The clock is ticking.  16 days until Australia.  76 days until the baby is due.  In our remaining days here I’m trying to see all the Dutch highlights I’ve missed. 

Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring” didn’t disappoint. 

When the sun shines in Holland the country undergoes a complete transformation.  The anti-social, cranky cheese heads disappear and are replaced by people smiling giddily in the street.  Out of nowhere friendly chit chat starts, doors are held open for you and you feel like maybe, just maybe, this country is a nice place to live after all.   

It’s official. The final stage of my Dutchifcation is underway.   I speak Dutch ALL DAY.   

My body is physically rejecting it.  After the first day my ears rang louder than the Dom church at 10.15 on a Sunday morning. Swallowing was torture and the 5 minute walk home felt longer than my old 90 minute commute from Amstelveen.    A less perceptive person might conclude I’ve finally fallen victim to the nasty flu going around.  Yet those who have followed my sometimes bumpy road to integration will agree that my body is fighting it all the way.   

I’m afraid it’s a lost cause as my first impression of the company is excellent.  I received flowers and cake on my first day, I’m the last person to leave at 5pm and the work requires real brain activity.   Even my colleagues are fun.  They are a young, motivated bunch and we laugh all day.  At times I think they are laughing at me and my retarded Dutch but on the other hand, at least I’m providing entertainment value. It’s astounding what a difference working close to home can make.  I won 3 hours a day.   

Now I just have to work out what do to with them.  Ideas are welcome.

The doorbell rang at 8am.  I live on the third floor and am quite lazy so I tend to peek down through the front window to check out the visitor before climbing down to greet them.  I looked down but didn’t recognise the figure below.  All I could see was the top of a female head.   The hair was that home-died brassy red colour you see so often in Holland.   I think L’oreal must make it specifically for the Dutch as almost every middle-aged woman here has the same hair colour.  Anyway, I realised I had two choices.  I could either do the polite thing and run downstairs or I could break the early-morning peace on the canal and shout down like a fishmonger’s wife.  I chose the latter.

“HELLO?”

“Uh yes hello I am your neigbour from next door.” She shouted back in Dutch.

The penny dropped. 

She was my nude neigbour.  Yes you did read that correctly, my NUDE neighbour.

The one who whenever I’m trying to impress my friends with a swanky, sophisticated roof garden dinner party, persists on strolling out naked and basking in the sun on her roof.  I’m sure you’ll agree that no matter how in shape a 60 year-old is, watching her sprawl out in the sun 5 metres away with nothing on but her sunglasses is enough to put anyone off their food.  An apology if this is ageist.  I don’t want to see anybody naked while I’m eating.     

I wondered why she was downstairs ringing the bell.  During our three years in the house she has ignored us.  When we see her on the street, clothed very conservatively I might add, she walks straight past as if she hasn’t seen us before. It could be a nudist thing but I have always found it a bit strange.  I never expected a casserole or a welcoming committee. This is Holland after all and if you move into a new house the onus lies on you to have a small party or introduce yourself to everyone rather than the other way around.  As we never got around to doing that, we don’t know any of the neigbours except for the hippies downstairs who aren’t afraid to break social norms and pop up every now and then.  With all these things running through my head I collected myself and raced down the stairs in my Peter Alexander pyjamas (still loving them Holly).

I opened the door and extended my hand,

“Susan.”

She looked confused and I prayed that she wouldn’t go in for the three kisses. My prayers were answered.

“Wilma.”

“Uh hi, is there something I can do for you?”

“Yes, you have a cat?”

“Katja, You mean?  Yes, yes we do” 

“Your cat is really annoying me”

“Oh? I’m so sorry what mischief has she been up to?”

“She’s walking on my roof garden and jumping inside my window.  All the neighbours are complaining and you must keep her in the house from now”

Katja, our lonely only cat (thanks to Jarno who mercilessly gave away all her kittens a couple of years ago), has taken to jumping out of the bathroom window onto other people’s roof gardens and making her way along the street across the roof tops.  We find it charming and she looks so happy hunting down the little wildlife that Utrecht has left, so we encourage her by leaving the window open all the time.  

“uhhhh…..”

insert 5 seconds pause where I tried to translate “not a chance in hell” first into something less direct and then into Dutch.

“Echt niet.”

Which roughly translates to not a chance in hell.

“But all the neighbours are complaining!”

