Eight Tips Series: Driving

There are tricks for getting safely from A to B on the roadways of the Netherlands. It may seem like the rules of the road are self explanatory and easy to follow but often they are not quite as they seem. Here are eight tips to help you drive around this little Dutch nation.

1. Changing Your Driving Licence
There comes a time when your home nation driving licence just isn't valid anymore to drive in the Netherlands. For some nationalities, this means taking a Dutch driving test.  If this applies to you, don't worry. Judging by the driving habits of the rest of the nation, it really can't be that hard.

For others, it is simply a case of swapping once licence for another as is the case with the Brits. Interestingly, swapping a British licence to a Dutch one gives you the right to drive many more (heavy) vehicles than your average Dutchman. Don't ask me why but I can pretty much drive a juggernaut here but my husband can't - he would have to take a separate test for that. So you do need to be careful as you could be the one called upon to drive the school bus / sports mini bus/ freight lorry if you are out and about with your Dutch friends.

2. They're Traffic Lights but not as We Know Them
The colours are the same: red, yellow (or amber if you want to be pedantic) and green but they mean different things.

• A traffic light that is turning to red means put the gas pedal to the floor and GO GO GO because you can easily make it before it turns really red. If you stop at a traffic light as it turns from amber to red, expect to get beeped at by the car(s) behind.
• If a traffic light is amber it means speed up, you can easily make it before it turns red.
• A green traffic light means go, if you have bothered to stop in the first place.

3. Speed Limits Don't Apply to Everyone
If you choose to drive at 120km on the motorway in the fast lane, don't be suprised to see that you pick up an assortment of "trailers" on your journey. Whilst bumperkleven (tailgating) is illegal in the Netherlands it proves no deterrent for Dutch drivers and the fight for space in this little land is no more apparant than on the third lane of the nation's highways. In fact, the Dutch are trying to get bumperkleven classified as an Olympic sport to improve their gold medal tally.

When roadworks are being carried out on the motorway, and a temporary speed limit is in place do not make a mental note to take your car in to the garage to have your speedometer checked. It's fine. Really. It's just that the lower speed limit only applies to you and not to other drivers on the road.

4. Make Someone's Day at a Zebra Crossing
When you stop at a zebra crossing to allow a pedestrian to cross, expect a look of surprise on the faces of those waiting; they never expected you to stop so you have just made their day.

5. There are More than Cars on the Road
At a junction, the absence of cars or pedestrians nearby does not mean it is safe to pull out or turn; watch out for buses, trams and cycles as they can easily come out of nowhere and usually have priority.

If you have to make an emergency manoever to avoid that something hits you, and you hit your horn as a warning or in frustration or anger, expect the middle finger. It does not matter that they have almost hit your car, or that you have had to use all your driving know-how to avoid a collision - you have no right to beep at the offender.

6. Right has Priority
If there are no clear markings on the road, then any road turning onto the road you are on from the right has priority. This means that cars may pull out in front of you from the right and they DO actually have right of way, though it might seem like anti-social driving to you. Do not shout, blaspheme or stick your middle finger up. It's not nice.

7. Roundabout Etiquette
Do not wait for Dutch drivers to signal on the roundabouts. You must guess when they will turn off - it is a sort of national game. You must also pull out on to the roundabout even when it looks like you don't have enough time to do so safely. Someone will eventually stop for you. Or in the back of you.

8. Cars do not Float
Even if you have not been in the Netherlands very long you have probably noticed there is a fair bit of water around in the form of canals, rivers and lakes. Oh, and the sea. Be careful when you are parking in the narrow spaces near the water - like is typical in Amsterdam and Leiden. There are rarely barriers and it is a harrowing drop down to the water if you don't brake in time. It is not just shopping trolleys and bikes that are fished out of Holland's waterways.

