it could be English
• zadelpijn = saddle pain, as in when one rides one's bike !!!
• zonde van de tijd = "waste of time"
• paars = purple & geel = yellow

So, a very random selection, but some of the quirkier things that came up in class in the last few weeks.
For now though, it's back to the study of "theorising terrorism" - the course that got me excited about coming to UCM in the first place. Only about one and a half months til I'm home now! I hope the weather gets its act together - I need to get a tan to make you all jealous on my return!