Dutch 101 - It’s All Mixed Up

Since we’ve moved here, we’ve had to adjust to using the metric system and military time for train and school schedules. In addition, there’s also some fundamental differences to learn how the Dutch communicate:

* Telling time: 1:15 is quarter after 1:00, but everything after 1:15 is told in relation to the next hour, so 1:16 is 14 till half before 2:00 and 1:34 is 4 after half before 2:00 (confused yet?)
* Counting: 1-20 is the same concept, but for all numbers above 21 the order is switched. So 95 would be said: 5 and 90.
* Negatives: There’s no equivalent of “Don’t.” So instead of saying “I don’t speak Dutch,” it’s “I speak none Dutch.”
* Letter sounds: Their “E” = our “A”, “I” = “E”, “V” = “F”, and “W” = “V.” It is a very guttural language with “G” sounding like gargling.

Lucky for me, the majority of Dutch speak great English. Of course, this has also hindered my efforts to learn the language and after four years, my Dutch still stinks.

A Happy Third Wheel...

Jimmy and I hoped we could sneak away with Darlene and Mike before they moved back to the US. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find a good weekend for someone to look after the girls, so I ended up leaving Jimmy behind for a weekend in Lille, France. We left on Saturday morning and headed to some outlet stores, which were nothing special, then into this city near the Belgium border. We had a fantastic seafood dinner (I had ray, which was delicious), then crawled into bed to watch a movie. On Sunday we did a lot of walking around. Unfortunately, the shops and fort were all closed, but we still managed to have an enjoyable day.

Our New “Pets”

Early in October, we dogsat for Darlene’s dog Lance. When out for a final walk one night at 10pm, Lance started barking like a madman. Turns out there was a hedgehog on the lawn. Jimmy and the girls sprung quickly into action planning a hedgehog feeding station. They scrounged some scrap lumber from a neighbor’s construction project and built a large box. Here’s our first visitor playing dead. The girls named him Hedgy.
Hedgehogs are spiky, but basically harmless. A few weeks later, the girls realized that a 2nd hedgehog had paid us a visit for a free peanut butter sandwich. They then marked their backs with some fabric paint, so they could tell them apart. The mad scientist in Jimmy then took over and soon our feeding station had its very own motion sensor and webcam with infrared lights (probably the only one of its kind in Holland). By the end of November, we were up to five hedgehogs paying us visits. Check them out on the girls’ blog.

Our Frisbee Girls...

As a 4th grader, Ashlynn wouldn’t have normally been invited to play in the Dutch Jr. National Ultimate Frisbee Championships, but her coach made an exception for her since he knows how dedicated she is and her big sister was playing. We were very proud of her as the youngest player that she stuck through an entire day of her team getting creamed in on-and-off rain. Here you can see that she had the thrill of scoring!
Veronica normally plays with the Gray Lions, who came in 2nd, but was bumped down at the last minute to the blue team, who came in 4th. When the two teams met in the semi-finals, the Gray Lions stomped on them, but at least Veronica scored. As the team captain for the day, she learned a lot about strategy. Despite what a long day it was, I was surprised how much fun it was to watch (although I am relieved that there’s only a few tournaments a year).

An American Dream in Leiden...

Every year Leiden celebrates its liberation from Spain on October 3, 1574. This year October 3rd happened to be on a Saturday, so Jimmy was available to come along to their big parade. The weather was questionable, so the girls wimped out and we cycled there without them. We managed to find a great place to stand on a narrow street near the end of the parade route. One local family was thrilled to have Americans to buy beer for and explain things to, although many of the groups were easy for us to figure out since the theme happened to be America.

Let’s Go Fly a Kite...

After missing this for the last three years, I made sure that we wouldn’t miss the International Kite Festival in Scheveningen by arranging a Dutch Family Hash at the beach. It was a beautiful day, which was perfect for a hash and for kite flying. We didn’t actually fly any kites ourselves, but we enjoyed seeing the colorful variety of kites from 20 countries.

Going Dutch...

Soon after the newcomer’s guide came out in February, Terri and I were recruited to be co-editors for the magazine of the American Women’s Club for the club year from September through June. By some miracle, we were able to recruit Meg, a philosophy professor for the State of Tennessee who teaches via video from The Hague, to be our layout manager. Somehow we managed to pull together our first issue while Terri was in France and I was in America. It was exciting when the three of us were finally in the same place at the same time and could celebrate our first issue. By now, we’re finishing up the January issue. Five down, five to go!