More than Cheese

Loving the subway!

2010-11-26T07:59:00.000+01:00

So work means taking the subway—either a joy or my ungluing, depending on its reliability. Now I’ve taken the subway in New York City, where my daily commute was much, much longer (and yet more efficient,) but I’m finding the subway in Amsterdam comparable, though much less fun. Because face it, New York is full of 8 million New Yorkers who comprise the colorful jetsam and flotsam of human existence and Amsterdam just can’t compete statistically. There are fewer crazies and eccentrics here and Calvinists just aren’t that showy, anyhow.

But what’s remarkably the same about the subway here is once you enter through its doors you’re faced immediately with a sea of black coats and equally dark faces staring at electronic gadgets, making the lack of human contact all the more apparent. My daily commute includes a cross-section of sleepy university students, well-heeled business types, Moroccans and Turks in headscarves, older people and teens of all races looking tough and forever bored. The metropolitan mix is different but the drudgery of being stuck in a moving metallic box with strangers remains the same.

Still, all the sobriety of public transportation feels rather un-Dutch to me, somehow, as the Dutch are known for wearing orange to celebrate national holidays and when I first moved here, let’s just say it was no fashion faux pas to wear lime green sneakers with bright red jeans. So what has changed? Perhaps it’s as simple as this: it’s winter.

Me Talk Pretty One Day

2010-11-20T18:38:00.002+01:00

While speaking Dutch is not obligatory in the Netherlands, I am doing my best to wrap my tongue (not to mention throat) around this guttural language. Once a week I take a fluency course at a local language school—the aim being fluency, certainly not the reality—with a host of other foreigners, most of who migrated here for love or de liefde. My classmates are primarily Eastern European (Polish, Bulgarian) now working on their third language; an Italian who’s now on her fourth; a Brit who like me, is struggling to master a second tongue and then there’s our fiery teacher who earns her bread and butter as a travel guide and speaks seven. Needless to say I’m experiencing just a bit of language jealousy here—having dabbled with French in high school, learned Spanish for several years before moving here (and having this useful world language replaced by Dutch, which the Dutch don’t even insist I speak), I am proficient in asking where the toilets are, whether something is located to the left or right of the train station and saying that I really, really like something. Yeah, really.

Every class is different and brings to light the absurdity of language and I’m convinced now that language is illogical—its rules are random, there are too many exceptions and certain concepts slide into your cerebellum with ease while others take a concerted effort to register. But what I love most is the interaction with my classmates because if we happened to find ourselves at a bus stop, we wouldn’t bother talking to each other, yet in class are prodded into communication. A few weeks ago the teacher tried to stimulate a political conversation but I was grouped with the two Polish girls, who told me they didn’t follow politics, yet immediately turned to talking about immigration—which just happens to be the most heated political issue of the moment. As we talked about immigration, I mentioned Geert Wilders, the controversial, bleached politician and agnostic who has campaigned against the "Islamitization of the Netherlands,” and is anti-immigration even though his wife is foreign. Both girls hadn’t heard of Wilders, which is hard to believe considering he’s covered by the press daily, so the conversation dead-ended.

Another lesson we actually did speak about immigration and being an American whose entire family ventured to the States from elsewhere and whose country is an evolving experiment in human integration (you might argue it’s not exactly working), I actually had little to say—immigration is business as usual. But I did mention that while Mexicans tended to migrate north of the border to better jobs, older Americans were also migrating south—for drugs.

“For drugs?” my teacher asked, looking at me curiously.

“Yeah, for drugs,” I said, “Because our healthcare system can’t cover the needs of the aging population.”

“Ohhh,” she said, now relieved. “You mean medicijn—medicine. Not drugs.”

“Well, the margaritas are really, really strong, you know, “ I said. “Really strong.”

What's in a name?

2010-11-13T18:07:00.002+01:00

Long hiatus again—never good for a blogger—but today got me thinking that Holland still has much blogging fodder to offer me. I’ve been quiet in recent months as the novelty of “Dutchness” has worn off—the honeymoon period is long over and I’ve grown accustomed to what was once strange. But today, sitting eating lunch at a brown café in Utrecht, I was tickled by a by-line I read in the newspaper. The author was a Mr. Speksnijder or Mr. Bacon Slicer to you English speakers out there and no, this was not his stage name.

On an interesting historical note, the Dutch didn’t really use surnames until 1811, when Napoleon annexed the Netherlands, establishing a registry of births, deaths and marriages. The locals, suddenly obliged to pick a surname, didn’t take old Bonaparte that seriously (it’s been argued that many thought this was temporary), opting for irony instead. Amongst the surnames I found in the newspaper today were: Korteweg or Shortcut, Snoep or Candy and van Geen or of Nothing. Other popular ones are Naaktgeboren (born naked) and Zeldenthuis (seldom home), which puts a wide grin on this expats’s face because it gives a window into the folk who once traversed the very cobblestones I now cycle over.

Popcorn Balls

2010-06-01T12:36:00.003+02:00

Last week, I worked at the annual Vurige Tongen poetry festival held at Ruigoord. My boyfriend owns a bus and we've sold food and chai at the festival for several years now, but this time I wanted to bring a bit of America to the table in the form of popcorn balls. Marshmellow-coated popcorn balls to be exact.