Eight Tips Series: Kitting Your Home Out with Dutch Essentials

In order to get along in Dutch society there are a number of essentials you need in your home. Without them you cannot integrate fully and may even fail the inburgeringscursus. You can read about these essential tools (and others) in more depth in an article I wrote for Expatica.

1. Potato Masher
Without this vital piece of kitchen equipment you can never hope to master Dutch cuisine. It is hard work to use it effectively but practice makes perfect. You need to keep mashing until the object in question looks squashed and dead.

Although it is a potato masher (at least where I come from it is) the name is deceiving. In the Netherlands, it has various uses on top of smashing the life out of a potato: mashing cabbage, mushing carrot, pulverising spinach, squashing onion, squishing endives...... you get the picture.

This kitchen tool allows you to make a perfect stamppot or hutspot - perfect for warming the tummy in winter. Also very handy after dentistry work and a broken jaw.

2. Birthday Calendar
This is an essential for the smallest room in the house, namely the downstairs loo. If you don't have a downstairs loo, then choose the next smallest room. Make sure you include the birthday of anyone likely to visit your house - everyone checks for their name whilst they are making use of your facilities. They really do. If they come out of your downstairs loo looking mad, it's because you forgot to put their birthday in your calendar.

3. Bicycle
It almost goes without saying, but without a bike in the Netherlands you are no one. You simply must have a bike - it really doesn't matter how much you use it but you should have one. Where it is stored differs from household to household. The shed is a popular place. Public hallways in shared accommodations are also popular, preferably so you block safe exit and entrance. Creating an obstacle course for fellow residents is seen as good sport here. You can also leave your bike(s) chained to a lamppost outside your house - it externalises the obstacle course and gives dogs new and varied targets to pee on.

4. Window Foil
Many Dutch homes do not have curtains. They may have blinds or no window fittings at all. This is traditionally so you can see in to the showcase living room. However, over the years many Dutch homeowners have become torn between tradition and dignity. Do they really want you seeing them in their dressing gowns with bed hair every morning? The solution is window foil. Placed strategically over the windows you can't see out so obviously nobody can see in (except very small and very tall people).

5. Sauces
Your fridge door must be full of different sauces to be served with every meal. Every meal, regardless of what it is. Of course, the food you serve will determine exactly which of the sauces you are to serve but there are some staples: knoflooksaus (garlic flavoured sauce), currysaus (spicy ketchup in essence) and chillisaus (chilli sauce). There are other sauces which are variable and optional but for kids you must always serve appelmoes (apple sauce). It is to do with the lack of flavour in Dutch cuisine....... see tip 1.

6. Vases
Flowers are everywhere in the Netherlands. They are also commonly brought by visitors. So if you are a bit of a socialite, then you will need a lot of vases and many free surfaces to put your flowers in and on.

7. Cheese Slicer

I had never owned a cheese slicer (kaasschaaf) in my pre-Netherlands life. Cheese in the UK is soft and comes in square chunks so can easily be cut with a knife or crumbled or grated for sandwiches. I now own two cheese slicers. (I actually had three but whilst some might find that luxurious, I found it to be a little excessive and as it came free with some cheese I chucked it). Anyways.... Dutch cheese is hard and triangular shaped. Trying to cut it with a knife is just asking to lose at least one finger dangerous so cheese slicers are essential.

8. Chairs
Foreigners in the Netherlands all have to step into the circle of death at some point. If you have a Dutchie in your house, you will even have to create that birthday circle for yourself. For this you need as many chairs as you can muster from friends, family and neighbours. But you must also have a good supply in house. The good news is (so I am told) that the birthday circle is dying out and a thing for the older generations.

What's your experience? Do you still end up in birthday circles? Do you host birthday circles?

Eight Tips Series: Using Public Transport

Photo: Jop Quirindongo

The public transport system in the Netherlands is in general good. There are buses, trams, metros and trains to help you make your way across the length and breadth of this small nation. But what do I know? I grew up with British Rail so anything seems good in comparison.

