Dutch 101 - Introduce Yourself

Ik ben Melissa. Ik kom uit Noord Carolina in Amerika, maar woon nu in Nederland. Ik spreek een beetje Nederlands. Ik zit bij huis en eet bon-bons. Ik heb twee dochters. Veronica en Ashlynn hebben blond haar en blauwe ogen. Zij gaan naar de school op de trein en bus. Mijn man is James. Hij is lang en slank. Hij gaat naar werk op de fiets.

That's about it folks. After 20 months and 40 hours of Dutch lessons, I can introduce myself and my family. I can also order in a restaurant and shop in the market. That is if no one speaks back to me. As soon as they say anything back, I still panic and switch to English. Lucky for me, most Dutch between 15 to 60 years old speak fluent English, as well as French and German. Sadly, learning new languages doesn't come easy to me and I'm too lazy to study.

Learning the Queen’s English - Part 2

It hadn’t really dawned on me that things we’ve been saying for years could be considered funny or even taboo by Brits or vice versa.

* When discussing how to outwit the thieves of Rome, I told some friends I would be wearing a special secure “fanny pack.” After they finally stopped laughing, they informed me I should call it a waist or bum pack. Somehow when the word “fanny” crossed the big pond, it switched sides of a woman's anatomy. Makes for a funny image when I think of my friend Lisa telling her son to “sit on your fanny.”

* James made the tea cart lady blush at work when he said he was “ready for a stiff one”. Apparently that term doesn't refer to a cocktail there.

* Veronica’s classmates really giggled when she said, “My pants are wet .” Turns out Brits call their undies “pants.”

* I've had a tough time coming to grips that it is OK for a 7-year-old to say, “Mum, do you have a rubber?” I was shocked the first time I heard that request and then watched my friend dig into her purse, but busted up when she pulled out an eraser. Even over a year later, I'm still juvenile enough to giggle when the girls say, “Where did I put that rubber?”

Learning the Queen’s English - Part 1

Little did we know that in addition to learning Dutch, we’d need to learn the Queen’s English as well since we’re surrounded by Brits at school and work. Of course, I already knew that Brits had accents and spelled things funny (all this time I thought it was the Pilgrims trying to break ties to the motherland that created all the differences in spelling, but now I know it’s because there were no good dictionaries back then so they just guessed how to spell things). The girls have some new sentences that they definitely wouldn’t have used at their old school: Mrs. Cross was rather cross today, Jimmy was not acting sensible at all, the movie was simply brilliant. So you won’t need a translator when you see us, some of our new vocabulary includes: jumper=sweatshirt, trousers=pants, cheeky=bold, bin=trash can, trainers=sneakers, biscuit=cookie, and bum=butt.

Two by Two...

No replica of Noah's Ark would be complete without animals. There might eventually be a petting zoo, but for now there's models of several of the animals that would have been on board. Veronica couldn't resist standing where no human would dare to stand with a live elephant. Although the ark was huge, it's still difficult to imagine how 50,000 animals (from the smallest insect to dinosaurs according to the posters) could have lived together for 150 days. Thankfully they didn't attempt to recreate the smells.

Visiting Noah's Ark Dutch-Style...

In light of all the fears of rising sea levels, when I read that a Dutchman had attempted to recreate Noah's Ark, I was intrigued. When I was looking for something to do on a holiday in May, I figured it was worth checking out. We met Sally, David and Andrew and headed north. First we stopped in Alkmaar so Jimmy could see the infamous cheese market and cheese museum. Then we headed to the town of Schagen where the Ark was sitting in the harbor.

It's massive size was definitely impressive. At 230 feet, it's short compared to the original at 450 feet, but the width and height are supposedly the same. It took 2 years and over $1 million Euros to build. Of course, unlike Noah, this fellow used power tools. It was built on a steel barge with the intent of being able to sail around Holland. With all the rain we're getting around here lately, everyone in Holland might need arks soon.

Living Under Sea Level...

Living in a country with 55% of its land area below sea level, we now have an increased awareness of global warming and rising sea levels.While the North Sea is predicted to rise along the Dutch coast as much as 2.75 feet by 2100, the weather bureau KNMI claims that current technology should be able to tackle increases up to3 feet per century (click Here to learn more about Dutch flood controls in an excellent new article from MIT). However, they have warned that inland waterways will become more vulnerable to flooding. Since the banks of the Rhine didn’t spill over during a recent intense storm, we thought we had nothing to worry about. However, we awoke to find up to 3 inches of standing water in parts of our basement because drains under the street backed up into drains in our basement. Thankfully it was just rainwater and we’d recently cleaned out our basement for a giant yard sale. Luckily all we lost was a bunch of moving boxes that we'd been storing and a Saturday we'd rather have been playing than drying the place out.

Getting Cool in Amsterdam...

Not surprisingly, we took a lot of photos in the Ice Bar. You can see there’s a major difference between natural light and using the flash.

Here’s one of the adults minus Missy who was just too cold to hang out for long. Dan and Missy had arrived the day before for just two nights in Holland before heading to Valencia, Spain with the Fewells to watch the final yacht races to see which team would compete against the Swiss for the America’s Cup. While they had a great trip, they had the misfortune to experience what its like to be robbed when someone stole their backpack while at a restaurant in Spain.