Now say the words "popcorn balls" and most Americans are apt to respond with "Yummy!" followed by, "I loved them as a child!" Food, of course, is quite a cultural thing--the Dutch don't really eat popcorn, though they have a proclivity for food that's ball-shaped, whether it's cheese, oily donuts or good ol' gehakt, which are basically meatballs.

I thought my popcorn balls would go down a treat, but the Dutch, who are also farmers at heart, suspicious of new-fangled things because they might not be water-tight, weren't sure what to do with them. Unlike Americans, who jump on what's new with pioneering spirit, the Dutch like to drag their clogs. So we ended up giving away about 40 popcorn balls to children playing nearby, who eagerly put them in their mouths and immediately said, "Yummy!" Guess they weren't old enough to know better.

I'm not sure if I'll try this experiment again. I'd rather keep popcorn balls a cheap, sugary American secret and let the Dutch eat dairy.

Lost in Translation

2010-04-25T10:54:00.001+02:00

No one said learning a foreign language was easy, especially when you’re an adult whose head is full of decades of information, memories and trivia. Sometimes it feels like there’s not enough room in my brain to accommodate what’s new, or worse, there is room so everything gets shifted, with the result: I can’t find the words in any language.

Case in point, I was sitting around a table of Dutch speakers and the subject was RSI or repetitive strain syndrome. Already self-conscious about my language skills around more complicated subjects—i.e. anything disconnected to food—I was trying to explain how a friend had such bad RSI she couldn’t zip up her pants.

Or at least I thought that’s what I was saying. But I was only met by wide stares, so I knew something wasn’t right.

“Yes, she had trouble doing up her, uh, caterpillar,” I kept saying, motioning to my zipper. The Dutch word for zipper is “rits” and caterpillar is “rups”—not a huge difference, all things considered. “She was too weak to do her caterpillar,” I repeated, unconvinced I was using the right word. Finally, someone asked me to say it in English. “Oh zipper? That’s what you meant!” was the chorus.

It’s a good exercise, though, making mistakes because I’ll never forget either word again.

Oddly Named Cars

2010-04-08T16:52:00.004+02:00

I am by no means a car fan--this here girl drives a bike. Still, I've been noticing car names around Amsterdam recently and some things simply don't translate (or translate well.) Over the last several days I've seen:

Panda Hobby (huh? is this car meant for a kindergardener?)

Scenic (well, certainly not the traffic...)

Charisma (this one was an old beater, so it needed some)

Galaxy (more appropriate for a chocolate bar, methinks)

Berlingo (an English language institute?)

Sharan (too close to Sharon, the name the British give to stupid women)

and finally:

Move (taking things at their most literal)

I wonder why car makers have decided to go all colorful on this side of the Atlantic. Yes, the brands are the same: Audi, Hyundai, BMW, etc. Only the car names are so frickin' weird, like someone allowed their kid to tag them as they rolled off the factory floor. I mean, in America our cars are so much more macho. We've got trailblazers, rangers, hummers and rams. Manly cars that roam on the ever expanding range.

The sights at Vondel Park

2010-04-04T10:39:00.006+02:00

On most days, I have to really motivate myself to go jogging because this means combatting rain, wind and whatever elements Mother Nature would like to throw my way. (I'd say like most Dutch women, Mother Nature is rather assertive and holds few surprises.)

A few days ago, it was truly Spring. Spring had sprung and so, encouraged by sunlight and the lack of rain, I decided to go jogging. I live around the corner from Vondel Park, so I headed there past the David Lloyd fitness club, and discovered hundreds of joggers when I got there. I am rather slow when it comes to jogging, especially compared to the long-legged Dutch who tend to hold entire conversations while jogging, and make lots of stops.

Now Vondel Park is always fascinating as people constantly migrate here to relax. There are certain areas where groups or subgroups tend to hang out. Like teens and gays like to congregate near the rose bushes, while the northern end of the park attracts drinkers and alcoholics. So while I was jogging near the drinker's patch, I decided to take a break. Two guys were playing frisbee as their friends carried on loudly behind them. One was dressed like a throwback from the 1980s, his multi-colored, pastel jacket would have fit in perfectly at the 1984 Olympics, and the other looked like Morpheus out of the Matrix, in a long black leather jacket.

It was such a strange sight to behold, like two distinct eras being thrown into a time warp I just happened to come across. It tickled me because this is how I always envisioned Vondel Park, full of odd characters like those hippy tribes who would hang out here in the 1960s, literally coming out of the woodwork.

Blog is back up and running!

2010-03-29T18:00:00.002+02:00

I've had a year or two hiatus--not good in the blogosphere, where everything changes like a New York minute--but now I'm back, re-establishing my blog and observations. What can I say? I was gone, out of the country, on relationship sabbatical, looking at other horizons, particularly those in Amsterdam's sister city, San Francisco. But now I have landed again in Amsterdam, finding the grass is indeed very green on this side of the canal. Considering it's spring, greener still.

It's Monday, and I find myself suprisingly in an up mood. Because I love having a bike as my legs, love shopping for food at the Aldi, buying 15 items for roughly ten euros, love that I can now understand this guttural language, which once sounded like Elfin to me, love chewing solid bread and I love, love, love that I have the time to consider the world outside my window rather than holding down two jobs, like I did in New York City.