1. Don't Bother with the Strippenkaart
It is being phased out (and already obsolete in some of the bigger cities). It is one of the most convoluted elements about travelling on public transport in the Netherlands. You need to know how many zones you are travelling (and then add one, double it, half it and guess which number I first thought of) to pre-stamp the paper strip; if you can even find it again after your last journey and it isn't in at least two pieces because you have to continually fold it to get it in your purse/wallet/handbag/pocket. Thankfully it is a dying breed.

2. Allow Plenty of Time
A 15 minute car journey will take you at least an hour with public transport. Enough said.

3. Learn Useful Local Phrases
If you are going to regularly travel by train, bus, tram or metro it would be handy if you learned how to say "Please could you move your bag from that seat so I can sit down." The answer will be rolling eyes, tutting or even "Nee," so be sure to take an assertiveness training course before ditching your car for public transport.

4. Accept You are Not Special
Being pregnant and the size of a baby elephant is no reason to expect anyone to give up their seat for you. Being old is something you need to live with and again no reason to object to standing for your entire journey. If you are feeling faint this is also a poor excuse to ask for a seat (but no worries because the sheer volume of the crowd will keep you upright). That healthy looking teenager blaring on his mobile phone and sharing the noise on his MP3 player with the entire carriage needs that seat more than you ever could.

5. Bear in Mind the Season You are Travelling in
If it is autumn there could be the wrong type of leaves on the tracks (nope, not only England has the wrong leaves) and in winter, snow and ice stop any kind of movement on the rail tracks and tram lines. Oh and the roads of course. If it is icy you need to cycle or sled to work/school/shops.

6. Hold On
Bus drivers, particularly those taking you down a motorway to your intended destination, do not factor in  that you as a passenger are without a seatbelt or are standing with little or no support in the aisle because the bus is full. Full twice over in fact. Note that you can also be upended by a tram pulling into a tram stop. Hold on tight.

7. Listen
If you hear a tram bell - MOVE OUT OF THE WAY. A tram will not stop or slow down for you. If you refuse to move you and/or your bike will end up wrapped around the front end of the tram and much screaming and shouting in Dutch will ensue. The bell means business so listen out for it.

Parking a bike in the Netherlands is easier than riding one

8. Buy a Bike
To be honest, if the journey you are regularly undertaking is less than 10km away, buying a bike may be your best option. Bikes are cheap, cycle lanes and parking are aplenty and routes are well signposted. Cycling with the Dutch is not without risk of course... but that's a topic for another day.

Eight Tips Series: Getting to Grips with Dutch Food

Dutch food is not like anything you have eaten before. Of that I am sure. Here's the low down of some typical Dutch food and how to survive it.

1. Lower Expectations

If you don't expect much, you won't be disappointed. Typical Dutch food is not haute cuisine. It is not fine dining. In fact, some might say it's hardly dining at all.

2. The Straw Rule

Most Dutch food can be eaten through a straw; pea soup (or snert as it is also known) is the ultimate example, though I do grant you that sucking up the lumps of sausage will need some gusto, and could be a choking hazard. The other great example is stamppot, which is basically mashed up potato with a vegetable of your choice (so long as the vegetable has had the life mashed out of it too). The fact that you could eat it through a straw does not mean that you should (unless you are convalescing in hospital).

Friet or patat: chips are a winner in the Netherlands

3. Get Frying

A lot of frying is done in the Netherlands. A lot. 'Snacks' are a unique type of fast food found floating in fryers across the country, usually served with the infamous friet or patat (that's fries or chips to you and me). Snacks include things like kipcorn, frikandel, bitterbal, bami and kroket. 

It is actually best not to ask what is in your snack - you don't want to know. It's the reason why snacks are served with more sauce than you know what to do with.

The traditional food at New Year is also a deep fried delicacy - oliebollen - just as its name suggests (oil balls).

