I recently read My 'Dam Life: Three Years in Holland, by Sean Condon. As a transplant to the Netherlands, I thought it would be fun to read a humorous memoir about another transplant's experiences. The book is sporadically funny, albeit poorly written. How can anyone who calls himself a writer not know the grammatically correct usage of the words "I" and "me?" Equally baffling, apparently neither the editor nor the publisher know, either. A sad comment on publishing today (that and the fact that hardly anybody's published my largely grammatically-correct writing).
In most cases, I'd never have made it past about the third misuse of "I" as the object in a sentence. Nope, that would've been it for the damn book. But since I'd been trying to get a handle on the whole idea of living here permanently, I was motivated to soldier on past the grammatical violence. Condon shares some interesting perspectives on various aspects of Dutch life and culture. For example, I love his take on Sinterklaas traditions. But first, a little background.
Sinterklaas, or Saint Nicholas, was a bishop famous, among other things, for gift-giving and kindness toward children. Dutch tradition has him sailing a steamboat up from Spain with his Moorish (black) helpers, called "Black Petes" for the annual celebration each December, during which well-behaved children receive presents and naughty children are either whacked or hauled off by the Black Petes to be put to work in Spain.
The Dutch, not widely known for their political correctness, do not seem to see any problem with the race issue here. Let me illustrate. When we lived in the D.C. area and Ben was little, we'd go to the Dutch Embassy-sponsored Sinterklaas festival each year. The Embassy not being conveniently located on a waterway, Sinterklaas would drive up in a convertible with the top down, accompanied by his costumed Black Petes, who were just every bit as white as most Dutch people, but wearing blackface. Blackface. Really, really dark blackface. In Washington D.C., a city whose population was about 56% black. Right out in the open. And it that weren't bad enough, one year when the Sint was taking questions from the little kids, one kid asked which Black Pete was his favorite. The answer: "Michael Jackson."
I don't think there's even a way to say "politically correct" in Dutch.
Anyway, here's Condon's twisted take on the Sinterklaas celebration: "When the bearded, mitre-clutching Sint arrives, he rides a white horse...accompanied by Moorish 'Black Petes' (the Dutch equivalent of elves but with heavily racist overtones) who distribute sweets to the good children and allegedly put the bad children into sacks and haul them back to Spain, thus providing the children of Holland with material for a lifetime of horrific nightmares, terrified as they are of having to live in a land of sunshine, merriment, and flavoured food." (2003, p. 62).
I wonder whether the horrors of all that sunshine, merriment, and flavored food have anything to do with why our Sinterklaas-derived Santa took up residency at the North Pole?
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Plastic Wrap
Plastic Wrap.
You and I both know it's From Hell, so there's no point pretending otherwise. The only thing, and I do mean ONLY thing, that elevates it from Hell all the way up to Purgatory is that row of little aluminum teeth attached to the edge of the box housing the wrap roll. That serrated edge makes tearing off a reasonably straight and even piece of plastic wrap the main not-hellish thing about the whole plastic wrap experience.
If you're having a good day and luck is on your side, your piece of wrap detaches from the roll with ease, wafts gracefully, with your aid, to its designated location, and fits snugly around or over whatever it is you want to fit it around or over. Most of my days are not like that. At the very smallest opportunity - phone rings, slight breeze passes through, I breathe - the wrap folds in on itself. Admit it, this has happened to you, too. You try to veerrrrrrry carefully separate the thing back into a single-layer, usable kitchen accessory but, unless you have the dexterity of a trained surgeon, your attempts only result in a completely useless, crumpled ball of petroleum-based, non-biodegradable product that you should never have bought in the first place.
What, you ask, is my point, exactly?
I now live in a country that sells plastic wrap in boxes that do not come equipped with their very own serrated wrap-cutting edge.
Did you hear me? I NOW LIVE IN A LAND OF CUTTING-EDGE-LESS PLASTIC WRAP!
It's a nightmare, a nightmare, I tell you. So now the entire plastic wrap experience, every single time, is perfectly hellish from beginning to end. Purgatory never looked so good. Whoever designed these cutting edgeless boxes was clearly entirely unfamiliar with human anatomy, with the physics of plastic wrap, or both. I don't know about him, but I only have two hands. If you have to cut the wrap yourself, using scissors or a knife, you have to: hold the roll in one hand, and with the other hand find the edge of the wrap and figure out in which direction to separate it from the roll (because the lack of serrated lip leaves you no dangling wrap to grab); play out some wrap and hold it tautly (and I challenge anyone to successfully detach an entire width of wrap from the roll one-handedly and play it out in one piece); and then cut. That adds up to THREE hands. At least.
I have been trying to think of some ways around this I-only-have-two-hands-but-need-three problem. Here's what I have so far:
(1) You could rig up some device that would immobilize the roll, thereby reducing the operation to a two-handed affair, but that might require (shudder!) tools and some mechanical aptitude.
(2) You could call in your spouse, child, or a random passer-by and have that person perform one part of the operation, but that would leave a perfectly good fourth hand unused. Besides, it's hard to fit more than one person at a time into a Dutch kitchen if either one of them will need to engage in movement.
(3) You can, using one hand, attempt to separate and rip whatever size piece of wrap you need off the roll using sheer force. Unless you have paws bigger than Rachmaninoff's, you cannot possibly get hold of and hold taut the full width of the roll in one hand, so you wind up with a much-too-small piece of wrap, in a shape for which modern geometry has no name. Then you quickly drop the roll from your other hand in your hurry to two-handedly grasp the wrap and get it around the target before it balls up on itself; fail, and throw roll of wrap across the room while loudly exercising your vocabulary of impolite words.
Number 3 is the approach I pick, every single time. But if anyone can suggest other options, I'm willing to consider them.
You and I both know it's From Hell, so there's no point pretending otherwise. The only thing, and I do mean ONLY thing, that elevates it from Hell all the way up to Purgatory is that row of little aluminum teeth attached to the edge of the box housing the wrap roll. That serrated edge makes tearing off a reasonably straight and even piece of plastic wrap the main not-hellish thing about the whole plastic wrap experience.
If you're having a good day and luck is on your side, your piece of wrap detaches from the roll with ease, wafts gracefully, with your aid, to its designated location, and fits snugly around or over whatever it is you want to fit it around or over. Most of my days are not like that. At the very smallest opportunity - phone rings, slight breeze passes through, I breathe - the wrap folds in on itself. Admit it, this has happened to you, too. You try to veerrrrrrry carefully separate the thing back into a single-layer, usable kitchen accessory but, unless you have the dexterity of a trained surgeon, your attempts only result in a completely useless, crumpled ball of petroleum-based, non-biodegradable product that you should never have bought in the first place.
What, you ask, is my point, exactly?
I now live in a country that sells plastic wrap in boxes that do not come equipped with their very own serrated wrap-cutting edge.
Did you hear me? I NOW LIVE IN A LAND OF CUTTING-EDGE-LESS PLASTIC WRAP!
It's a nightmare, a nightmare, I tell you. So now the entire plastic wrap experience, every single time, is perfectly hellish from beginning to end. Purgatory never looked so good. Whoever designed these cutting edgeless boxes was clearly entirely unfamiliar with human anatomy, with the physics of plastic wrap, or both. I don't know about him, but I only have two hands. If you have to cut the wrap yourself, using scissors or a knife, you have to: hold the roll in one hand, and with the other hand find the edge of the wrap and figure out in which direction to separate it from the roll (because the lack of serrated lip leaves you no dangling wrap to grab); play out some wrap and hold it tautly (and I challenge anyone to successfully detach an entire width of wrap from the roll one-handedly and play it out in one piece); and then cut. That adds up to THREE hands. At least.