I also love that my 57-year old neighbor can think of nothing better to do than to smoke a joint and teach herself how to paint. "Work?" she screwed her face up when I ran into her earlier today on the steps of our apartment building. "I've worked my whole life and raised a family. Now I don't need anything but time to enjoy myself. Well, maybe a man," she hesitated, then winked at me, closing the door.

California Vacation

2006-07-17T20:43:00.000+02:00

Just when Amsterdam decided to go tropical, I'm actually spending the summer in California, a.k.a. HOME. Ticket was booked, so I flew but realize I'm missing something historical because weather reports vouch it's HOT. Oh well. Instead, I have the Pacific to dive into, freeways to drive, tacos to munch and unlimited cable access but somehow I'm missing Amsterdam's compactness, its density, my bike....my god, my kingdom for a bike! Returning to America as an expat always has impact, too. I'm aware of how quickly general political naivity irritates me, how ClearChannel has mediated all the messages, and how many damn SUVs are driving down the streets--you'd think everyone around here owned an Ostrich ranch. I walked to the supermarket the other day (only 1.2 miles) and passed 92 SUVS on the way there, 113 on the way back and not a single human being crossed my path. What, I wonder, are all these sidewalks really for?

Sunny Amsterdam

2006-07-09T14:45:00.000+02:00

This city is incredible when the sun shines. Everyone ditches whatever they're doing to be outside, and Vondelpark (which lies just around the corner from me) becomes a hive of activity. Without a doubt, Vondelpark is one of the city’s most popular meeting places and probably one of those most beautiful parks I've ever visited in the world. It's the kind of place where cyclists speed, smokers openly toke, picnickers BBQ, dogs chase ducks, parrots breed overhead, lovers fumble and gay men lurk near the rosebushes, waiting for sunset. In the 1970s, the park became famous worldwide as a Hippy Haven and open-air dormitory for alternative living, which later backfired due to drug arrests, but you can totally see why it became a hangout. Yesterday, as I cycled through, I saw hundreds of people, tourists, children, etc. wandering through, picnicking, singing, drinking, doing yoga, jogging, and generally celebrating life in the most public way. It is a truly magnificent meeting point.

Relationships are like herring

2006-06-23T16:51:00.000+02:00

My relationship is suddenly falling apart and I'm beginning to wonder if it's as simple as something like herring. The Dutch love herring so much they celebrate the opening of herring season, pay exorbitant prices for the first barrel at auction(this year's barrel sold for a record NLG 120,000 and was donated to a volunteer group assisting people with psychiatric problems--guess crazies need more protein?)and rush onto the streets to sample it, while hopefully televised by the local media, which is also absorbed with this salty delicacy. Unlike the Dutch, I do not love herring. I can appreciate it, I know it's readily available and currently, great quality and yet I just don't dig herring. Dangle it in front of my face and I will not open my jaw like a Dutchman. I'll probably run away. Maybe this is the issue with my relationship--we simply like different things and are frustrated that the other can't understand quality (from our particular perspective) when they see it. He gives me everything, the question is: do I want it? Would I accept herring everyday harboring no desire for herring? If I like sushi, shouldn't I live with someone who likes sushi instead? We're still talking raw fish, but there are so many degrees of difference.

Mountains of Mayo

2006-06-19T18:54:00.000+02:00

Remember John Travolta’s Pulp Fiction line about how the Dutch eat French Fries with mayonnaise? “I seen ‘em do it, man. They fuckin’ drown ‘em in that shit.” It’s totally true. But mayo's not just for fries. My boyfriend, a bona fide Dutch chloresterol addict, likes to top almost everything with it, including my homemade moussaka--difficult for the chef (that's me) to take, but he swears by it. Tonight I'm making him salmon cakes smothered with wasabi mayonaise, only I'm not sure how much mayo to use. Last time I used 3/4 cup thinking it would be overkill. Sadly, I was wrong, wrong, wrong.

Summertime Blues

2006-06-15T18:48:00.000+02:00

After a 5-day heat wave last week, the Netherlands has returned to its somber, chilly self, dropping about 10 degrees C overnight. Still wavering over putting my winter's jacket in the back closet and exchanging it for something lighter, I ventured outside with it. It was luckily too heavy, but you never know around here... The best thing I've learned from living in such a cold, inhospitable country (Ok, I'm making it sound like Siberia, but to hell with it, I'm a thin-skinned Californian at heart) is to take advantage of every last moment of sunshine. Like the Dutch, I now drop all my work, take an immediate break from the routine, and rush out to soak it up off the pavement like a warmth-deprived iguana. I totally get it now: live in the moment.

The world outside my window

2006-06-14T13:57:00.000+02:00

This is a sight you don't see everyday: bicycle trudging in Amsterdam. 750,000 people live in the city with an estimated 600,000 bikes, making it clear what the city’s most popular form of transportation is. Each year, about 80,000 bikes are stolen and 25,000 end up in the canals (as this picture proves,) though this does little to deter locals. This is probably the third time this year these men have sailed past, dragging up cycles from the canal. As I'm currently in need of a bike, I was tempted to shout out for a rusty freebie.

