Expat Life and The Lost Art of Comparison

I have been living in the Netherlands so long now that I can no longer accurately compare life here with life in Britain. I have been walloped with that realisation a few times over the last few months.

Most vividly recently was during an interview for the LiHSK (the Dutch national organisation for Highly Sensitive Children). I was asked about schooling in Britain and the only personal experience I can refer to is my own schooling. And believe me, that was a long time ago. A long, long time ago.

I had it a lot during my three pregnancies too when people asked about the maternity system in the UK. I cannot talk about that from personal experience either. All three of my sons have been born in the Netherlands. I can tell you everything you'd care to know about the Dutch maternity system but ask me about the English one and I will falter.

When I first landed on Dutch soil I spent more time than I care to think about now comparing my new life here to the one I had left behind.

"You wouldn't see that in England," I would mutter time and time again. "THAT would never happen in England," I'd say to the Dutchies in my life.

And then, although I'm not sure when exactly, it stopped. It's not something I consciously did. I came out the other end of culture shock and it just stopped. I started living in the now. I adapted to how things are done here in the Netherlands. I stopped thinking about how it would be done in Britain. I stopped seeing things as 'wrong' here and 'right' there. I just started doing things like they are done here. Except birthday parties - there are always limits.

And now I realise that my life in Britain is so far behind me I couldn't compare it to my life here and now even if I wanted to. I have no idea about the nitty gritty of life in Britain to be honest. I watch the  BBC news regularly (so yes I know there is a general election coming up, that the live TV debates set up was a fiasco and that Nigel Farage is a dick) but the details of real life are lost to me. I can no longer compare the Dutch way to the British way.

Well, except in the realm of health and safety. When it comes to health and safety I can still often be uttering that a (life threatening or at the very least mildly dangerous like this) situation I come across here in the Netherlands would never happen in Britain. But now I don't mean it in quite such a positive way as I did fifteen years ago.......

Do you still compare your passport country to the country you now call home? Is it in a positive or negative way?

A Stuff Dutch People Like T-Shirt Giveaway: It's Gratis

I am kicking off the Live Like a Dutchie month with a Stuff Dutch People Like T-shirt giveaway. You can find all the details and how to enter below, but first a little about what is coming up on the blog in March.

This month will be completely dedicated to posts relating to life in the Netherlands and more specifically how to integrate into the land of the Dutch as an expat.

There will be posts about the essentials you will need to go unnoticed in the land where most people are probably much taller than you anyway.

There will be posts to show you that there is a lot more to the Netherlands than cheese, clogs, windmills and tulips - much much more.

There will be posts that showcase the best of the best of what other expat bloggers in the Netherlands have to say about going Dutch.

And some of the posts may even be serious. Perhaps.

What is definite is that we are going to have lots of fun this month! So now back to that T-shirt....

If you live in the Netherlands, or have any kind of tenuous link with the Netherlands but are not actually Dutch then your best starting point when it comes to integration is the Stuff Dutch People Like website. There you can learn what really turns the Dutch on.

And now you have the chance to get your hands on a Stuff Dutch People Like t-shirt - for free, which is the first lesson in Dutch integration. If it's free you need to have it, even if you don't actually need to have it. Remember this word: gratis. It's a good word. If you see gratis you grab whatever is being offered to you. Even if you don't need it. Follow this advice and you're making a huge step forward to  living like a Dutchie.

The T-shirt is a woman's XXL shirt (which is not as big as it sounds), no previous owners, straight from Stuff Dutch People Like. And it's perfect for expats who are 'Dutchies in training':

T-Shirt design on offer

*Please note that this giveaway is only open to those living in the Netherlands.* If you live elsewhere and need one of these shirts head over to Stuff Dutch People Like.

To enter: tell me in the comments section of this blog what you love most about living in the Netherlands or living with the Dutch and confirm your comment using Rafflecopter below. 

Leave a blog comment and then make sure you use Rafflecopter below to enter where you can also gain more entries by hopping over to various Expat Life with a Double Buggy social media pages. Feel free to spread the word if you are so inclined using #LiveLikeaDutchie across social media. At the end of March one lucky winner will be drawn out of a virtual orange hat! Good luck!!

So, tip number 1 for #LiveLikeaDutchie is gratis is good!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Dutch Integration: Orange, the World Cup and Holland

Unless you are living under a rock you are probably aware that the World Cup has kicked off in Brazil - and the Netherlands has already played their first group game.

And what a game it was. The current world champions were catapulted off their pedestal. The image of bugs lying on their backs frantically moving legs and arms in the air came to mind watching the Spanish during the match on Friday night. It was tremendous. World Cup history in the making.

Five times. I could have tweeted this five times.

Out of nowhere the Dutch football squad made the world sit up and take notice. As my dad commented, now the World Cup has really started. It was mesmerising to see the boys in blue demolish the team that beat them in the World Cup final four years ago. And that is football - one moment there are tears and the next moment fans are back slapping each other and whooping for joy.

So with the victory of 5-1 under their belts the Netherlands is ready to take on Australia this Wednesday. Even if you are not a football fan, you'll know when it's happening because it will be noisy, and every Dutch person you know will be dressed in orange.

And this was my update Friday morning - before the match.
I expect this figure to rise to 97.3% for Wednesday's match.

