Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Albert Heijn, Catarina Chronicles, Creativity, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Dutch Life, Expat Life, Family & Friends, Learning Dutch or Other Foreign Languages, Netherlands, tagged a plan, Albert Heijn, animal cards, blogging, collecting and trading, collection, creativity, culture, dierenkaarten, don't leave money on the table, Dutch neighbor, entrepreneur, entrepreneurial, fear, freebie, intimidating, junkie, loyal lieutenant, obsession, possessed, pressure, promotional giveaway, speaking Dutch, stress, trading cards, writing on October 3, 2012 | 12 Comments »
When the doorbell rang late Sunday afternoon, it took a moment to register in my brain. Lounging lazily in the family room with my feet propped up on the coffee table and the Sunday Times Culture magazine section spread across my lap, I suddenly felt my shoulders tense and the hair on the back of my neck stand [...]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Albert Heijn, Change, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Expat Life, Expat Transitions & Change, Family & Friends, Learning Dutch or Other Foreign Languages, Travel, United States, tagged America, different, driving, Dutch, English, expat, familiar, family, going 'home', going back, off kilter, Repatriation, sensory overload, travel, United States, university visits, visiting family on June 30, 2012 | 16 Comments »
I’ve been back in the United States for a week now, and I’m still adjusting. Daughter and I are here for an extended period visiting family, beginning to check out universities, attending a pre-college program (her) while I hole myself up to work on some writing projects, and so on. Oh, and eventually spending some [...]
Posted in Blogging, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Expat Life, Family & Friends, Learning Dutch or Other Foreign Languages, Light Bulb Moments, Writing, tagged bilingualism, brain, cognitive muscles, executive function, focus, monolingualism, resolve internal conflict, social media, switching among languages, Telegraph, Yudhijit Bhattacharjee on May 19, 2012 | 10 Comments »
As a writer and blogger, I would be the first to tell you how important social media is in getting your work out there, sharing it and finding kindred souls who find something of value in your words. That value may be information, inspiration or entertainment. If you’re really fortunate, occasionally you win what I call the Writer’s [...]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Albert Heijn, Catarina Chronicles, Creativity, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Dutch Life, Expat Life, Learning Dutch or Other Foreign Languages, tagged Albert Heijn, earning stickers, grocery store giveaways, head of delegation, international trade, Muppet puppets, negotiations on February 2, 2012 | 10 Comments »
I must confess, I’m exhausted. I’ve just closed the front door after another visit from my delightful eight year old Dutch neighbor, Catarina. She stopped by to discuss Muppetpunten (Muppet points), as covered in my previous post An International Trade Representative’s Got Nothing On Her. That makes two visits in eight days, which constitutes a new record. It [...]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Albert Heijn, Catarina Chronicles, Creativity, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Dutch Life, Expat Life, Learning Dutch or Other Foreign Languages, tagged Albert Heijn, grocery store giveaways, international trading, negotiations, speaking Dutch, trading cards on January 25, 2012 | 10 Comments »
Late yesterday afternoon, the doorbell rang. As I opened the heavy oak front door, I found myself face-to-face with Catarina, my adorable eight-year-old Dutch neighbor, she of Learning a Language? Child’s Play fame. She was standing there with a tennis racket slung over her shoulder and an air of urgency about her. ‘Hallo Catarina, hoe gaat [...]
Posted in Expat Life, Guest Posts, Learning Dutch or Other Foreign Languages, tagged axe murder, Gry Tina Tinde, guest post, knife skills, learning a foreign language, Norwegian Ministry of Defense, Russian, writing on November 29, 2011 | 2 Comments »
When we last left the inimitable guest writer Gry Tina Tinde in Part I: A couple of hours before our rendezvous Mikhail called and said unfortunately something had come up. He would get back in touch. All I could do was wait, as I did not have his number. Months passed, but there was no [...]
Posted in Expat Life, Guest Posts, Learning Dutch or Other Foreign Languages, tagged Cambodia, Gry Tina Tinde, guest post, learning a foreign language, New York, Norwegian Ministry of Defense, Russian, Russian Embassy, UN, writing on November 27, 2011 | 3 Comments »
I’m excited to share that we have another guest post by the multi-talented Gry Tina Tinde. Many of you remember Tina’s first guest post, the wild and wacky adventures of A Ski Instructor to Die For or more recently her piece On Marriage I Go With Brad Pitt. For anyone just joining us, Tina has spent a lifetime [...]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Albert Heijn, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Dutch Life, Expat Life, Learning Dutch or Other Foreign Languages, tagged benefits of bilingualism, best age to learn a language, bilingual, brain boost, foreign language, learning Dutch, Netherlands, writing on October 28, 2011 | 11 Comments »
[This post is for Patti in Leiden, and all the other nice folks I met last weekend at the I Am Not A Tourist International Fair in Amsterdam. She and her husband are new to The Netherlands. Welkom!] Lord knows my fellow Adventurers know that I’ve been trying to learn Dutch. I certainly have been harping [...]