A picture says it all

2006-06-11T10:38:00.000+02:00

From Den Haag--a sign of the times? Don't you love the camera below. 24/7 surveillance in this 24/7 world...

Coffee anyone?

2006-06-01T12:36:00.000+02:00

So we're at home entertaining and I offer a friend of my boyfriend's a cup of coffee. She declines. A few months back, I made her a cup American style (while an Italian might complain it wasn't strong enough, used, as they are, to thick rocket fuel) that was evidently too strong. The typical Dutch cup of coffee, koffie verkeerd or "wrong coffee," swims in a lake of milk with much less bang for your buck. But what's ironic is that she (*all identities will be protected) is renowned for, er, let's just say taking advantage of liberal Dutch laws regarding certain decriminalized substances. Oh, and let's throw LSD and Coke in there, too. So this hard-living gal can't stomach my coffee because--in her words-- it made her trip out. Wow, and to think I drink it everyday....

Amsterdam, What a Joy!

2006-05-26T13:53:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I came biking home at the perfect hour. The sun was actually shining (something that usually happens between 5 and 7 p.m. for some odd, though predictable reason), I had just interviewed 2 gay intellectuals about gay emancipation, and as I cycled through the Red Light district I passed a midget tourist couple asking directions. Next, I headed into Vondelpark and cycled neck in neck with one of those 2-seaters old folk use, waved to the grandfathers seated within, and came home to my lovely, still canal. Ahhh, Amsterdam! On some days you are divine!

Shoddy Dutch Service?

2006-05-20T15:16:00.000+02:00

So, perhaps I contradict my last posting ("if you haven't got anything positive to say, don't say anything at ALL!) but I just gave a speech in my Dutch class about aspects of the Dutch character, and it stirred an interesting discussion. The gist was this: Dutch children are taught to do one thing at a time, the idea being that by focusing, you get the job done. I don't disagree, except they take this to an extreme with customer service. For example, you stand in a bakery wanting to buy a loaf of bread but the guy in front on you has ordered 10 sandwiches. What does the baker do? He makes the 10 sandwiches, effectively forcing you to wait.

So my classmate says to me, well don't you think the quality of most things is better here because they do focus? And yes, the bread is better than the plastic that passes as such in the States, but the inability to multitask is a huge disadvantage, especially in this day and age. And yet surveys have found that multitasking--which my countrymen take to the extreme--actually makes you dumber, because your visual and listening skills plummet, effectively forcing you to redo much of what initially failed to sink in.

Still, to me focusing on one person/one thing only translates as ignoring the revolving complexity that exists in everyday situations but ultimately, this is a question of culture. Mine's got ADHD and the Dutch have mastered a kind of autism.

Horrible Blogger

2006-05-12T15:09:00.000+02:00

I'm a terribly blogger--why else have such a long hiatus between entries?! But I've been caught up in my life, something that happens distinctly outside the Internet, and so haven't made the time to sit down and pen something--anything--and indeed, nothing at all. On the one hand, I find expat diatribes about living abroad are often negative and I don't want to fall into the trap. On the other, I have little to report. The sun is shining, Vondel park is beautiful, I'm working on a book, eating well, and always gunning for gainful employment. Life is good. And this blog, until I find some consistency, isn't quite as good. But there's hope. Stay tuned. I'll be back before long.

Dutch Scrabble

2006-04-18T10:28:00.000+02:00

My culture shock/reassimilation continues. After fixing my Dutch partner a bloody mary (which he commented was like drinking an odd, alcoholic soup), we sat down to play Scrabble. In Dutch, of course, which allowed me to "cheat" with the dictionary. Amongst the useful words I learned were "eigen teelt" or homegrown, the Belgian word for poofter, and "bink" meaing a hunk of a man. I seriously need to start taking lessons again or I'll end up sounding like someone with Tourets syndrome. My partner won by more than 100 points, catapulting me into a slight depression--especially when I leafed through my bilingual dictionary, noting there were 461 pages devoted to Dutch. An uphill battle, metaphorically of course, because there's no hills in sight...

I'm back!

2006-04-11T10:05:00.000+02:00

After much too long a cyber hiatus, I'm back and all over my PC. I had a magnificent vacation--so good I somehow forgot I lived in Amsterdam and had to return to a cold spring and eventually, non-existent summer. But I'm content for the moment.

Thought I'd start with an easy entry. Now that I'm back, I've heard "lekker" and "leuk" all over the place, so thought I'd weigh in on "lekker."

The word "lekker" is usually one of the first Dutch words foreigners pick up—easily done after hearing it repeated ad infinitum (and to the untrained ear, it sounds a bit like “liquor.”) What’s the meaning? “Lekker” suggests great, attractive, cool, pleasant, enjoyable alluring, enticing, nice and, frequently, delicious—just about anything considered marginally above average. Applied to physical things, the word focuses on the idea of tastiness, like lekker eten (great food), lekker ding (nice piece of ass) or lekkere stoot (a hot chick/hunk, something you’d like to—or have--sampled.)

Vacation Response

2006-01-27T10:03:00.000+01:00

I'm out of town for a month or so, with irregular Internet access. So infrequent postings but I have every intention of continuing! So stay tuned...