“You can’t lock an animal inside all day, it’s cruel.”

“Well you shouldn’t be living in the city then. Why don’t you go and live in the suburbs.”

Insert a 10 second pause where I processed the full offensiveness of her remarks. The familiar indignant feeling that goes with such a classic culture clash moment rose up and crashed over me like a tidal wave but I took deep breath and it ebbed away as quickly as it came.  I fought the temptation to start talking about the dangers of dying your own hair and premature aging from sun baking but I didn’t let her get the better of me. I simply asked,

“Well is there a law against our cat being outside?”

“Um.. ahhh… eeeh… I think I must call the police then”

I smiled to myself at the absurdity of it all and we stood in silence for a moment while she glared at me expectantly.   Not wanting to be completely ungracious and unneigbourly I added,

“How about I discuss it with my husband and we’ll get back to you”

She huffed and puffed a little then stormed back to her house.  Once she was gone I shut the door, turned around and laughed my head off. 

I’ve really come a long, long way. 

As Sinterklaas approaches, the Netherlands will be treated to repeated appearances by the man himself and his companion, servant, lackey choose one Zwarte Piet. The gleeful pair show up at regular intervals in department stores, city centres and parties. Traditionally, Sinterklaas (who is definitely not Santa Claus, the Dutch will sternly remind you) interrogates lap-sitting children as to their naughtiness and niceness while Piet throws candy and hands out gifts in a “jovial” way.

The two roles are moulded by tradition and history, with echoes of the Spanish occupation and Europe’s long history of Christianity coloured by Muslim influences. Sinterklaas is wise, authoritarian, good-natured but stern; Piet is surly, irreverent, undisciplined and black. My first reaction to Zwarte Piet was one of absolute horror. Fresh from a politically correct university career in North America, the idea of what is essentially blackface struck me as an abhorrent anachronism, bizarre in a modern, “progressive” country.

The Dutch will go to great lengths to explain that Zwarte Piet is not a caricature of a black servant, that he is not a racist stereotype playing step-n-fetch-it for his master. But that is exactly what he is. If the application of black make-up weren’t enough to convince you, the “Moorish” outfit of earrings, kinky hair and pantaloons should cinch it. And there he is, doing his master’s bidding.

Surely this is most the offensive racial slur I’ve seen since the Japanese tar-baby doll scandal of the 1980s, and just as bad as anything you would have seen in the US South or, dare I risk stirring up the greatest of Dutch self-righteousness during 1930s Germany. “Oh, but it’s all in good fun,” they say. “He’s not a real black person.” Yes, true, and that’s exactly the point. If it were a real black person the act would be so humiliating as to provoke outrage. We would hope. But this is Holland and outrage is unsightly unless someone cuts you off on the highway. Outrage is not for the allochtonen (literally, “speakers of other languages” but used to mean mostly people of colour), who are preferred to stay put in their designated areas but who are increasingly causing trouble by “not fitting in”.

To understand the endurance of an icon like Zwarte Piet is to know the gaping divide between tolerance and acceptance, between a multi-cultural society and one which is Dutch with buitenlanders on the begrudging periphery. It is one of the subtle paradoxes of Dutch culture, but one I believe illustrates perfectly the hypocrisy and passive aggressiveness of the Dutch character. It explains the growing racial divides in this small country and why the Dutch just don’t get it when it comes to integrating new populations. The result has been tension, fear, resentment and a generation of immigrant children who have been systematically excluded from Dutch socialisation. Is Zwarte Piet the cause of racial tension and the failure of immigrant groups to integrate? It’s much more complicated than that. But it’s a symptom of a society that in its self-congratulatory claims of tolerance denies some very sinister undercurrents the sentiment that the best place for the black man is at the end of a figurative leash.

I had a fabulous time on Saturday. I caught the train to Breda to see Izzy. After 3 years of daily travel the NS and I know each other well. Basically I pay 200 euros a month and the NS provides me with perpetually late, packed and stinky trains. While I was shell shocked at first I think I’ve adapted well. My heart doesn’t race when the doors open and the crowd surges forward like a rugby scrum after the whistle blow. Even more impressively, when the expressionless 2 metre giant elbows me in the head to scramble for some imaginary free seat, I just laugh instead of pretending my scarf is a voodoo doll and stab him violently with my keys. Anyway, the NS is pretty good in the weekends. The trains are often on time, there are plenty of seats and it’s nice to grab a good coffee and read a magazine. As the train arrived at Utrecht, I was pleased to see there were hundreds of free seats and only 20 or so people waiting to get on. I stood patiently beside the door to allow the people to step off the train. As the train stopped I noticed a pack of 7 middle-aged women running towards me from the escalator. They screeched to a halt when they reached me and stood side by side directly in front of the doors. Obviously the 10 people waiting to get out couldn’t get past the women yet they stood there obliviously and actually tried to push through the people trying to get out. After a few seconds of pushing and shoving no one had managed to get in or out of the train and finally a young woman trying to get out said with exasperation,