I have been trying to think of some ways around this I-only-have-two-hands-but-need-three problem. Here's what I have so far:
(1) You could rig up some device that would immobilize the roll, thereby reducing the operation to a two-handed affair, but that might require (shudder!) tools and some mechanical aptitude.
(2) You could call in your spouse, child, or a random passer-by and have that person perform one part of the operation, but that would leave a perfectly good fourth hand unused. Besides, it's hard to fit more than one person at a time into a Dutch kitchen if either one of them will need to engage in movement.
(3) You can, using one hand, attempt to separate and rip whatever size piece of wrap you need off the roll using sheer force. Unless you have paws bigger than Rachmaninoff's, you cannot possibly get hold of and hold taut the full width of the roll in one hand, so you wind up with a much-too-small piece of wrap, in a shape for which modern geometry has no name. Then you quickly drop the roll from your other hand in your hurry to two-handedly grasp the wrap and get it around the target before it balls up on itself; fail, and throw roll of wrap across the room while loudly exercising your vocabulary of impolite words.
Number 3 is the approach I pick, every single time. But if anyone can suggest other options, I'm willing to consider them.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Big Americans Pizzas, or Further Adventures in Grocery Shopping
I have to go grocery shopping on a nearly-daily basis because, as I might have mentioned in passing, we STILL do not have our car, and I keep checking but we still have a very very small refrigerator and freezer. To make the experience more entertaining, I try to notice new details about the stock each time I shop. So I was exercising my observational skills while perusing the contents of Albert Heijn's freezer section, and darned if there wasn't blog fodder there staring me right in the face. Dr. Oetker's Big Americans Pizza.
I have been a lifelong consumer of pizza, mostly in America. I have eaten more pizzas - delivered, frozen, and homemade - than I would even attempt to count. Also, my BMI, qualifies me as an authentic Big American. I suspect many Americans got to be Big Americans by eating too much pizza, but that is neither here nor there. As a Big American, I can with some authority pronounce Dr. Oetker's Big Americans Pizza to be neither big nor American. Here is my supporting evidence:
(1) A small pizza in the U.S. is 10" or 12". A large is 14-16", and sometimes there is even extra-large, which, not surprisingly, can be bigger than that. If you were to put a Dr. Oetker's Big Americans Pizza in the oven, take it out when it was nice and warm, and stretch it as far as you could without breaking it, it would still not make it to even 10". Ix-nay on the ig-bay.
(2) Dr. Oetker's Big Americans Pizzas include ingredients that I have never seen on a pizza, or on any list of pizza toppings, in the Lower 48, including tuna (the Big Americans California), corn (the Big Americans Supreme and the Big Americans BBQ chicken), and - I think I might've seen this somewhere in the U.S. but it's hardly typical - marinated BBQ chicken (the Big Americans BBQ Chicken).
(3) Dr. Oetker wouldn't know authentic pepperoni if it rolled off the sidewalk and tripped him off his bicycle.
I couldn't help myself; I had to go check out Dr. Oetker's pizza website (http://www.oetker.nl/oetker_nl/html/default/debi-5dmg7r.nl.html). And here is what I learned. "Big Americans are pizzas with an extra thick crust. Crispy on the outside, light on the inside, and richly topped with thoughtfully selected ingredients and extra real cheese." Nevermind that the cheese is not among the varieties used on pizzas in America (e.g., emmenthaler).
I have been a lifelong consumer of pizza, mostly in America. I have eaten more pizzas - delivered, frozen, and homemade - than I would even attempt to count. Also, my BMI, qualifies me as an authentic Big American. I suspect many Americans got to be Big Americans by eating too much pizza, but that is neither here nor there. As a Big American, I can with some authority pronounce Dr. Oetker's Big Americans Pizza to be neither big nor American. Here is my supporting evidence:
(1) A small pizza in the U.S. is 10" or 12". A large is 14-16", and sometimes there is even extra-large, which, not surprisingly, can be bigger than that. If you were to put a Dr. Oetker's Big Americans Pizza in the oven, take it out when it was nice and warm, and stretch it as far as you could without breaking it, it would still not make it to even 10". Ix-nay on the ig-bay.
(2) Dr. Oetker's Big Americans Pizzas include ingredients that I have never seen on a pizza, or on any list of pizza toppings, in the Lower 48, including tuna (the Big Americans California), corn (the Big Americans Supreme and the Big Americans BBQ chicken), and - I think I might've seen this somewhere in the U.S. but it's hardly typical - marinated BBQ chicken (the Big Americans BBQ Chicken).
(3) Dr. Oetker wouldn't know authentic pepperoni if it rolled off the sidewalk and tripped him off his bicycle.
I couldn't help myself; I had to go check out Dr. Oetker's pizza website (http://www.oetker.nl/oetker_nl/html/default/debi-5dmg7r.nl.html). And here is what I learned. "Big Americans are pizzas with an extra thick crust. Crispy on the outside, light on the inside, and richly topped with thoughtfully selected ingredients and extra real cheese." Nevermind that the cheese is not among the varieties used on pizzas in America (e.g., emmenthaler).
Not knowing when to stop, I clicked on the "FAQs" link. The questions included, "Are there vegetarian pizzas?" (answer: yes. But none of them are members of the Big Americans line), and "My freezer is too full; can I store my pizza in the refrigerator (now there's someone I can relate to, but the answer was, sadly, "no."). Other piercingly shrewd questions were: "can I bake my pizza in the microwave?"; "Why is there baking paper under Casa di Mama's pizzas?"; "Why must Casa di Mama's pizzas be baked at 250 when the other pizzas are baked at a much lower temperature?"; and the Casa di Mama crust is still slack; how can this be?"
After I've had some time to ponder the above and other pizza-related conundrums, I'm sure I'll be back to report further adventures in grocery shopping. Check back in, oh, early 2011.
French Mustard
One of my favorite mustards is Maille dijon mustard. Not the grainy kind, although that one is very tasty as well, but the smooth kind with that little sinus bite reminiscent of wasabi. So when we went grocery shopping in Breda for the first time to stock our empty refrigerator with the basics, I bought some Maille dijon mustard. It looked exactly like the same stuff, in the same distinctively-shaped little jar, sold in U.S. supermarkets. It tasted mostly, but not exactly, like the Maille dijon sold in the U.S. To my surprise (and subsequent delight when I recovered), this mustard is significantly sharper than the version France ships to the U.S. (no doubt all the while very Frenchly snickering when our culinary backs are turned).
Ever curious, I took a closer look at the label. The design and color were the same as the U.S. version. The label reads "dijon originale." Aha, I thought, maybe the American version doesn't say "originale," or even "original," "authentic," or anything else along those lines. Maybe the label on the mustard designed for American consumption just says "dijon mustard," when it should probably read "dijon mustard somewhat watered down for ze wimpy and undiscriminating palates of ze average American consumer, who undoubtedly lacks ze sinusoidal fortitude to handle ze real thing." But it would probably be too difficult to fit all that on the label.
Well, French culinary types, I have just this to say to you:
During our first week in Holland, while strolling through downtown Breda, minding our own business and actively soliciting no attention whatsoever from any French citizens who might be passing by, we were stopped by a French couple who wanted to ask us for directions. The homme of said couple approached Wijo and asked (predictably) "Parlez-vous francais?" So, since Wijo admitted to "un peu," nos ami asked,
"Ou et le McDonalds?"
The entire French nation had to have been squirming in embarrassment at that very moment. Or, now that they know about it from reading this blog, they must be squirming. So much for culinary elitist posturing.