Curds of Wisdom

2006-01-22T13:59:00.000+01:00

From the foreign hostess’s perspective, I’ve found feeding the Dutch, whose culinary habits rival the Poles for bland, stodgy food, an on-going challenge. That’s because the Dutch will rarely ask if you find their food good—what’s more important is having enough to eat, perhaps a fallback to war rationing or generations of Calvinistic denial. But when it comes to Dutch cheese, I eat my words. It’s a failsafe staple that makes everyone happy, which is why I made a triple-cheese lasagna last night for guests.

But there’s something cheesy about cheese and it makes people who celebrate it a bit batty. Like England’s Cooper's Hill Annual Cheese Rolling contest where participants chase after 7-8 lb. of Double Gloucester. Or there’s Quebec cheese-maker Luc Boivin, who sunk 1,700 lbs of cheddar in a lake last year thinking it would improve the taste.

Back in Britain, scientists from the national Cheese Board discovered that cheese actually gives a good night’s sleep. According to their most recent survey, 65% of people eating Cheddar dreamt about celebrities, over 65% of those who ate Red Leicester revisited their schooldays, and all female participants who ate British Brie had relaxing dreams. While I haven’t found a similar study in Holland just yet, this could point to why the country feels so comfortable resting on its laurels, satisfied with the status quo despite its blandness.

When More is Less

2006-01-15T21:58:00.000+01:00

Having spent several nights indulging in my ultimate weakness--watching MTV--I've been thinking about sex (unavoidable in just about every video shown on TV), especially in regards to the differences between Holland and the States. It has been shown that in countries like The Netherlands, where many families talk openly with children about sex/sexuality, there is greater cultural openness and improved sexual health among young people.

I would argue that America, despite its obsession with "booty," has fallen into a “sexual recession.” Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, sex was an incredible driving force in America, an emerging axis around which new social and political movements were organized. When AIDS emerged in the early 1980s alongside Reagan’s Christian morality platform, the heady insouciance of previous decades was lost, throwing America into the sexual Dark Ages.

Under Reagan, America experienced an organized backlash against sexual freedom—witness the Meese Commission’s tactics to investigate pornography. The Commission, a virtual who’s who of the Religious Right, blamed porn for everything from child molestation to drug culture, but its findings were largely rejected.

Today, as America drifts steadily into a Republican era of hypocritical sexual conservatism, it’s always good to remind the folks at home exactly who they voted for. There’s former Oregon Sen. Packwood, who set the records for Congressional sexual harassment, John Ashcroft, who touts less government save when it comes to “moral” issues such as abortion and homosexuality and, of course, Bush, who cut off funding to international family-planning organizations his first day in office. Bush renamed Roe vs Wade’s January 22 anniversary “National Sanctity of Human Life Day.” This was a huge insult to feminism.

The issue of sexual freedom is developing along staunchly partisan lines. According to a survey conducted by the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, states unsupportive of sexual health/rights are those that largely voted for Bush. While Republicans are focusing most of their energy on the war effort and passing laws to benefit the wealthy, future elections will probably be waged on issues of sexual freedom.

Also to consider: sexual images have supplanted the “getting some” credo of previous decades. By the time the average American teen graduates from high school, s/he will have spent 15,000 hours watching television, (compared with 12,000 hours spent in the classroom,) and viewed nearly 14,000 sexual references per year, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Public Education. Are we getting less even though we’re watching more?

Racial Tensions

2006-01-05T13:02:00.000+01:00

Understanding the social relations and political backdrop of a new country always presents a challenge. While the Dutch are reticent to admit it, they’re actually quite racist--or becoming more so despite their liberal intentions (which, ironically, are the very basis for the current situation.) Much of this tension rests with the Moroccan population, which seems generally frustrated and unhappy here. Whether that’s due to an inability or refusal to integrate or a history of being treated like vermin in their own country, is difficult to say. In my experience so far, they are not particularly approachable people, and being religiously conservative, lack tolerance of their new environment—a great paradox considering how the Dutch pride themselves on this quality.

Many Moroccans came here decades ago to make money and leave, only when they returned home, an impoverished, hot stretch of land, they discovered they couldn’t go back. Only they hadn’t gone forward, either. They had failed to integrate, which left their children without an identity—not Moroccan, nor Dutch—lacking language skills and contact with their host culture. So now the Moroccans are regarded as the "new Jews," scapegoats for everything going wrong in Holland, although the flailing economy is a more appropriate culprit. I read an excellent editorial about this where the author called everyone a Jew, especially the Dutch, he said, who are cheap, business-minded and turned a godforsaken patch of land into a profit-making venture. (As a non-practising Jew, I certainly take no offense.)

Myself, I can’t reach any hard conclusions as I’ve had no on-going contact with Moroccans, save the women I see walking in the streets, several children in tow. They rarely give eye contact and seem to inhabit a world of their own. I’ve felt like they see me as part of the landscape—a tree here, a post office there, a non-Moroccan entity (that’s me) and then, their community. It’s terribly sad for me to see this kind of interaction (or lack of it) after experiencing years of multi-cultural exposure in New York. There's very little connection here and the insularity will do nothing but backfire because despite professed ideas of tolerance, the proof in in the pudding. Very few people seem to remember that during World War II, the Dutch were also Nazis.

