Bootcamp
Working on Level 27 of a floor to ceiling windowed skyscraper in the heart of Melbourne has its advantages. As I type I’m watching the sun rise over the city. Hot air balloons surround the building and pop in and out of the mist below. The light is golden and the whole scene looks just like heaven. If you add the shopping below, the mouth watering food on every corner and the espresso machine ten metres away you’ll see that it’s quite a contrast to the Hoog Catharijne in Utrecht (oh the memories!).
There is one down side. Fire drills. There are 810 stairs to climb down. EIGHT HUNDRED AND TEN. After not breaking a sweat for 18 months I’m terrified that I’ll collapse half way down, block the entire stairwell and maybe even make the newspaper. So in a typical all or nothing attempt to get fit I started boot camp this week and oh am I paying for it.
It involves getting up at 5.30am three mornings a week and being screamed at for over an hour. We start off with a 2km run then alternate between sprints, squats, sit ups and various other forms of torture. There are no breaks and any sign of slowing down results in the whole group being punished with 20 (unmodified) push ups.
Ouch.
Culture Shock aka Dutchspeak
A collection of eyebrow raising comments made to me by various Dutchies.
“So were your ancestors murderers or thieves?” While being introduced to someone at a party. I wonder if his ancestors were slave traders or Nazi collaboraters?
“If you are going to say his name at LEAST try and say it correctly, you sound ridiculous.” I was interrupted mid-sentence while trying to tell a funny story. Tough crowd.
“I heard Australians don’t clean their houses because the weather is nice” Interesting logic.
“So do you always come to parties and not speak to anyone” Yes, it’s my favorite pastime.
“Don’t get too comfortable, first in is also first out” when I told them about my permanent contract
“Do you speak Dutch yet?” said to me in Dutch on my 1st day (and tragically a serious question). A shame she didn’t speak human.
“Your hair is better now, you must never be blonde again as you looked terrible”. Well it couldn’t have been worse than that home dyed unnatural red that she has.
“How can you justify the aboriginal situation in Australia” light dinner party conversation with a De Telegraaf reading stranger
“When are you going to buy some furniture for your house, your house is cold and empty”. Thanks for the feedback. When are you going to throw out that mountain of old crap in yours?
“Do they have bikes in Australia” No, we ride our pet Kangaroos
“Perhaps you should try recreational volleyball, our team is full” After trying out for some spazo ladies volleyball team (Division Z or so), when the organiser had told me they needed players.
“You see Susan, Dutch women are emancipated and actually work, unlike women in Australia” What the….???? Naturally said by a woman who works 3 days a week, is financially dependent on her boyfriend and has an (unresearched) opinion on everything.
and finally the quote to top all quotes. Picture it, I’m away from my family at Christmas for the first time ever. The network is busy and my parents can’t get through to me by phone, I stare a bit pathetically out of the window and hear
“Well, you know what they say Susan, out of sight is out of heart!”
The mind boggles…..
Circle of Death
So your Dutch colleague (or your girl/boyfriend) says to you, “Hey, why dont you come over to my place on Saturday, its my birthday” And you think great, Im making friends here, this is really kewl. Yo, party with the Dutch.And like a good party-goer, you take a shower, put on a bit of cologne and dress up a bit for that you-never-know-who-you-might-meet moment.
OK, so the party is called for five in the afternoon on a Saturday, but no problem-o, that must mean dinner, and so you get a nice bottle of wine for your host and head off, fashionably late. Bzzzz.
Enter the world of the circle party.
Circle parties are a uniquely Dutch version of hell which level, Im not sure, but on the enjoyment scale they fit somewhere between doing your taxes and going to the dentist.
Imagine if you will, a group of adults sitting in a circle on folding chairs. You will be expected to shake hands and introduce yourself to everyone of them. Who brought their grandmother, you might be thinking, and why is she wishing me congratulations? Did I win something?
No, you did not. Take your gezellig seat and sit down for a cup of coffee. Cold coffee. And a piece of could-be-cake, could-be-pie, sure-is-awful.
Respond to every cold fluid and sawdust-flavoured morsel with a grin and mmm, lekker! Who brought their kids, and why are they running around? How can there be so much smoke when the party just started? And the heat Why is there no heat? Its November and the bloody door is wide open.
For the next two to six hours, everyone will sit in that neat little circle and try to make polite conversation.
Do not try to impress them with your Dutch or knowledge of Dutch society, because you will be wrong. Rather, talk about the quaint little things you like here; mention your travels; discuss Seinfeld. Keep it light. Do not mention that people are dressed as if in pre-1989 Poland; do not ask if you were supposed to bring a gag gift costing less than five euro.
There is no food. You got your cake, so shut up. Though the clock is moving slowly enough to prematurely age your twin on another planet, though it has struck six, seven, eight oclock, there is no dinner. Did they say dinner? Maybe you were supposed to eat beforehand.
And so it goes. Even Dutch people hate these things, and how could you not? How can you party with your new friends with Tante Helena showing you her surgical scars and little Jan-Jaap sticking the raisins from his cake up your nose.
Its not so much a party as an obligation; like flossing.
When Dutch people want to be friends with you or to entertain you, they invite you out, or they will explicitly say dinner-party, barbeque anything but the dreaded birthday party.
You cannot be part of Dutch society and avoid the circle party, but I do have some tips:
First of all, I limit my Dutch partner to six circle-party-credits per year, each good for four hours of fun with the family.
An eight hour circle party (yikes, Christmas) uses up two credits; no more credits, and gosh, were so booked up!
The second tip is to set a time limit, say two hours if you wait for the party to break up naturally, you could have already developed stage ten lung carcinoma, not to mention malnutrition.
Finally, dont worry about being an oddball-buitenlander. Pick up a magazine and read, wander around and snoop, make calls from the other room. Trust me, nobody will notice.
But dont forget on your way out to say goodbye to Tante and Oma and cousins Jaap, Jan and Joris all of them — again with the handshake (or three-kiss if they try) and the obligatory wasnt this gezellig. Well wasnt it?
Until the next time.
P.S. The Dutch take an obtuse pride in saying gezellig is not easily translated, but I find that it can easily be interchanged with this sucks. Try it, and youll see what I mean.