Volleyball Nicole googled her way on to my site. I guess I should have seen it coming. I probably should have even changed names. Yet now I’m thinking maybe, just maybe, somewhere deep my subconscious I wanted people to find it. I loathe confrontation but obviously the need to tell her how I felt was bubbling away under the surface. So while I was nervous about her reaction, I was also incredibly relieved that she would see for the first time that her frostiness made a huge contribution to my loneliness here.

She was understandably surprised. I imagine it’s confronting to see someone writing about you online. What I didn’t predict is that she’d approach Jarno (instead of me) and go absolutely off her head. Jarno told me to forget about her, that I only told the truth and should be able write what I want to. Instead, wanting to make peace, I wrote her an overly generous email. I admitted my own faults and things I could have done better. I told her how much I’d realised I was wrong about her and how I was ready to let go of the past.

After I wrote it, I spent the next couple of days skipping around looking forward to her reply. I thought she’d write back and say sorry for not making more effort and we could all go out for a beer. But what do you think she wrote back? A condescending email telling me how I should feel guilty and that I owe everybody a huge apology. She told me that because she couldn’t avoid running into me in the future she hoped I could look her in the eye (c’mon I didn’t say anything that bad!) The best line of all was she hoped I would ‘integrate’ better into Dutch society and confront people head on. (Note: I have tried this on two occasions and it ended with 5 people yelling at me at once, no change whatsoever on their part and me crying in my pyjamas for 2 days).

Anyway, her email stung me like slap in the face. I don’t remember ever being so pissed off. It did have a positive spin off though. As I sat there with my eyes narrowed and my teeth clenched a thought struck me, “God dammit, where’s my self-respect??” It seemed at that moment, out of nowhere, I found it again. I shot off an equally contemptuous email and decided to erase her out of my life. She responded to my email paragraph by paragraph in red (seriously) but I felt nothing on receiving it. It’s so liberating to finally have the weight of needing acceptance off my shoulders. P.S. the only sad part of this story is that her boyfriend is one of my favourite people in the whole country.

It was a quiet week. We are going through a phase where it takes enormous will power to get down the stairs and out of the house. It’s actually a refreshing break from the usual go-go-go lifestyle we’ve created. I guess you don’t want a blow-by-blow account of our visit to the supermarket so I thought I’d give an educational update about Dutch culture:

1. You can order a vodka cranberry with your m&ms at the movies

2. When your husband/mother/sister etc has a birthday people congratulate you and kiss you. At work, on your own birthday, you bring your own cake.

3. The political party winning the most seats at the past two elections is a religious party called the Christian Democrats.

4. At a cafe all chairs face the sun, so you sit beside your companion rather than across from them.

5. A new law was just introduced that obliges people to carry their passport or drivers license at all times. Police have the power to check randomly and you can get sent to jail if you don’t have it on you. I’m serious, it happened!

6. When you retire, you get 80% of your average salary for the rest of your life. That means if you earned 100k for most of your career, your yearly salary as a pensioner is 80k. Lovin’ it.

7. Only 17% of women have full time jobs

8. The two most important qualities for the Dutch are:

Nuchterheid translated to down-to-earthness. This can also be called, Doe maar gewoon which means ‘Act normal’. Over here K-Mart is cool because it’s so normal. This is a difficult one to get your head around.

Consensus. In politics, work and even groups of friends it’s important that everybody gives their opinion and an agreement is made. If you don’t give your opinion, you?re seen as weakling. Silence is never golden.

Forgot to mention Monday, where I actually did something. It was sunny and warm all day. Lenny came over and we shopped, chatted and drank on a terrace for the afternoon. Lovely. She’s living proof that Dutch women can be great fun.

A collection of eyebrow raising comments made to me by various Dutchies.

The mind boggles…..

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.