Dutch Compliments

2006-01-02T08:49:00.000+01:00

I learned a phrase—meant as a compliment—that is the English equivalent of: you odd nose blower. They are a direct people (if they weren’t the country would be flooded), far removed from romance. Calling someone an ass or little shit is an endearment in Dutch. An insult runs more along the lines of: “aso,” (meaning asocial, you're outside social mores) or if something sucks, you say it’s “a ball sack" i.e. a scrotum, which seems to have universal associations.

The Good/Bad divide

2005-12-23T15:26:00.000+01:00

“Good girls write in their journals, bad girls don’t have the time,” my father recently wrote to me in a letter. This got me thinking. I have too much time on my hands. Move over Mother Teresa…

More thinking: December highlights our society’s fixation with good/bad polarities. Whether it’s Santa checking his list—twice, no less!—or New Year’s guilt-ridden resolutions, we (certainly the American We) tend to slip into opposing camps. “Be good,” mommy tells little Johnny, because being bad is bad, meaning asocial and undesired.

I prefer the way the French look at it. Rather than tell children to behave themselves by “being good,” they counsel them to “be wise.” Because good/bad depends on societal and individual taste, being wise means coming to an intelligent conclusion based on personal experience.

The Dutch, schooled in the Calvinist belief that all men are born deprived, however, don’t mince words—we’re all bad and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

Climate Change: Dutch reactions

2005-12-18T16:24:00.000+01:00

Was the United Nations recent Climate Change Conference a success? If the Conference President’s ambiguous conclusion—"key measures have been made in several areas,"—is a valuable gauge, the answer remains, depressingly, “No.” Certainly Washington D.C., which refuses to abide by emissions caps claiming it will stunt economic growth, had very little to say.

Due to America’s lackadaisical approach—both before and during the conference—many countries have begun taking a proactive stance. Take the waterlogged Netherlands, where climatologists predict precipitation could increase as much as 25 percent, and where a dense population is already pushing into flood-prone areas. Here, some urban planners and architects are trying to develop floating houses to combat climate change, but such houses would currently cost €300,000 a piece—so is this just a pie in the sky, designer solution only for the rich? Are politicians--even Dutch ones--being too optimistic in the face of this global issue?

Even Rob van Dorland, a climate scientist at the Dutch National Meteorological Agency, has cautioned we have about 10 years before catastrophe hits. Considering how the Netherlands, which has battled the seas for centuries, will probably go under as sea levels rise, a Dutch perspective at this juncture is invaluable. Why isn’t this in the news?

Culture Shock Cues

2005-12-14T18:56:00.000+01:00

When I first arrived in the Netherlands, I did hefty research on culture shock—which I had experienced before—then duly ignored it, stumbling on that rocky path towards acculturation. Looking back now, the stages seem both predictable and cyclical. I’ve become stuck in the loop, waltzing between the initial Honeymoon Stage and final Adjustment.

The first stage, of course, is the Honeymoon, when you find yourself fascinated by the new culture. I’m still waiting for that to happen. Having visited Amsterdam dozens of times over decades, spending one debauch holiday after the next playing backgammon in smoky vice dens (and that’s the edited version,) I can’t say I was honestly captivated when I finally moved here. I did dig the canals, though.

Immediately following the Honeymoon phase, you evidently reject the Groom, banding together with fellow nationals to criticize the neighbors. This is the Stereotype Stage. Having been tagged a "dollar grasping American" by the Brits when I lived in the UK during Maggie Thatcher’s reign I am no stranger to stereotyping. Yet, curiously, I found myself being pigeonholed more frequently by the Dutch—as a “Jew” no less—than actually returning the favor. Although I do remember once labeling them “insular, provincial folk with a penchant for vulgarity.” Or simply put, herring lickers.

At the tail end of this phase, the visitor begins to regain his/her humor and joke about the locals or their own difficulties. Guess I’m still there—I’ll never stop stereotyping, never, never! Then in the final Adjustment Phase, the newcomer learns to accept the customs of their new country as just another way of living. While I can get used to the Dutch custom of chasing the waitress down, begging her to take my order, the weather is a different matter altogether. Some things take much, much longer.

Nude Awakening

2005-12-12T19:19:00.000+01:00

As public nudity goes, the Dutch attitude is rather hardnosed: take if off. This posture equally applies to their windows—shutter- or curtain-less, in a word: exposed—for the Dutch intently believe they’ve got nothing to hide. “Act normal,” goes the national maxim, “that’s already crazy enough.”

My education in “normal” began the moment I was escorted nude through a local sauna. An American, I found the idea of stripping in public unnerving, but with only one changing room it appeared I had no choice. “If you wear a bathing suit in here, everyone’s going to think you have a terrible disease—or you’re a tourist,” my boyfriend explained, as a man disrobed behind him. “Just do it.”

A new arrival to Amsterdam, I have often, if mistakenly equated a public state of undress with “Live Sex Act.” While I don't find nudity terribly surprising—not at the tender age of 30-something and not as a savvy American who knows that Europeans, and Swedes in particular, bathe bare en masse—what startled me was my reaction. I felt absolute dread.

