Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Expat Life, Family & Friends, Food and Drink, Oddities + Odds & Ends, Writing, tagged cafe, cafe culture, emotional resilience, I Was an Expat Wife, relocation, sight-seeing, Swanny Mouton, The Hague on May 25, 2011 | 8 Comments »
Today I’m going to do a number of things: provide two updates, share a helpful link and a fun link (although the helpful link could be fun and the fun link could be helpful, too), and issue an apology. Think of it as dealing with all the leftovers in your refrigerator. My gift to you. […]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Expat Life, Oddities + Odds & Ends, tagged apartment buildings, beach, corral, donkey, Scheveningen on April 7, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Last weekend Husband and I were visiting a friend in nearby Scheveningen. Scheveningen sits on the North Sea, and is known for its pier and expansive public beach, bustling with activity throughout the year. We were only a few blocks away from the beach, at one of those enormous city blocks. You know the kind, ringed […]
Posted in Netherlands, Oddities + Odds & Ends, tagged Dutch, nationality, scuba divers on February 20, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
I suppose there are times when the nationality of a person is absolutely crucial. I’m trying to think of some examples off the top of my head, and I’m drawing a blank. Not to be discriminatory in any way, but I tend to prefer learning a foreign language from a native speaker. Certainly not an ironclad […]
Posted in Expat Life, Oddities + Odds & Ends, tagged bicycle, England, highway, refrigerator on February 19, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Finally! I was beginning to think that the Netherlands has all the odd bicycle story fun. Now I know that couldn’t be true, and sure enough, it isn’t. Get a load of this in the UK’s Daily Mirror. This very industrious (and strong) fellow decided if the new abode couldn’t come to the refrigerator, the fridge […]
Posted in Dutch Life, Expat Life, Oddities + Odds & Ends, tagged bicycles, horses, strange sightings on February 15, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Sometimes we all get so busy hurrying here and there, doing this and that, that we forget to notice our surroudings. In our rush, we often miss things. When we do take the time to gaze around, we are sometimes rewarded with a little surprise, something unexpected. Now I’ve written about odd horse-sightings here and again […]
Posted in Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Dutch Life, Exercise & Sports, Expat Life, Netherlands, Oddities + Odds & Ends, tagged adventures, bicycles, Netherlands, riding bikes, tricked out bikes on February 9, 2011 | 2 Comments »
One more! Okay, I realize that this technically is NOT a bicycle, but you have to admit folks do things with style here! (If you’re confused by this photo, check out my previous post here.)
Posted in Culture, Crosscultural, Intercultural & Multicultural, Dutch Life, Exercise & Sports, Expat Life, Netherlands, Oddities + Odds & Ends, tagged adventure, bicycles, Netherlands, riding bikes, tricked out bikes on February 9, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
The Dutch sure do love their bicycles, yes they do! And I think it definitely falls into the ‘Oddities’ category. Now it’s not odd that they truly enjoy riding their bicycles everywhere. Bikes are a great way to get around: (relatively) low-cost, minimal maintenance, self-powered so you’re not dependent on fuel, healthy. So it’s not surprising that […]
Posted in Adventures Big & Small, Dutch Life, Expat Life, Oddities + Odds & Ends, tagged driving, horse, Mercedes on January 29, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Scene: Driving Daughter home from voetbal practice early one evening, a few weeks ago. It’s rush hour as we travel on on the A-44 (fairly busy divided highway, two lanes each way) toward the city of Den Haag. We stop at a traffic light at a major intersection in the town of Wassenaar. I turn to […]
Posted in Dutch Life, Oddities + Odds & Ends, Travel, tagged bicycle, bike, suitcase, train, travel on January 12, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
It’s a well-known fact that the Dutch love their bikes. And they love to travel. (Dutch East India Company, Dutch West India Company, spices, trade, colonies and all.) I first mentioned their combined love of the two in my Oddities: Bicyclemania (Part I) post. And I recognized Bicyclemania (Part II) immediately when I saw it. We […]
Posted in Dutch Life, Exercise & Sports, Oddities + Odds & Ends, tagged autumn, horses, soccer, strange, voetbal on December 8, 2010 | 3 Comments »
Earlier this fall I was on the sidelines watching Daughter’s high school soccer game. (Astute readers will notice the use of ‘soccer’ instead of ‘voetbal’, thinking I’ve made a mistake. Not so. Daughter’s school refers to the sport as soccer. Her Dutch club team obviously calls it voetbal. Just trying to keep up here, that’s […]
Posted in Dutch Life, Oddities + Odds & Ends, tagged bicycle, train on December 1, 2010 | 2 Comments »
I was waiting in line while on an errand at Centraal Station. The man behind me arrived with his bicycle. I assumed he would lean the bicycle against the wall while in line. (Not an unreasonable assumption, I thought.) But no. He wheels his bicycle right up to the teller’s window, conducts his transaction, and wheels away. Gotta […]
Posted in Oddities + Odds & Ends, tagged Dutch, geese, joke on November 22, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
At Daughter’s Dutch voetbal (aka soccer to Americans) club this weekend, I stood on the sidelines watching the game with the other team parents. Suddenly we heard the honking of birds. Several parents began laughing and speaking animatedly, pointing skyward. A flock of geese was passing overhead. Although I couldn’t understand many of the Dutch words, I understood […]
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