Traditional Dutch cakes eaten at New Year
Photo: Baris Wanschers

4. Ditch the Cutlery

The Dutch eat quite a bit with their hands. For example, no knives and forks are needed for traditional 'snacks' or frietjes, despite the lashings of sauce (see Tip 5). Abandon the metal tools and get stuck in.

5. Get Saucy

The Dutch are masters of sauces. Not the 'Gordon Ramsay homemade quality' variety, but the 'out of a plastic bottle' variety. We are talking about frietssaus (especially to put on your chips), currysaus (not the same curry sauce you get in British fish and chip shops), satesaus, chillisaus, knoflooksaus (garlic sauce),  shoarmasaus (hot garlic sauce to go with shoarma) and mayonaise. 

6. Learn to Love it Hot and Strong

Drinking coffee is a Dutch pastime and for those who like their coffee bordering on coloured water, you are in for a shock. The Dutch tend to like their coffee strong. In addition, when the Dutch have white coffee they tend to use koffiemelk (evaporated milk) or koffiecreamer and not the regular stuff from a cow like many Brits. 

Drinking tea in the Netherlands is also an experience for Brits who put milk in their tea (yes, I know!). The Dutch look blankly at you if you ask for milk for in your tea (rightly so, in my humble opinion but my English visitors do put milk in their tea and it has led to some interesting discussions out and about). You may end up using creamer or koffiemelk. Either way, it doesn't make for a 'nice cup 'o tea" as the folk starring in English soaps would say.

Dinner or Dessert?

7. The Dutch Like it Flat

Like the country they live in, some favourite Dutch food is flat. Pancake houses are everywhere and are wildly popular. Pancakes come in all sorts of varieties - sweet, savoury and everything in between. They even come in different sizes - poffertjes are mini pancakes and you can buy poffertje pans if you want to make your own. 

The thing is that dinner in a pancake restaurant quite often results in a meal of pancake covered in sugar and syrup. Not a vegetable in sight. This is what I actually call pudding or dessert........ and I am told I am wrong - it is simply a dinner that is a treat. My tip is to eat dinner before you head out and grab pudding in the pannenkoekenhuis unless you plan to take a savoury pancake, which by the way really are very good.

8. Take up Jogging

Aside from all the deep fried food and the pancakes I have mentioned, there is also a lot of sweet food on the Dutch menu, especially when it comes to celebrating. For birthdays there is the usual birthday cake (if you are lucky), for a birth there is beschuit met muisjes (meaning literally biscuits with little mice; in reality a round, dry, crunchy cracker with blue or pink sugar coated anise seeds), for new year oliebollen and appelflappen are all the rage and a simple coffee with the neighbour is usually accompanied by some kind of sweet treat. It all starts to take its toll on the hips. And thighs. And rear end. So taking up jogging, aerobics or zumba is a good idea. The alternative is to hide away in your house and quit socialising.

Eight Tips Series: Dining Out

Photo:Lewis Johnston

Here are eight tips to get the most out of your dining out experience in the Netherlands.

1. Don't Ask to Sit in a Quiet Part of the Restaurant

This is a selfish request so please don't make it. It requires the waiting staff to walk further than strictly necessary to serve you. Sit with the crowd and enjoy your meal. In fact, most of the Dutch clientele think it is gezellig to seat themselves at the table positioned 10 centimetres from yours, despite you being the only customers in the restaurant. Squeezing past each other's chairs to visit the toilets is a kind of national pastime.

2. Expect to Take Your Time

Don't expect to grab a quick meal and head off somewhere else. If you want quick, try Mcdonalds or Burger King (and even then you might be pushing your luck). The ordering process, as well as the delivery times of your meal to your table is at best 'relaxed' in many Dutch eating establishments.

3. Get Your Drinks Order in Whilst you Can

You just never know when you will be able to attract your server's attention again to get a second drink. People have died of thirst trying.