Such reserve made maneuvering around confidently naked locals tricky, but I tried to look nonchalant. Yet, it was nearly impossible to ignore the impulse to cover myself. Bemused, my boyfriend attempted to reassure me. “You’re a…is ‘prude’ a word?” he asked in blunt Dutch fashion. Yes, I told him, it was a word, arguing weakly that I, on the other hand, was not.

Yet schooled in the cultural ideology that “nude is naughty,” I had to admit, maybe I was—at least from a European perspective. Perhaps I could chalk my reserve down to my cultural forefathers, the Puritans, whose deeply religious, moral zeal made them fear nudity so much they refused to bathe. Unlike more robust Europeans such as the East Germans, who prefer skin to skivvies and have reserved miles of beaches to flaunt it, Americans see nudity as something to hide rather than something to celebrate.

Now ever since Adam and Eve first sported fig leaves, nudity has provoked every emotion from disgrace and contempt to reverence. But stateside, being plain naked is overly complicated. Because our associations are limited to porn, trailer park retreats or hippy naturalists, nudity is either sexualized, or seen as a gimmick.
Sexually, America operates through paradox. Focused on sex while remaining prudish about standards is a huge, if confusing, burden to shoulder. Yet how to explain last year's fury over Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” and the networks rush to clean-up before facing clampdowns and stiff fines? A further inconsistency is what Americans regard as risqué: barely-clad teenagers simulating sex for MTV, or a nude grandmother? As Carmel, California proved, it’s clearly the latter. In 2004, the city rejected proceeds from a calendar featuring mature older ladies, fearing potential lawsuits for sexual harassment. Clearly older nudity is threatening because our culture rarely separates nakedness from sex—something the retired crowd, at least until Viagra, wasn’t supposed to be having.

Sweating publicly in my birthday suit, I quickly discovered the experience was the Absolute Opposite of Sexy. While some bodies may attain the media’s high physical standards, most naturally do not. Sitting amongst hairy backs, saggy breasts, dimpled buttocks, beer bellies, scarred or tattooed appendages, odd tan lines, and idiosyncratic pubic borders did not make me want to corner my boyfriend in the nearest shower stall. Hiding eroticizes in a way that being in the buff—direct, upfront and unwaxed—does not.

As for gimmicks, as a writer I’ve tired of seeing colleagues conducting “undercover” exposes, a choice phrase given the situation, on nudist colonies (“just look at those guys playing tennis!”) or the media’s buzz over photographer Spencer Tunick and his nude landscapes. Tunick, who specializes in photographing hundreds of naked bodies sprawled together against an urban backdrop, has definitely pushed social boundaries at home—successfully taking New York City to the Supreme Court for shooting (film, that is) rights on its streets. But I’m more in line with a European friend, who remarked over Tunick’s photos, “Is it a big deal that everyone is naked when everyone is naked?”

In Europe, neither moral outrage nor public disorder greets nudity. Men don't go wild, women remain safe and the zero fashion statement remains just that—something with zero impact. Since returning to the sauna, I’ve gained an appreciation for nudity because here, it’s not tagged as “self-expression,” sold as titillation, nor isolated into a holiday resort. The Dutch seem to understand a plain and simple fact: underneath our clothing, everyone’s naked. That’s definitely normal enough.

Dutch Birthday Rituals

2005-12-11T17:48:00.000+01:00

Last night I went to my first—and likely last—Dutch-Dutch birthday party, meaning the real, staggeringly unpleasant thing. Having read a post on Suze Abroad’s blog, in which she likens the event to waiting at a dentist’s office, I thought I was prepared. But no… I quickly learned the metaphor of teeth-pulling was apt.

What happens to Dutch b-day party virgins? This is the routine: you walk into a room full of guests whose chairs are arranged in a tight-fitting circle. Next, you must introduce yourself to each one, including drooling, pre-vocabulary children, interrupting the flow of every conversation, and next take your seat, where you’ll remain for the entire evening. For shaky language beginners like myself, most conversations revolved around simple requests, such as “Yes, PLEASE, more wine,” measured by lengthy moments spent focused on the white shag carpet. Add liberal doses of cigarette smoke—enough to divert a KLM pilot to Rotterdam—an atmosphere that smacks of Heineken brewery and you’ve got yourself a running impression. Minutes passed like days.

Bye-bye Sarah Jessica

2005-12-09T08:00:00.000+01:00

It has been some time getting used to the great adjustment/realization that I’m actually living in HOLLAND now. Bye-bye NYC, you are now a dream, an urban backdrop for overscheduled perfectionists, ambitious shoe shoppers, and amateur sleepers. I do miss the city, but I simply can’t be compared to Sarah Jessica Parker anymore. So passé. The whole sexy, perennially-dating journalist who hides her romanticism beneath a veneer of cynicism isn’t my act anymore.

I had drinks last night with a fellow American—I find expats a surer bet in terms of friendship—and she coined this brilliant phrase “immigrant moment” to describe all those yucky moments of self-doubt you’re thrown into once you’ve discarded your roots in favor of a strange clime. I think I’ve experienced immigrant hours or even days! Maybe it’s an age thing, though. When you’re older you assume you know how to act in most situations—that you’re smart enough, experienced enough, savvy—but that’s a complacent hypothesis. Cultural differences confront you with your complete ignorance and it’s almost worse than being a bottle-sucking babe—because you’re not pre-language and yet, words fail you.