On the other hand, it's certainly possible le dude and la dudette francais needed to get to the McDonalds for some top-level espionage meet to hand off some ultra-confidential, top-level spy-type intelligence. Which is my theory, and I'm sticking with it. Because, as self-respecting French citizens, they couldn't have been going there for the food, could they?
Ever curious, I took a closer look at the label. The design and color were the same as the U.S. version. The label reads "dijon originale." Aha, I thought, maybe the American version doesn't say "originale," or even "original," "authentic," or anything else along those lines. Maybe the label on the mustard designed for American consumption just says "dijon mustard," when it should probably read "dijon mustard somewhat watered down for ze wimpy and undiscriminating palates of ze average American consumer, who undoubtedly lacks ze sinusoidal fortitude to handle ze real thing." But it would probably be too difficult to fit all that on the label.
Well, French culinary types, I have just this to say to you:
During our first week in Holland, while strolling through downtown Breda, minding our own business and actively soliciting no attention whatsoever from any French citizens who might be passing by, we were stopped by a French couple who wanted to ask us for directions. The homme of said couple approached Wijo and asked (predictably) "Parlez-vous francais?" So, since Wijo admitted to "un peu," nos ami asked,
"Ou et le McDonalds?"
The entire French nation had to have been squirming in embarrassment at that very moment. Or, now that they know about it from reading this blog, they must be squirming. So much for culinary elitist posturing.
On the other hand, it's certainly possible le dude and la dudette francais needed to get to the McDonalds for some top-level espionage meet to hand off some ultra-confidential, top-level spy-type intelligence. Which is my theory, and I'm sticking with it. Because, as self-respecting French citizens, they couldn't have been going there for the food, could they?
Friday, September 24, 2010
Culture Clash
Holland is a great country for kids. Homes, schools, businesses, and recreational facilities are located close together, and bicycles are a major and fully integrated form of transportation. As a result, children don't have to be chauffered by car all over the place; they can get around more independently (and this is especially good as, since I think I might've mentioned previously, we still do not have our car).
My 12-year old child, who is thrilled with being able to get around by bike and with feeling more independent, wanted to make a trip to the nearby electronics store on his own in search of a Wii cable. I asked him if he'd like to pick up some frites for lunch from the nearby stand. Frites are french fries, which, despite any disrespect regarding Dutch cooking that might have been implied in my previous post, the Dutch make exceptionally well.
"Child," I said (not his real name), "the frites stand is a yellow free-standing place in a small park a couple of blocks down from the electronics store on the left" (italics added). He comes back with his Wii cable but no french fries. He couldn't find the frites stand. So I repeated the directions, only this time with the italics and with lots of gesturing and pointing.
He goes off on his bike again, and this time he comes back with frites and a story. He notices a yellow (correct) non-free-standing shop (wrong) in the vicinity but not in a park (wrong) and walks in (wrong again!), perceptively observing that it stocks an awful lot of cigarettes for a frites place (correct). He walks right through to the counter at back, notices a display labeled "marijuana," and asks the guy behind the counter whether he speaks English. The guy says yes, so The Child asks something along the lines of "isn't it illegal to sell marijuana in a frites shop?" The English-speaking, pot-selling guy concurs that it is, in fact, illegal to sell marijuana in a frites shop. The Child brilliantly concludes, "this isn't a frites shop, is it?" At which point the guy says "No, this isn't a frites shop," lets him know he's too young to be in there, and kicks him out.
Does the kid pause at (1) the paradoxical name "Smart Shop" over the door, in really, really big letters, (2) the lack of that distinctive frites smell, (3) the presence of other distinctive smells, (4) the seven stoned-looking people hanging out in the place at 1 pm on a Monday, or (5) any of the other myriad clues that this place was not, and in fact at no time ever had been, a frites stand?
That was a rhetorical question.
My 12-year old child, who is thrilled with being able to get around by bike and with feeling more independent, wanted to make a trip to the nearby electronics store on his own in search of a Wii cable. I asked him if he'd like to pick up some frites for lunch from the nearby stand. Frites are french fries, which, despite any disrespect regarding Dutch cooking that might have been implied in my previous post, the Dutch make exceptionally well.
"Child," I said (not his real name), "the frites stand is a yellow free-standing place in a small park a couple of blocks down from the electronics store on the left" (italics added). He comes back with his Wii cable but no french fries. He couldn't find the frites stand. So I repeated the directions, only this time with the italics and with lots of gesturing and pointing.
He goes off on his bike again, and this time he comes back with frites and a story. He notices a yellow (correct) non-free-standing shop (wrong) in the vicinity but not in a park (wrong) and walks in (wrong again!), perceptively observing that it stocks an awful lot of cigarettes for a frites place (correct). He walks right through to the counter at back, notices a display labeled "marijuana," and asks the guy behind the counter whether he speaks English. The guy says yes, so The Child asks something along the lines of "isn't it illegal to sell marijuana in a frites shop?" The English-speaking, pot-selling guy concurs that it is, in fact, illegal to sell marijuana in a frites shop. The Child brilliantly concludes, "this isn't a frites shop, is it?" At which point the guy says "No, this isn't a frites shop," lets him know he's too young to be in there, and kicks him out.
Does the kid pause at (1) the paradoxical name "Smart Shop" over the door, in really, really big letters, (2) the lack of that distinctive frites smell, (3) the presence of other distinctive smells, (4) the seven stoned-looking people hanging out in the place at 1 pm on a Monday, or (5) any of the other myriad clues that this place was not, and in fact at no time ever had been, a frites stand?
That was a rhetorical question.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Where's the Garlic?
Living here has only confirmed my previous impression of the general Dutch diet and cooking; that is to say: stunning in the sheer scope of its unimaginative- and unvaried-ness. As far as I can tell, for most Dutch folks the diet consists primarily of: bread and cheese (not necessarily in that order). Breakfast? Bread and cheese, with coffee or tea. Additional breakfast options include: bread with jam, bread with peanut butter, and buttered bread topped with some representative of the Sugar Food Group (i.e., actual sugar; anise-flavored sugar, sugar syrup; fruit syrup; Nutella and nutella equivalents; milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate, or fruit-flavored "sprinkles;" milk chocolate, dark chocolate, or white chocolate flakes, small thin chocolate no-I-am-not-making-this-up candy bars; little tiny cookies). Okay, I take back that thing about the lack of variety. Lunch? See the above.
But what about the cooking, you ask? Well, there isn't actually anything one could call Dutch "cuisine," except maybe Indonesian, an exotic, spicy cuisine the Dutch picked up as part of their colonial (read: imperialist dog) heritage. Traditional Dutch cooking (which hasn't, apparently, changed much since the Bronze Age), consists of lots of potatoes, cabbage, cauliflower, and the like, often with cheese added (presumably for flavor). And meat, of course, but because I don't eat meat I don't pay much attention to whatever it is the Dutch do to it.
One of my beloved Dutch extended family members kindly presented me with a nouveau Dutch cookbook upon our arrival. Well, I should have realized the fact that the thing had a foreward by Jamie Oliver, aka The Naked Chef, was not a good sign. Apparently, Jamie Oliver is particularly popular in the Netherlands, and I know this fact partly because another of my beloved Dutch extended family members presented me with Jamie's Amerika (yes, in Dutch; oh the irony) as a Christmas gift last year. Now, in case these people didn't realize, Jamie Oliver is British. And everybody else in the world knows that the British can't cook worth a damn, think "tinned" peas are actually edible, and regard vegetables as The Enemy (battle plan: cook them to death). Nevertheless, attempting to pry my mind open, I looked through every page of that nouveau Dutch cookbook. And guess what's in there? Lots of bread, cheese, and cabbage (although, to be fair, several different kinds of cabbage and cabbage recipes were presented, so I apologize for that earlier comment about lack of variety, okay?). The main cooking innovation, as far as I could tell, was - gasp! - the addition of an herb (mainly thyme, and I mean thyme was in nearly EVERY recipe).