Before the World Cup started you probably noticed a small build up of pockets of orange flag lines emerging in streets. It cannot have escaped your notice that orange flags with lions and Hup Holland Hup were slowly being hoisted up flag poles. By the time Brazil and Croatia had kicked off there were streets that were what can only be described as orange. Other streets had a more modest scattering of orange paraphernalia adorning them.

Orange - it's the exterior design colour of the moment in the Netherlands

Now that the first three points are in the bag in such a spectacular fashion you may have noticed that the orange is spreading. Almost overnight orange things have spread their tentacles over more houses, businesses and street furniture. And the further the Dutch team progress in the tournament, the more orange things become.

Monuments turn orange. Food and drink become orange. Cars and bikes become orange. Hair turns orange. You name it - it starts turning orange.

And if you want to fully integrate in to Dutch society there is nothing you can do but join in. Embrace the orange. Go and buy an orange shirt. If you want to achieve expert integration level then you'll need to go full hog and invest in a few metres of orange flag lines and a flag with "Holland" on it. This is the one time in two years (this happens every European Championship and World Cup)  foreigners can call the Netherlands Holland and not get chastised by the locals, so make the most of it. Wave that 'Holland' flag around like you just don't care.

The country will be partying until the Dutch World Cup is over, however long that may be. And let's hope that is right up until Sunday 13 July. HUP HOLLAND HUP!

Dutch Integration: Slicing Cheese

You're about to delve into the world of cheese slicers. I'm not kidding. Let's start at the beginning. More than fourteen years ago, whilst living my British life, I used a knife to cut cheese for my sandwiches or crackers. A sharp knife. Sometimes a fancy cheese knife if I was out and about. But essentially a knife. No fancy fangled gadget to slice cheese in my house. A knife.

And then I moved to the Netherlands and I was presented with this:

This is what the Dutch use to cut cheese: een kaasschaaf. In the wrong hands (my hands) it's no longer a cheese slicing device, it's a deadly weapon. But then for self inflicted wounds. Unless you have fingers that grow back make sure you practice with a toy kaasschaaf first (most Dutch toy kitchens come with a mini plastic kaasschaaf to get you started). 

There are expats spread across the length and breadth of the Netherlands with bandaged fingers. There are expats sitting right now as you read this in the A&E department of their local hospital nursing missing finger tops. Don't join them. Practice before you are let loose with a kaasschaaf.

Once you are sure you've developed a safe but efficient technique you can progress to a real, sharp cheese slicer. Carefully. Slowly. One small, thin slice of cheese at a time.

If, even after practice, the idea of using a kaasschaaf is still too frightening all is not lost. I have an expat friend who has the perfect solution: buy cheese slices from the supermarket instead of cheese blocks or rounds. It's a little more pricey, but when you weigh up the medical insurance personal contributions and rising premiums because of excessive insurance use, it may all balance out in the long run.

One last word on the topic. All kaasschaven are not created equally. Once, a long time ago, in a cheese shop far away, we bought a big round cheese. The cheeseman (kaasboer) gave us a free kaasschaaf. Once my husband had got over his excitement of a freebie, we headed home and I immediately used our new kaasschaaf. 

"Well, so much for gratis, this cheese slicer is crap. It is ripping the cheese into pieces, not slicing it. It's going in the bin," I informed my husband as I menacingly held the slicer over the kitchen dustbin.

"Stop! It's the wrong sort of cheese," he said.

"What? Like the wrong kind of leaves or snow on the track issue?" 

"No. This cheese is too soft. Use the other slicer we have. This new one is for hard cheese," He explained.

Little did you know huh?

Hard Cheese, Soft Cheese? You Need to Know

Almost Dutch - Winter Olympics Pride

Photo Credit: Thera

Sometimes a realisation blind sides me. An unexpected event can arouse surprising emotions; I suddenly consciously realise what an attachment I have for my adopted country. I am suddenly fully aware of how much I love where I live and how proud I am to be able to even pretend play at being Dutch. I have a sense of national pride for a country I wasn't born in.

Such a feeling struck me over the weekend. Watching three Dutch flags rising simultaneously on Saturday to the rousing sounds of Het Wilhelmus left me feeling fiercely proud.

I'm not Dutch but I guess I'm as close to being Dutch as I can be without actually surrendering my British citizenship (never gonna happen). And watching three successful sportsmen so joyfully perched on an Olympic podium makes me realise how close to feeling Dutch I am, and how I love where I ended up living, even if it wasn't ever part of the plan.

It's not the first time a sporting achievement has left me with a hint of a tear in my eyes or made me feel sentimental about my adopted homeland. The last time was in 2010 when the Dutch football team did the country proud by reaching the World Cup. I was so surprised about how pained losing made me feel that I wrote about my experience for The Telegraph.

This time around the all orange medal podium was the cause of my sentimental attachment to the Netherlands, courtesy of the winners of the 5000m speed skating event. Sven Kramers brings the gold back to his home country, whilst countryman Jan Blokhuijsen won the silver medal and Jorrit Bergsma the bronze. An impressive sight - three Dutchmen together on an Olympic podium. Made even more impressive by the fact that it was their own king who presented them with their medals. A proud moment for the Dutch indeed.

And it won't be the last time we see such a sight. Yesterday the gold, silver and bronze medals for the 500m men's speed skating were won by....wait for it... three Dutch men: Michel Mulder, Jan Smeekens and Ronald Mulder.

Another proud moment to come then. Even for this adopted Brit who has made the Netherlands her home.