Cycling Woes

2005-12-07T11:23:00.001+01:00

A few weeks ago, I underwent a traditional Dutch rite of passage—having my bike stolen by junkies—and can proudly boast that I am now a true Amsterdammer. Ironically, I had been talking about it a few hours before it happened to a girl who owned an expensive bike. Seems she had an expensive lock, too. This is clearly a lesson for Next Time, when Dara buys a sturdy and costly lock. Perhaps Karma was playing its hand because I actually got the bike from junkies (another Amsterdam tradition) so who knows, maybe the same toothless, heroin-smoking desperado stole it again, having full knowledge from the first time.

Amsterdam is quite big when you have to walk everywhere. No subways in my neighborhood so it’s just me, Moroccan housewives and children trundling along surface streets. This has given me a fresh perspective on the neighborhood, though, because I used to just whiz past everything and now I’ve spotted a few more places to spend those lotto winnings whenever they materialize...

It's all in the lyrics

2005-12-06T13:22:00.000+01:00

I'm taking Dutch lessons, wondering if learning this useless language (it's rather like Esperanto, which probably has more speakers come to think of it) will be necessary if I ever decide to immigrate back to America. My teacher has recently taken to using folksy-sounding Dutch songs to aid our learning, which I find hilarious because songs always provide a socio-cultural reflection beyond just words. Unlike American music-which is obsessed with sex, lost love, and bling-bling (just think about a typical Hip Hop line, this from Fiddy-Cent: Look we can shop together mama, his and hers/Fifth Av. Shit baby, Fendi furs/I ain't tight with the chips girl/I'm down to splurge)-Dutch music is much, much, much more innocent. Like the song about Eliza's huge dog, Bello, who pulls her all the way to Italy to piss against the leaning tower of Piza.

This, I'm assuming, is Dutch humor... but you can't dance to it, baby.

About Me

2005-12-02T19:44:00.000+01:00

Why start More than Cheese? Dozens of reasons, but here’s a few:
the Netherlands is bitterly cold, it rains with absurd frequency (think: monsoon, but arctic), writing helps me maintain perspective, newly-hatched expats possess a burning urge to comment on everything, until I master Dutch and find gainful employment, let’s just say I’ve got time on my hands, and after years of shameless singledom, I’m in love with a man who warms my feet in bed better than any electric blanket on the market.

Why read More than Cheese? Because you’re hungry for irreverent commentary, what towering Northern Europeans do when they’re not eating cheese intrigues you, you’ve mistaken the Dutch decimalization of marijuana for a liberal mindset and you'd love the inside scoop, you’re cynical from trawling for a mate in all the stock places and know it’s time to give your skepticism the boot, you’re an expat who enjoys similar musings, like me, you're Going/Going/Gone Dutch, or you’re my Mother.

Arrested Development

2005-12-01T20:43:00.000+01:00

For the latest on the local police beat: Cops fail to apprehend parrot

Police failed yesterday to arrest a parrot at a flat in Eindhoven. According to De Telegraaf, the nine-man strong team busted doors and searced the entire house and alas, failed to find the parrot. The police have refused to say why they were looking for the bird, why they needed nine men, or how they plan to pay for the damage.

Big black tax hole, anyone?

Should the ACLU pay Santa a visit?

2005-12-01T13:50:00.000+01:00

Now ‘tis Xmas season, time for Sinter Klaas (who the Dutch insist is NOT Santa, Coca-Cola’s sanitized version of the saint) to descend on the masses December 5th and again on December 25th. Don’t ask me. I’m not sure why he comes twice (it is said that once Nieuwe Amsterdam became a British stronghold, the English Protestants there did not observe saints days, so Sinter Klaas' visit was moved to the 25th, which today is more widely celebrated.) All I know is that Sinter's accompanied by Zwarte Piet (Black Piet), who doles out candy to good boys and girls and whacks the bad ones over the head. They are then shoved into Sinter's sack and kidnapped to—of all of the most horrible and wretched places on earth—Spain. What’s disturbing to me, princess from the land of (erroneous) Political Correctness, is that to play Zwarte Piet you must cover yourself in black makeup, much like white actors of yesteryear. No self-respecting Surinamese immigrant here opts to play the part, so instead the Dutch do it. The result: tar babies with afro wigs cruising the streets. The ACLU would have a heyday here...

Cheesy Intro

2005-11-30T16:07:00.000+01:00

a.k.a. my journey into online ramblings and my first-ever blog post.

This space will chart a narrative about a girl who falls in love with more than cheese--i.e. a bonafide herring licker or, in somewhat nicer terms, a Dutchie--and moves to Holland to pursue the relationship. Hailing from New York City (previously dubbed Nieuwe Amsterdam and a place where love cynics abound), our heroine ventures to Old Amsterdam, where many historical ties still bind. In her new-found home, she weathers not only culture shock but love shock--because after years of urban singledom, her sense of romance was all but D.O.A. This blog covers weather obsessions, dairy products, guttural utterences, and lust along the canals. It also offers a tale of two cities/two perspectives and--c'mon we're talking AmsterDAMN here!--covers a bit of sex. Like walking through the saucy Red Light district, peopled by graying, retired couples and lumpy Baltic whores.