Now, I'm not sure the Dutch consider herbs and spices to be The Enemy, but neither am I sure the Dutch are sure what you're supposed to do them. Once, when visiting my mother-in-law, I went looking for some pretty run-of-the-mill herbs and spices with which to cook dinner. I like to cook. I like interesting flavor combinations. I like herbs and spices, and they don't necessarily have to be exotic, but I am lost without certain staples such as: garlic, basil, garlic, oregano, garlic, thyme, garlic, cumin, and garlic (you see why I throw that annual garlic party). Not a single form of garlic was to be found in my mother-in-law's house. Also no basil, oregano, or thyme, although there was an "Italian herbs" mix, the kind those of us who like to cook regard with disgust because it is clearly designed for people who don't know the first thing about Italian cooking. There were also 5 (five) packets of something called "meat herbs." Don't ask; since I don't cook meat I didn't even bother to look at what was in the mix. "Oll," I said, "You never have to buy 'meat herbs' again. You have a lifetime supply of 'meat herbs.' BUT WHERE IS THE GARLIC??"
But what about the cooking, you ask? Well, there isn't actually anything one could call Dutch "cuisine," except maybe Indonesian, an exotic, spicy cuisine the Dutch picked up as part of their colonial (read: imperialist dog) heritage. Traditional Dutch cooking (which hasn't, apparently, changed much since the Bronze Age), consists of lots of potatoes, cabbage, cauliflower, and the like, often with cheese added (presumably for flavor). And meat, of course, but because I don't eat meat I don't pay much attention to whatever it is the Dutch do to it.
One of my beloved Dutch extended family members kindly presented me with a nouveau Dutch cookbook upon our arrival. Well, I should have realized the fact that the thing had a foreward by Jamie Oliver, aka The Naked Chef, was not a good sign. Apparently, Jamie Oliver is particularly popular in the Netherlands, and I know this fact partly because another of my beloved Dutch extended family members presented me with Jamie's Amerika (yes, in Dutch; oh the irony) as a Christmas gift last year. Now, in case these people didn't realize, Jamie Oliver is British. And everybody else in the world knows that the British can't cook worth a damn, think "tinned" peas are actually edible, and regard vegetables as The Enemy (battle plan: cook them to death). Nevertheless, attempting to pry my mind open, I looked through every page of that nouveau Dutch cookbook. And guess what's in there? Lots of bread, cheese, and cabbage (although, to be fair, several different kinds of cabbage and cabbage recipes were presented, so I apologize for that earlier comment about lack of variety, okay?). The main cooking innovation, as far as I could tell, was - gasp! - the addition of an herb (mainly thyme, and I mean thyme was in nearly EVERY recipe).
Now, I'm not sure the Dutch consider herbs and spices to be The Enemy, but neither am I sure the Dutch are sure what you're supposed to do them. Once, when visiting my mother-in-law, I went looking for some pretty run-of-the-mill herbs and spices with which to cook dinner. I like to cook. I like interesting flavor combinations. I like herbs and spices, and they don't necessarily have to be exotic, but I am lost without certain staples such as: garlic, basil, garlic, oregano, garlic, thyme, garlic, cumin, and garlic (you see why I throw that annual garlic party). Not a single form of garlic was to be found in my mother-in-law's house. Also no basil, oregano, or thyme, although there was an "Italian herbs" mix, the kind those of us who like to cook regard with disgust because it is clearly designed for people who don't know the first thing about Italian cooking. There were also 5 (five) packets of something called "meat herbs." Don't ask; since I don't cook meat I didn't even bother to look at what was in the mix. "Oll," I said, "You never have to buy 'meat herbs' again. You have a lifetime supply of 'meat herbs.' BUT WHERE IS THE GARLIC??"
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Extortion
My U.S. auto insurance has to be renewed this week, but the carrier doesn't insure cars overseas, so I have to find a new insurer. The way things are going, there will be at least a few days (or weeks) of fully uninsured time before a new policy kicks in. But that's no problem, because we STILL do not have, and have seen no signs that we ever will have, our car (by now you should be starting to detect a subtle car-related theme in these posts).
In reviewing the detailed quote I received from one company, I discovered a little rider I'd never heard, seen, or imagined before, even in my wildest nightmares. I had to double-check my understanding of this rider with Wijo, because a consistent pattern I've seen in the Netherlands, for reasons I can only guess at, is the tendency to write in Dutch. So just to be sure, I went ahead and test drove, so to speak, my understanding of the entire document.
Me: Wettelijke Aansprakelijkheid - liability?
Wijo: Right
Me: Ruit - huh?
Wijo: Windows
Me: Diefstal - theft?
Wijo: Right
Me: Brand, Storm, en Natuur - acts of god?
Wijo: Right
Me: Aanrijdingen - collision?
Wijo: Right
Me: "No-Claim" Beschermer. Wijo, I am pretty sure this rider is insurance against having your insurance rates increased if you make a claim.
Wijo: No!
Me: Yes, let me just read you the detailed description:
At which point I read him the detailed description, which, in translation, goes like this:
"The 'No-Claim' Protector...is a perfect supplement to your auto insurance. With this supplemental insurance you can, in the event of damage, submit one damage claim per insured year without affecting your established no-claim discount. Therefore, your premium will not increase."
Yes, you heard correctly. Specifically, I have the option to pay them 17.50 per year to not raise my premium after any claim of up to 1,500 euros, or to pay them 40.00 per year to not raise my premium for claims over 1,500.
If you have doubts about my translation, you just let me know and I'll be happy to email you the verbatim text in Dutch so you can check it yourself.
The Dutch. They don't look like Mafiosi, but that's where the lack of resemblance ends.
In reviewing the detailed quote I received from one company, I discovered a little rider I'd never heard, seen, or imagined before, even in my wildest nightmares. I had to double-check my understanding of this rider with Wijo, because a consistent pattern I've seen in the Netherlands, for reasons I can only guess at, is the tendency to write in Dutch. So just to be sure, I went ahead and test drove, so to speak, my understanding of the entire document.
Me: Wettelijke Aansprakelijkheid - liability?
Wijo: Right
Me: Ruit - huh?
Wijo: Windows
Me: Diefstal - theft?
Wijo: Right
Me: Brand, Storm, en Natuur - acts of god?
Wijo: Right
Me: Aanrijdingen - collision?
Wijo: Right
Me: "No-Claim" Beschermer. Wijo, I am pretty sure this rider is insurance against having your insurance rates increased if you make a claim.
Wijo: No!
Me: Yes, let me just read you the detailed description:
At which point I read him the detailed description, which, in translation, goes like this:
"The 'No-Claim' Protector...is a perfect supplement to your auto insurance. With this supplemental insurance you can, in the event of damage, submit one damage claim per insured year without affecting your established no-claim discount. Therefore, your premium will not increase."
Yes, you heard correctly. Specifically, I have the option to pay them 17.50 per year to not raise my premium after any claim of up to 1,500 euros, or to pay them 40.00 per year to not raise my premium for claims over 1,500.
If you have doubts about my translation, you just let me know and I'll be happy to email you the verbatim text in Dutch so you can check it yourself.
