Don and Veronica's Post Card From Holland: #4 Getting to know the Dutch

We are really enjoying the process of getting to know the Dutch. They are very friendly and helpful without being gushy. Its not like they go around smiling all the time like Mr. Rodgers, but they do not hesitate to just speak up and help whenever they can. After Veronica decided to bake cookies, we were at the grocery store looking for ingredients and she was having a hard time finding baking soda. The 18-year-old stock clerk boy didn’t have a clue what she was asking for, but a woman nearby jumped in and took her to the baking section, where they proceeded to spend the next 20 minutes going through all the products and translating labels and talking about baking. We mentioned to our downstairs neighbor that we wanted to buy a futon couch at Ikea, and he immediately offered to loan us his old work car to haul it home in. We told our retired English teacher and engineer friends down the street that we had purchased our Dutch bikes and she gave us a pair of saddle bags for them.

These are just a few of many examples. Helping each other out is just a way of life for the Dutch. We received a package from home while we were gone for a couple days and the mailman didn’t think twice about leaving it with a neighbor, and asking him to deliver it to us when we got home. No matter that we didn’t know each other- neighbors help each other out, thats just what you do.

The Dutch are very industrious in general. Despite being one of the smaller countries in Europe (134th in size in the world, even after reclaiming a fifth of their country from the sea), they have the 16th largest economy in the world, and are the second biggest exporter of agricultural goods in the world, after the US. They have a strong economy and a very clean and modern country. They constantly maintain their infrastructure- you won’t find anything dirty and deteriorating in Holland (except an occasional abandoned bike). They go first-class on public projects, so, just like the trains, everything is clean and comfortable and efficient. There is always a construction project going on somewhere. They are very proud of their culture and country, which they show, oddly enough, by constantly complaining about it. However, as a foreigner, you need to learn that you are NOT supposed to agree with them! You are there simply to facilitate the venting.

So as a reward for all this, they have an incredible devil-may-care relationship with food. As Americans, we come from a culture where you feel you need to be constantly vigilant about what you eat, and feel guilty about eating anything that doesn’t taste like cardboard. Not the Dutch- they LOVE their deep fried food. Whether its vlaamse frietjes (gourmet belgian french fries), bitter ballen (the Dutch version of falafel), or deep fried fish filets, you name it, they will batter it, drag it in meal, deep fry it, and eat it with abandon, and because they do so much walking and biking, they don’t seem to gain weight. You rarely see a fat Dutch person.

This is not the place to live if you don’t like fish. They drag every kind of fish they can up from the North Sea. There is so much fresh fish, its considered a mortal sin to sell frozen fish. The Dutch version of the Taco Truck sells fresh fish on the street and they are everywhere. The classic Dutch treat is the “new herring”, raw herring in salt water that you roll in onions and drop into your mouth whole, bottoms up!

Did I mention that they love their bikes as well? There are 16½ million Dutch living in Holland, and 18 million bikes, so do the math. There is an incredible network of paved bike paths connecting nearly all the cities in the country, complete with directional signs to and through the cities. The government does everything it can to encourage bike use, including taking space out of the roadway to make bike lanes, giving tax credits for bike use, giving bikes priority over cars in traffic laws, and giving them their own traffic signals just like pedestrians. The shopping mall parking lot is full of bikes- hundreds of bikes. There is no parking lot for cars.

Everywhere there is a sidewalk, there is a bike path next to it, twice as wide. First time visitors to the city are inclined to think “My, what a nice broad sidewalk!” and stroll down the wide brick pathway. This is not a healthy inclination. You are far more likely to get flattened by a bike than by any car in Holland. There are two kinds of pedestrians in Holland: the quick and those with twin sets of fat bicycle tracks going up their back.

Every Dutch bike rider has a bell on his or her bike, and they are not afraid to use it. The Dutch are normally very polite. If they accidentally step in front of you in line, they are quick to apologize. If they accidentally bump you in a crowd, they are mortified at themselves and beg forgiveness. But put them on the seat of a 20-year-old used Dutch city-bike, and they are a different person. One casual step by an absent minded pedestrian into the bike riders domain, and you are flirting with death. They will give you the bell in a heartbeat. Stand in the bike crosswalk waiting at the stoplight, and you get the bell; start to cross the bike path without looking, and you get the bell. They will hit the dinger on you with a vengeance for any invasion of bike lane territory. I have never been dinged so much as when I come to Holland.

In fact, you’d have to say the Dutch are pretty good with their dingers. Just the other day, I was strolling along on my part of the sidewalk and a biker dude blew right by me, barely missing me. I was so angry, I grabbed for my dinger to give it to him, but unfortunately I wasn’t on a bike, so I was dingerless. So instead, I just shook my fist and hollered “If I had a dinger you would really get it, buster! You’re just lucky that you are the only one of us who has a working dinger!” I guess I showed him.

And then, just when you think you have mastered the bike lanes, you see them: the kamikaze food bikes. Actually, you don’t see them first, you hear them, but by the time you hear their loud angry buzzing, its too late, they are on you. At 5:00 pm everyday, they come out, zipping around from here to there. The air is thick with them. These food delivery bikes are souped up Vespas with hot boxes on the back that sound like weed whackers on steroids. They speed through the streets, across the sidewalks, through the crowds of cyclists and pedestrians with no regard for their own or anyone else’s safety. I haven’t seen one go through a side walk café yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they did. They make the average state-side pizza delivery dude look tame by comparison.

Old Town and sidewalk cafes

Class starts tomorrow, so I am looking forward to meeting my class mates, finding out where they all come from, and how many decades older than the average I am!