Horse in The Hague
Originally uploaded by joellaflickr.
I've been working in the Netherlands since Sunday. Work-wise, it was great -- hard work and frustrating in places but challenging, inspiring, interesting.
I was with a (what's the word for this?) lover of all things Dutch. She loves the cleanliness, the efficiency. Her glass is always half full when she is in the Netherlands.
I am not so sure. I am taken with the architecture and the waterways, and tulips are some of the finest of flowers, but equally I like a bath in my hotel room and I feel they overdo the sugar and the dairy products big time. Sour cream on a *pizza*? What is going on with that?
And I had the following grumpy exchange this morning, upon finding that you cannot buy a train ticket with a credit card. I had spent my last cash on a taxi to the station.
She: No cards.
Me: Why not? Am I in the wrong queue?
She: Cash only. All queues.
Me: How much is it to the airport?
She: 7.30
Me: Cash only? Euros?
She: Of course euros. You are in the Netherlands.
Me: Not for long.
Her English was better than my Dutch, of course, but still. I like a place where they acknowledge random illogicalities with a shrug.
On the way back from plumbing tonight I stopped (on my bike, going uphill) to let a car past coming down hill. Technically, it was my right of way, but that didn't stop him from swearing at me for causing him to slow down. Fuck you too! I yelled, and aimed a kick at his car in my steel toe caps. It felt good to be home.
joella
2 comments:
The word is:
Netherphile
Or if not it should be, because it makes me smile.
When I was 20, my parents moved from Lancashire to Hampshire. This was, for me, mostly an entirely shit experience -- but there was a minor moment of pleasure when I realised we now lived down the road from 'the Wallops' -- Upper Wallop, Middle Wallop and Nether Wallop. Imagine spending your adolescence in Nether Wallop. Or (maybe more dangerously) your mid-life crisis...
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