The Dutch. They don't look like Mafiosi, but that's where the lack of resemblance ends.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
In Which I Go Looking for a Jacket
Last week I went shopping for a jacket. I've been riding around on my bike with what used to be a very nice lightweight jacket with a hood; perfect for early fall temperatures and great for staying relatively dry when it rains, no umbrella required. The temperatures are starting to drop now, and the jacket won't be warm enough much longer. I have a warm winter coat, but that is still sitting in the car that we still do not have here, and it doesn't have a hood, either (the jacket, not the car). In fact, none of the outerwear I own, with the exception of my lightweight jacket, has a hood. As a general rule, I am not so big on hoods. But riding a bike in this country necessitates some form of head covering, and a hood strikes me as the most fail-proof option. So I donned my just-barely-still-warm-enough jacket, got on my bike, and rode into the retail-dense area of downtown Breda.
I knew what I was looking for in a jacket. I wanted an at least moderately well-made hooded jacket that would keep me sufficiently warm and dry on a bike. What I did NOT want in a jacket was: anything that would make me look like the Michelin Tire Man (I have enough padding of my own, thank you); anything that had the level of shine you'd expect from at least three layers of shellac; anything sporting a faux-fur-lined hood; anything particularly purple; or anything costing upwards of 200 (euros, not pesos). Go ahead, scoff at my unrealistic expectations if you will.
While hunting this mythical beast I was exposed not only to many poorly-made and overpriced jackets; I was visually assaulted by an astonishing quantity of poor-quality, unattractive, and overpriced clothing. I have to wonder: how do so many people spend so much money on so much really bad clothing? I'm sure I will return to this theme once I've had more time to observe and analyze the clothing customs of the Dutch in their natural habitat. But for now, back to the jacket.
The only jackets that fit well and looked good on me didn't have hoods. I considered caving in and buying a jacket without a hood, using what my mother-in-law refers to an "anti-sex" to keep my head dry instead. An "anti-sex" is one of those little transparent plastic rain bonnets you tie under your chin. I discarded the idea because, among other reasons, I'd probably lose it, or forget to bring it, or have to stuff the wet thing into a pocket or purse, thereby getting the pocket or purse (and everything in it) all wet. Besides, if the weather is perfectly nice and then suddenly turns gray and starts raining (a frequent weather pattern here), it's a little awkward, to say the least, to find the thing and put it on while biking without causing a major accident. Plus, there's a reason she calls it an anti-sex.
In the very first store I walked into, the very first snap on the very first jacket I even touched came flying off. Immediately and dramatically. The zipper on another jacket immediately came apart the wrong way - you know how they sometimes unzip from the bottom after you've zipped them up? That. I had to pull the jacket over my head to get it off. So much for well-made. Okay, I thought, so I started at the bottom of the department store chains; why not have a look at the other stores?
Four (4) hours later, out of sheer stubbornness and determination, I was the owner of a new hooded non-purple, non-Michelin, non-shiny, non-fur lined jacket from......the bottom of the department store chains. But it doesn't have snaps.
I knew what I was looking for in a jacket. I wanted an at least moderately well-made hooded jacket that would keep me sufficiently warm and dry on a bike. What I did NOT want in a jacket was: anything that would make me look like the Michelin Tire Man (I have enough padding of my own, thank you); anything that had the level of shine you'd expect from at least three layers of shellac; anything sporting a faux-fur-lined hood; anything particularly purple; or anything costing upwards of 200 (euros, not pesos). Go ahead, scoff at my unrealistic expectations if you will.
While hunting this mythical beast I was exposed not only to many poorly-made and overpriced jackets; I was visually assaulted by an astonishing quantity of poor-quality, unattractive, and overpriced clothing. I have to wonder: how do so many people spend so much money on so much really bad clothing? I'm sure I will return to this theme once I've had more time to observe and analyze the clothing customs of the Dutch in their natural habitat. But for now, back to the jacket.
The only jackets that fit well and looked good on me didn't have hoods. I considered caving in and buying a jacket without a hood, using what my mother-in-law refers to an "anti-sex" to keep my head dry instead. An "anti-sex" is one of those little transparent plastic rain bonnets you tie under your chin. I discarded the idea because, among other reasons, I'd probably lose it, or forget to bring it, or have to stuff the wet thing into a pocket or purse, thereby getting the pocket or purse (and everything in it) all wet. Besides, if the weather is perfectly nice and then suddenly turns gray and starts raining (a frequent weather pattern here), it's a little awkward, to say the least, to find the thing and put it on while biking without causing a major accident. Plus, there's a reason she calls it an anti-sex.
In the very first store I walked into, the very first snap on the very first jacket I even touched came flying off. Immediately and dramatically. The zipper on another jacket immediately came apart the wrong way - you know how they sometimes unzip from the bottom after you've zipped them up? That. I had to pull the jacket over my head to get it off. So much for well-made. Okay, I thought, so I started at the bottom of the department store chains; why not have a look at the other stores?
Four (4) hours later, out of sheer stubbornness and determination, I was the owner of a new hooded non-purple, non-Michelin, non-shiny, non-fur lined jacket from......the bottom of the department store chains. But it doesn't have snaps.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Grocery Shopping on a Bicycle (In 14 Easy - or Not - Steps)
For the first month we were here we rented a car. But since we weren't using the car enough to justify the rental price and expected our own car back at some point during the second month (as in, NOW), we discontinued renting once our first month was up. Not having a car hasn't really been a problem so far, because from where we're living it's easy to bike to the town center and to grocery stores. If we want to visit family or the immigration office in den Bosch (for example), it's easy to bike to the train station and catch a train to family or den Bosch (or to Brussels or Paris, for that matter). Also, so far the weather has mostly been good, so biking around has been no hardship. However, being car-less has changed the whole grocery shopping experience. But first a little background.
(14) Pick up all the unloaded groceries off the ground and put them in the kitchen. Put bike in shed, lock bike, bolt shed, lock gate, lock back door, and put groceries away.
(1) We moved here from a large house, with a big kitchen, lots of cabinet space and a rather large pantry. Wijo was always complaining that he lived "in a puzzle," because the refrigerator and pantry were so full that every time he tried to find or remove something, he was "attacked" by something else falling out at him. Oh, and did I mention the extra refrigerator and free-standing freezer in the basement? Okay, I admit to having a little hoarding problem, but at least I know where I got it from (and so do you, Mom).
(2) We own a Subaru Outback, which car I have seen referred to as a "station wagon on steroids." I could probably buy at least six months' worth of groceries and fit it all in that car at once, no problem.
(3) My current car is a bike, with a two-sided saddle bag that can carry enough groceries for at least one day, no problem.
So I went grocery shopping on my bike, and it went something like this:
(1) Put on jacket with hood, because it could rain at any time, even if the weather looks good right now.
(2) Retrieve bicycle key from drawer. Make sure I am in possession of house keys and back gate key. Don't worry about shed key, because I refuse to lock the shed; how many keys is a person supposed to keep track of, anyway?
(3) Unlock back door, open shed door (which activity inconveniently requires both hands, since the shed door is not hung straight and therefore has to be lifted a little for the bolt to be pulled out or slid in). Irritably wonder, since this entire country is extremely flat; how hard can it be to hang a door straight?
(4) Place shoulder bag in bike saddle bag; unlock bicycle and back it out of shed; close and rebolt shed door.
(5) Use key (large, old-fashioned, really long skeleton key-type thing that requires significant finger strength and dexterity to operate) to unlock back gate and open gate, which is tricky because the door is not hung straight (deja vu!) and a strip of wood at the bottom tends to scrape along the ground and come partially loose, and will just break or fall right off one of these days, hopefully not while we are still renting this place.