Posted in Change, Dutch Life, Expat Life, Learning Dutch or Other Foreign Languages, Netherlands, tagged English, English proficiency, languages, monolinguist, polylinguist, Scandinavia on July 9, 2011 | 8 Comments »
As reported recently in I Am Expat, The Netherlands ranks second IN THE WORLD for English speakers in non-English speaking countries. How cool is that?! The longer I live abroad, the more I travel, the greater effort I put into trying to learn foreign languages, I have to tell you: this is seriously wonderful recognition. It [...]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Expat Life, Learning Dutch or Other Foreign Languages, Netherlands, tagged Dutch language, expat, moving abroad on June 16, 2011 | 12 Comments »
I’ll never forget learning my first words of Dutch. Ja. Nee. Dank u wel. Alstublieft. Yes. No. Thank you. Please. I learned them from Husband more than two years ago. Son, Daughter and I were visiting him during their school spring break, and had arrived in Den Haag (The Hague) the day before. Husband had been living [...]
Posted in Exercise & Sports, Learning Dutch or Other Foreign Languages, tagged extramarital affair, football, Imogen Thomas, Ryan Giggs, super injunction, Wayne Rooney on June 6, 2011 | 6 Comments »
I’ve been stewing all weekend about the whole Ryan Giggs affair (yes, pun intended; it’s the only humor you’re going to get from me today). For anyone living on the west side of the pond (or who’s been residing in a cave in recent days), Ryan Giggs is the incredibly talented, Energizer Bunnyesque Manchester United side [...]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Albert Heijn, Dutch Life, Expat Life, Learning Dutch or Other Foreign Languages, Light Bulb Moments, Netherlands, tagged Albert Heijn, cashier, clerk, efficient, foreign languages, friendly on May 19, 2011 | 14 Comments »
Yesterday I was in the Albert Heijn picking up a few items for dinner. It was 5:30, so the store was crowded with people stopping in on their way home. The Dutch eat promptly at 6:oo, you’ll recall. It’s almost as if there is a silent whistle that goes off at 6pm each evening, one [...]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Expat Life, Family & Friends, Learning Dutch or Other Foreign Languages, tagged bilingual, Learning languages, monolingual, multilingual, speaking another language on May 10, 2011 | 12 Comments »
While perusing the internet for news this morning, this BBC article entitled ‘Poor Language Skills ‘Leave Britons Out of EU Jobs’ ‘ caught my eye. It seems that while Brits make up 12% of the population of the European Union, they only fill 5% of the jobs in the EU Parliament and Commission. This is due in [...]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Dutch Life, Exercise & Sports, Expat Life, Family & Friends, Guest Posts, Learning Dutch or Other Foreign Languages, Netherlands, tagged American expat in Netherlands, learning Dutch, suspended, voetbal on April 14, 2011 | 5 Comments »
Hey there, I wanted to share with you that today I am over at The Unexpected Traveller with my very first guest post. Since The Unexpected Traveller is based in Belgium, you could also say that I’m travelling today as I cross the border to visit our neighbor to the south. I’ve been following The [...]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Albert Heijn, Catarina Chronicles, Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Expat Life, Family & Friends, Learning Dutch or Other Foreign Languages, tagged learning Dutch, simple conversations on March 29, 2011 | 4 Comments »
It suddenly dawned on me yesterday: I’m basically an eight-year-old trapped in an adult’s body. Now I don’t mean that I’m immature. Although I’ll admit that I do have my moments. Then again, who doesn’t? And I’m not talking about being ‘young at heart’. At times I am very much so. Probably not as much as I’d like, [...]
Posted in Dutch Life, Learning Dutch or Other Foreign Languages, tagged speaking Dutch, useful phrases on March 17, 2011 | 2 Comments »
I ran into my Dutch neighbor Anneke the other day, and we started chatting. (Well, okay, Anneke was chatting and I was stumbling, but hey, it works.) That’s when I heard it. She used a phrase that just rolled off her tongue. It was spoken with such casual effect, just the right intonation and delivered with an almost imperceptible [...]
Posted in Expat Life, Learning Dutch or Other Foreign Languages, tagged learning Dutch, mispronounciation on February 27, 2011 | 2 Comments »
I was leisurely drinking my coffee this morning, catching up on postings I’ve missed recently at my favorite blogs. Loved this one over at Wordgeyser, so check it out. (You may recall that said Wordgeyser was the recipient of my inaugural ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, …’ feature, here. This of course reminds me that I am overdue for the [...]
Posted in Dutch Life, Learning Dutch or Other Foreign Languages, Netherlands, tagged Dutch, Nederlands, silly word, winkel on February 5, 2011 | 4 Comments »
I’m warning you upfront that this post is going to be a little juvenile. Okay, maybe a LOT. Every language has a few words that just seem, well, odd. Or silly. So funny-sounding that it’s hard to take them seriously. When you have to actually use such words, it’s hard to keep a straight face. [...]
Posted in Expat Life, Learning Dutch or Other Foreign Languages, tagged Dutch, learn a foreign language on January 15, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
If you ever try to learn a foreign language, it is imperative that the first phrase you learn to say is ‘this is a very difficult language’. Or something to that effect. You might think you should learn ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ first, but those are words people, not phrases. (Okay, if you say ‘thank [...]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Change, Exercise & Sports, Expat Life, Family & Friends, Learning Dutch or Other Foreign Languages, Life Balance, Light Bulb Moments, Work, Writing, tagged articles, blog, exercise, health, learning Dutch, New Year's Resolutions, organized, published, working, writing on January 5, 2011 | 5 Comments »
It’s nice to be back after a short break that, while busy, was enjoyable, interesting, rejuvenating and restorative. I’ll share more about that in an upcoming post. As readers who follow earlier posts of mine will know, I’m big on reflection and New Year’s resolutions. In fact, the posts The Write Lesson Learned and Letting Go and then Most [...]
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