(6) Wheel bike out, close and lock gate, and walk bike down little tiny bike alley to the street. Ride bike to grocery store (that's the easy part. Except if it's raining or there's a heavy wind).
(7) Upon arrival at store, park bike, check in pocket for bike key, belatedly remember, once again, that the key is always in the lock when the bike is unlocked; lock bike, pocket key, remove shoulder bag from saddle bag and enter store. If I'm having one of my more lucid days, like today, I do not insert the .50 euro piece into the grocery cart slot to remove a cart, because there is no way I can fit what I might be tempted to put into a grocery cart into the saddle bag. No, instead I take one of those little plastic baskets like the ones they have in American grocery stores, but here they have some with wheels and a long handle that allow you to roll the thing around behind you in the store rather than risk muscle spasms and lifelong disfigurement carrying it over your arm. I figure if I can fit it into the basket, I can fit it into the saddlebag.
(8) Conduct grocery shopping as usual, attempting to keep in mind that there is very limited available refrigerator, freezer, or saddlebag space.
(9) Emerge from store with shopping basket in tow, since they don't give you grocery bags in Dutch stores and the saddlebag is outside on the bike, anyway.
(10) Now here's the tricky part. Get shoulder bag and groceries from point A (shopping basket) into point B (saddlebag). Sounds straightforward, you say? Well, that shows what you know! What happens next is a precision, scientific balancing act. You can't just put 4 liters of milk and a couple of bottles of wine into one side of the saddle bag and a couple heads of lettuce into the other, now can you? Not if I understand gravity (well, actually I'm not at all sure I understand gravity, but you get the point)! No, the items must be distributed with an eye both to volume and weight. Luckily, in this case, my one lonely spatial skill is volume. But even I, with my idiot savant aptitude for fitting things into proscribed space, am stretched to the limit by the problem of getting all the groceries from a full basket into the bicycle saddle bag. This time I mostly managed, but there was a head of broccoli and a box of white seedless grapes precariously located at the top of one side of the bag, which I couldn't fasten closed. And I had to bike through traffic dangling two half-loaves of bread in my left hand while balancing myself and the groceries. Why two half-loaves of bread, you ask? Why not just one whole loaf of bread? Because, silly, it's fresh-baked bread and goes stale (and bad) quickly, so you have to freeze some of it if you don't want to repeat this whole performance daily, and who has room for a whole loaf of bread in their freezer in this country? Not me, I can tell you that.
(11) Get partway home when it starts raining. Wait (in the rain) in the bike lane designated for straight-ahead or left turn traffic, conveniently located between the left-turn/straight-ahead car lane and the right-turn car lane, for the light to turn, which takes forever. When light turns, try to indicate with body language that I intend to turn left, because it's hard to signal a left turn when your left hand is holding two half-loaves of bread. Apparently fail to adequately signal left-turn intention to auto driver into whom I nearly crash as he continues forward while I am attempting to make left turn.
(12) Get most of the way home when an ominous splat-like sound signals contact between the aforementioned precariously-placed package of seedless white grapes and the road. Pull bike over, park on sidewalk, retrieve grapes, and continue home.
(13) Walk bike down bike alley, unlock gate with cleverly stored - and thus easily accessible - key in jacket pocket and walk bike up to back door of house to unload groceries. Like loading, unloading is not as easy at it might seem at first blush. No, take too many things out of one side of the bike and the whole thing topples.
But now I am faced with a problem. I can't unlock the back door without getting my shoulder bag out of the saddlebag, because I once again, curse it, forgot to put the house keys into my pocket rather than leaving them in the bag. The shoulder bag, of course, takes up most of one side of the saddlebag and has been surrounded by and filled with whatever groceries I could fit in there along with it. So now I have to, with the same precision loading the damn thing up required, unload the whole #$*! saddlebag to get at the key enabling me to open the door.
For future reference, it is good policy to unload any breakable items first. I assume I don't have the list the reason.
But now I am faced with a problem. I can't unlock the back door without getting my shoulder bag out of the saddlebag, because I once again, curse it, forgot to put the house keys into my pocket rather than leaving them in the bag. The shoulder bag, of course, takes up most of one side of the saddlebag and has been surrounded by and filled with whatever groceries I could fit in there along with it. So now I have to, with the same precision loading the damn thing up required, unload the whole #$*! saddlebag to get at the key enabling me to open the door.
For future reference, it is good policy to unload any breakable items first. I assume I don't have the list the reason.
(14) Pick up all the unloaded groceries off the ground and put them in the kitchen. Put bike in shed, lock bike, bolt shed, lock gate, lock back door, and put groceries away.
Good thing I don't have a job yet. Don't know how we're gonna eat when I get one.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Bureaucracy: The Continuing Saga
So our car is sitting in some undisclosed location, biding its time while waiting for Wijo to get an endless list of paperwork to the moving company, so it can forward the endless list of paperwork to customs, so the car (not to mention the rest of our worldly goods) can clear customs without costing us precious body parts and we can drive to someplace no one's ever heard of to pick it up. The email I received from the moving company went thusly:
Words fail me.
p.s. There was one box, containing a printer and a few other items, that we mailed to ourselves rather than sending with the movers. When the delivery guy came to the door with it, he informed us that 102.72 in customs tax were due. The whole thing was a mistake, because you're not supposed to be charged any customs taxes at all on used personal items that you mail to yourself for your own continued personal and are not importing in a nefarious attempt to sell for your own personal profit. When I asked how the tax on approximately $400 worth of used personal items could possibly be that high, the answer was that only some of it was duty on the items; the rest was duty on the postage. Who the hell ever heard of taxing postage? When you pay postage you are not paying for goods, you are paying for a service. S-E-R-V-I-C-E! How can the Dutch government get away with taxing a service, the cost of which was paid to an American company in the United States? If you understand how this makes sense, please fill me in; I am baffled.
After arrival into the Netherlands, your goods need to be cleared through Dutch customs, before they can be delivered. In order to clear your belongings through Dutch customs without paying taxes and duties, we will need to apply for an exemption with them.
For application for exemption, we need the following documents from you:
1. residing certificate from the Population Register of the Municipality, showing that you have come from abroad and taken up residence in the Netherlands.
2. (a certificate of registration will not be accepted!).
3. completed application form for exemption* (Please note that we need to receive original signed application)
4. copy rental/purchase contract of your current & new residence and/or statement from your employer that you are living / will be living in a company residence or at a temporarily address
5. statement of employer or copy of your work agreement (you can leave out private & confidential information)
6. copy of your passport (photo page)
7. copy of the inventory (this will be produced by the removal company)
*Click here to download the Dutch Customs Import Permit Application form. A translation of this form can be found here. Please note that customs requires you to fill out the Dutch customs form, not the translation form !
We look forward receiving the above mentioned documents. Please feel free to contact us should questions arise.
After sending the requested documents, Wijo received the following email:
After sending the requested documents, Wijo received the following email:
Thank you for your e-mail and documents which we received in good order.
It is no problem to get the import permit under your name, however in that case we need the proof that you are married.
We now only need the following documents:
-3. -completed application form for exemption* (Please note that we need to receive original signed application)
4. -copy rental/purchase contract of residence in the USA;
-copy of your passport and copy of your marriage certificate;
5. -copy of the purchase invoice of the car;
-copy of car title;
-copy of the car insurance of the last six months.
-
Words fail me.
p.s. There was one box, containing a printer and a few other items, that we mailed to ourselves rather than sending with the movers. When the delivery guy came to the door with it, he informed us that 102.72 in customs tax were due. The whole thing was a mistake, because you're not supposed to be charged any customs taxes at all on used personal items that you mail to yourself for your own continued personal and are not importing in a nefarious attempt to sell for your own personal profit. When I asked how the tax on approximately $400 worth of used personal items could possibly be that high, the answer was that only some of it was duty on the items; the rest was duty on the postage. Who the hell ever heard of taxing postage? When you pay postage you are not paying for goods, you are paying for a service. S-E-R-V-I-C-E! How can the Dutch government get away with taxing a service, the cost of which was paid to an American company in the United States? If you understand how this makes sense, please fill me in; I am baffled.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
More on Bureaucracy
September 16. In what can only not be described as a stark contrast to my situation to date, I remain an officially nonexistent person. In the Netherlands, that is. I'm pretty sure some official evidence of my existence on the planet continues to be available in the U.S.
Yesterday I received the immigration ministry's standard letter about how my application has been received and might even be looked at some day. This letter just happened to include the little tidbit of trivia that the immigration law is expected (I am not making this up - "het is de verwachting") to change (in some undisclosed manner) on January 1, 2011, and that the changes in the law, "which may affect you," will apply to anyone who entered the country after July 1, 2010. Now I ask you, in what civilized, democratic country would it make sense to have people enter a country under one set of rules, but subsequently change the rules and then have the new rules apply retrospectively??? That kind of idiocy just makes me crazy. It oughta be unconstitutional.
And, while I'm lambasting the bureaucracy again, let me just add, for the record, this question: What kind of immigration office uses words like "bedrijfshulpverleningsorganisatie," (33 letters; count 'em if you don't believe me, folks) in an information document intended for anyone who walks into the building, most of whom are, um, NOT Dutch? Not a space, comma, or hyphen anywhere to be seen; no, just "bedrijfshulpverleningsorganisatie." Takes up half the bloody line of text. I ask you!! Heaven help anyone with dyslexia in this country!
My last episode with the bureaucracy, during which we had the honor of shelling out 830.00 euros to apply for my permanent residency status, went very smoothly. We talked to the woman at Desk 7, who was not only pleasant, competent, and efficient, but who also clearly possessed a sense of humor (I predict she's not gonna last long in that job). By sense of humor, I mean she, unlike some people, could appreciate our sense of humor. As she remarked, they don't usually have people laughing at the immigration office while they're paying that ridiculous sum of money. And, just to make me feel better about the whole thing, she pointed out that my fee for the process included the addition of two nifty stamps to my passport alerting the world to my I'm-a-resident-in-the-Netherlands-even-if-it-isn't-permanent-yet status. When I remarked on how pretty and colorful the first stamp (sticker, really) was, she informed me that my second stamp would be even cooler, being actually an embossed insignia that would even show through on the back side of the page! We all smilingly agreed that, attractive as these fine additions to my passport indeed were, they were some expensive damn stamps. I tell you, they just don't make civil servants like that, as a rule. I bet she's gone within six months.
Yesterday I received the immigration ministry's standard letter about how my application has been received and might even be looked at some day. This letter just happened to include the little tidbit of trivia that the immigration law is expected (I am not making this up - "het is de verwachting") to change (in some undisclosed manner) on January 1, 2011, and that the changes in the law, "which may affect you," will apply to anyone who entered the country after July 1, 2010. Now I ask you, in what civilized, democratic country would it make sense to have people enter a country under one set of rules, but subsequently change the rules and then have the new rules apply retrospectively??? That kind of idiocy just makes me crazy. It oughta be unconstitutional.
And, while I'm lambasting the bureaucracy again, let me just add, for the record, this question: What kind of immigration office uses words like "bedrijfshulpverleningsorganisatie," (33 letters; count 'em if you don't believe me, folks) in an information document intended for anyone who walks into the building, most of whom are, um, NOT Dutch? Not a space, comma, or hyphen anywhere to be seen; no, just "bedrijfshulpverleningsorganisatie." Takes up half the bloody line of text. I ask you!! Heaven help anyone with dyslexia in this country!
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
On Bureaucracy
September 1. We have been here nearly a month, but I still do not officially exist. We are waiting for me to be assigned the Dutch equivalent of a social security number, without which I cannot get a job or even open a bank account. We should have had it by now already, but one thing that hasn't been a culture clash is dealing with bureaucracy. Bureaucrats are bureaucrats, wherever they are. It's a mind set, a behavior pattern, yea I suspect genetic underpinnings! You'd think I'd be inured to the sheer idiocy of it, after having been a U.S. federal victim employee for 12 years and a life-long victim recipient of various federal agencies' demands and services. But no. My first experience here, when we went to the city hall to register our residency in Breda and apply for my BSN number, was classic.
The Dutch government requires apostilles of everything. An apostille, in English, is an authentication from the state that your certified state vital statistics-type document was certified by someone actually recognized by the state to have the authority to validate the particular vital-statistics-type document in question (god, I hate sentences that have the word "certified," "authentication," and "validate" in them, much less all three. And now let's just go ahead and add "apostille" to the list, shall we?). The processes of obtaining apostilles for my birth certificate, our marriage license, and Ben's birth certificate were a pain in the pick-your-body-part, but we duly applied for, paid for, received, and brought with us all of these documents (can we add the word "documents" to the above list?) to the scheduled appointment. The idiot bureaucrat in question - oops sorry, that was redundant, wasn't it? - failed to find any evidence of said appointment on the books. Nevertheless, she graciously condescended to officiate (add to list above). When she got to the apostille for my birth certificate, she was disapproving. For whatever bizarre reason, my official, apostilled, State of New York birth certificate nowhere lists the names of my parents. Which I grant you is strange and unexpected. She was not sure she could accept said document due to lack of said names. I was very well behaved and didn't say a word to her (Wijo was handling the whole transaction and I decided to keep my mouth shut rather than share my true feelings). Now, here's my position on this sort of thing. DO NOT TELL me exactly what I am required to do, make me jump through all the hoops necessary to DO EXACTLY WHAT YOU ASKED, and then tell me the final official (add to list), authenticated exactly-what-you-asked-for-document is unacceptable. If that's my official NY birth certificate, it's goddamnwell my official NY birth certificate, and ain't no other form of my official NY birth certificate $&! available, I tell you! I could have throttled her with the yarn I was sitting there spinning on my drop spindle in a futile attempt to hang on to a shred of sanity. We were saved, ultimately, by the fact that our official, authenticated-by-the-State-of-Virginia marriage license, does, in fact, list my parents' names, which I had to point out to her after she checked and remarked, in feigned regret, that their names were not there either (at which point I did jump into the fray and play the Game of Bureaucracy, informing her that the names were listed as items 21 and 22 on the document). I think Wijo was absolutely amazed that I did not, at any time during that protracted and painfully bureaucratic meeting, attempt homicide. Nope, I'm still a free and at-liberty non-citizen.
My next scheduled dance with Bureaucracy is on Thursday, when we go to den Bosch to apply for my permanent residency status. Can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to it.
The Dutch government requires apostilles of everything. An apostille, in English, is an authentication from the state that your certified state vital statistics-type document was certified by someone actually recognized by the state to have the authority to validate the particular vital-statistics-type document in question (god, I hate sentences that have the word "certified," "authentication," and "validate" in them, much less all three. And now let's just go ahead and add "apostille" to the list, shall we?). The processes of obtaining apostilles for my birth certificate, our marriage license, and Ben's birth certificate were a pain in the pick-your-body-part, but we duly applied for, paid for, received, and brought with us all of these documents (can we add the word "documents" to the above list?) to the scheduled appointment. The idiot bureaucrat in question - oops sorry, that was redundant, wasn't it? - failed to find any evidence of said appointment on the books. Nevertheless, she graciously condescended to officiate (add to list above). When she got to the apostille for my birth certificate, she was disapproving. For whatever bizarre reason, my official, apostilled, State of New York birth certificate nowhere lists the names of my parents. Which I grant you is strange and unexpected. She was not sure she could accept said document due to lack of said names. I was very well behaved and didn't say a word to her (Wijo was handling the whole transaction and I decided to keep my mouth shut rather than share my true feelings). Now, here's my position on this sort of thing. DO NOT TELL me exactly what I am required to do, make me jump through all the hoops necessary to DO EXACTLY WHAT YOU ASKED, and then tell me the final official (add to list), authenticated exactly-what-you-asked-for-document is unacceptable. If that's my official NY birth certificate, it's goddamnwell my official NY birth certificate, and ain't no other form of my official NY birth certificate $&! available, I tell you! I could have throttled her with the yarn I was sitting there spinning on my drop spindle in a futile attempt to hang on to a shred of sanity. We were saved, ultimately, by the fact that our official, authenticated-by-the-State-of-Virginia marriage license, does, in fact, list my parents' names, which I had to point out to her after she checked and remarked, in feigned regret, that their names were not there either (at which point I did jump into the fray and play the Game of Bureaucracy, informing her that the names were listed as items 21 and 22 on the document). I think Wijo was absolutely amazed that I did not, at any time during that protracted and painfully bureaucratic meeting, attempt homicide. Nope, I'm still a free and at-liberty non-citizen.
My next scheduled dance with Bureaucracy is on Thursday, when we go to den Bosch to apply for my permanent residency status. Can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to it.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
I'm Too Old for This
Well, much as I believe it should be optional, reality started setting in early, and I've been having some difficulty with it (nothing new there!). Clearly, Holland is every bit the consumer culture that the U.S is. People seem to be really into the latest "cool" gadgetry - fancy cell phones that do everything but cook dinner for you, flat-screen tvs, computers, internet, video gaming systems, the whole bit. But try to cook or do the laundry, and the situation is somewhat primitive, by my standards. I admit to being a spoiled American and taking lots of things for granted. But since this is a major industrialized western nation with all that other luxury crap, it strikes me as bizarre that I'm dealing with a toy refrigerator, a toy oven, a washing machine that requires 90-120 minutes to do a single (not very large) load of laundry, and a dryer so inefficient that most laundry has to be hung on a line. I mean, the high-tech luxury stuff is fun and all, but are not, as far as I'm concerned, requirements of daily living. The requirements of daily living do include food and laundry management, and I'm finding it very frustrating that these things are so difficult, limited, and unnecessarily complicated. I mean, I don't care what features the cell phone has, as long and I can turn it on and make a call (which, by the way, I could not figure out how to do), but it does bother me that I can't fit a bottle of seltzer into the refrigerator and that a 9" x 13" pan (and nothing in addition at the same time) barely fits into and is practically impossible to remove from the oven (major accident risk, that). The owners of this house clearly are more interested in wine than food, because the kitchen's built-in temperature-controlled wine cellar occupies double the space the refrigerator does.
It irks me to have to hang up the wash to dry (on lines, I might add, that are much too high for me to reach comfortably because the owners of this house are freakin' giants). It's the 21st century, for cripes sake! With skype, I can make an inexpensive phone call or computer-to-computer web cam-enhanced call to just about anywhere in the world; why I am hanging laundry up on a line to dry? In a country, I might add, in which the average monthly relative humidity ranges from 67%-88%, and in which some degree of precipitation occurs an average of 217 days per year (translation: forget about hanging the laundry outside to dry). And many people here don't even own clothes dryers.
I do feel guilty and spoiled for letting things like appliances depress me (but in my own defense, in case you imagine I am exaggerating, see below for the actual photos of the actual appliances in our rented house with the actual recently remodeled, up-to-date kitchen - bring back dorm room memories?). The truth is I'm feeling too old for this. I could probably have adapted fine in my 20's or 30's, but I just don't want to live like a graduate student any more, and I do want things to be fairly easy, uncomplicated, and comfortable. It's way more difficult for me to figure out, learn, and remember things than it used to be, which makes me nervous about incipient Alzheimer's (Ben used to pronounce it "old-timers," because that's what he thought the word was!). My mind is obviously nowhere near as nimble as it used to be, but I'm not so far gone yet that I can't notice the significant decrements in my cognitive functioning. I've been aware of my dropping IQ for a while, but it's not so noticeable when you're in a familiar environment in which you know how things work and have some sense of mastery. In a new and unfamiliar environment it becomes very noticeable. So I don't want to memorize or keep track of another whole set of phone numbers, account numbers, PIN codes, and passwords. I don't want to have to read a whole new collection of users manuals (in Dutch, go figure!) because I can't figure out how anything works. When I turn on an appliance or electronic device - and it shouldn't be too hard, what with having a Ph.D. and all, to figure out how to turn these things on and off - I have this apparently naive assumption that it will actually go on and be usable. I leave you to imagine my frustration when things just don't happen that way.
There is a bright spot, though. I did finally figure out that it is possible to get the dryer to actually dry the laundry. See, there are approximately eleventy billion settings on the darn thing, but most of them are decoys! I was fooled at first, until I discovered the only setting that actually gets the clothes dry is "extra," which I had initially incorrectly interpreted according to American standards as "under no circumstances run anything potentially flammable for a full cycle in this mode unless you want your items alight or shrunken down to Madurodam size (and I don't mean the whole park, I mean the 1/25th scale model people in it, in case that wasn't clear)." It's a nefarious trick to fool Americans, I tell you! But now that I've realized "extra" is not a health and safety hazard, things are actually getting dried in substantially shorter than a 24-hr. period. I love modern technology, don't you?
Monday, September 13, 2010
Dear Friends and Family
As you might be aware, I've never been much of a fan of the whole blogging phenomenon. As I am aware, most of you are not particularly big blog consumers, yourselves. But since there are more of you than I can regularly keep up detailed email correspondence with, I decided I'd take a stab at sharing some of my experiences and perspectives as I try to adjust to becoming a permanent resident in the Netherlands. A country so small that, were I to start at any point in the country and drive the same distance it would take to get from my former home in Maryland to visit my parents in Rochester, NY, I would be at least one country away from where I started. A country where, at 5'6" tall, I cannot reach half of the cabinet or closet space, I can't borrow anyone's bicycle because I am too short to reach the pedals, and my biggest communication problem is not the language, but the crick in my neck I get from having to look up so damn far to talk to most of the natives.
To those of you to whom I have not yet managed to write personal emails, I apologize. I will write to you. Eventually. To those of you who will see things I have written to you repeated here, I apologize. I will continue to write to you, but perhaps in less detail, as the general details will go here. To Leslie, thanks for being entertained enough by my emails to suggest I consider blogging. I'm doing so as much for therapeutic purposes as to keep people posted on life here, but I hope to continue being entertaining.
We've been here for five weeks now, so there's a little catching up to do. I will be back soon!
To those of you to whom I have not yet managed to write personal emails, I apologize. I will write to you. Eventually. To those of you who will see things I have written to you repeated here, I apologize. I will continue to write to you, but perhaps in less detail, as the general details will go here. To Leslie, thanks for being entertained enough by my emails to suggest I consider blogging. I'm doing so as much for therapeutic purposes as to keep people posted on life here, but I hope to continue being entertaining.
We've been here for five weeks now, so there's a little catching up to do. I will be back soon!
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