4. Enjoy the Overview

Don't have high expectations that glasses and bottles will be cleared away as you empty them. That is needless extra work for the serving staff. Relish the challenge of creatively rearranging your table at every course to ensure you can fit your food on the table. Think about stacking high, as well as across the table, and don't be afraid to extend to the Dutch group's table next to you - they wanted your company after all. Look on the bright side - you can easily keep track of your alcohol consumption this way.

Photo: Stefan Gustafsson 

5. The Two Finger Rule

When you order a beer from the tap, your glass will comprise 2/3 foam and 1/3 beer. It should of course be the other way round with only two finger's worth of foam at the top of your glass. However, this is more fiction than fact. Live with it and order three beers at once.

6. Let Staff Know if Your Meal is Cold or Undercooked

If you are not happy with the temperature of your meal, or the degree to which it is cooked, start trying to attract your waiter to let them know. They will gladly (read: with rolling eyes) take your plate back to the kitchen to deal with the offending item by blasting it in the microwave and then returning it to you on the same plate that was taken away from you 15 minutes previously. Yes, your salad will also have been nuked.

7. Use Your Feet to Get the Bill

You may notice that most Dutch customers get up from their tables and make their way to the till at the end of the meal; this is because they know. They know there is no point sitting and waiting and trying to get a waiter's attention to get the bill. And in any case, if you are lucky enough to attract enough attention to ask for the bill, this is just step one of three. Getting the bill to your table is trickier than asking for it, and getting your money or card processed is even harder. You could be there hours, by which time it is time for your next meal.

8. Tip

Yes, the service may have been slow, your table a mess throughout the entire meal and you used your feet to get the bill paid but you are still expected to leave a tip for your waiter or waitress. They were in the restaurant whilst you ate weren't they?

Of course, there are actually great places to eat in the Netherlands, where service excels and the food is scrumptious - check out the list on the Smaak Politie site for good, clean places. Top notch Michelin star restaurants are also available such as De Librije which was featured on the last series of Master Chef shown on the BBC - if anyone has actually been there let us know how it was!

Eight Tips Series: Shopping in the Netherlands

If you want to come home from a shopping expedition in the Netherlands with your sanity in tact, retaining any semblance of a good mood, there are a few guidelines to follow. Whether it is a trip to the local supermarket, or some retail therapy in your local high street or shopping centre, you need to be prepared.

1. Avoid shopping on Saturdays

Regular high street shops are open from 9.00 to 5.30 (6pm if you are lucky) from Monday to Saturday. On a Monday, many shops won't open until lunchtime. In addition to this, there will be a koopavond in your town - usually a Thursday or Friday, when the shops are open until somewhere in the region of 9pm.

Sunday opening is scattered, controversial and not worth relying on. Hence, the stampede on Saturdays as the entire Dutch population descends on the local high streets; little wonder as most people are working when the shops are open the rest of the time. If you like elbow shoving, queuing and moaning, then save your shopping for a Saturday afternoon.

2. Big Supermarket Shops are for Saturdays Only

Don't think you can walk into any supermarket at anytime and load your shopping trolley up to the brim. If you do this in the evening, around the time people come out of work, you can expect sighing, tutting and catty comments about how your type should be banned from supermarkets. Evenings are for those people who do their shopping daily - those grabbing vegetables, milk and bread - and not for you to do your weekly shop.

Before you ask, no it is not the supermarket's fault that only two of the eight tills are open during the busiest period of the shopping day so queues form: it is YOUR fault because you do your weekly shop outside the legally designated times.

3. Take Carrier Bags Out with You

If you go shopping empty handed, you must either juggle your purchases under your armpits, have big pockets, or pay for bags. Some shops will give you free bags, but you take the risk of needing hospital treatment for cuts inflicted by the inappropriate handles attached to the dangerously thin bags.

4. Shop Online Around the Holidays

Shops in December are no-go. Everyone is frantically buying Sinterklaas gifts, promptly followed by Christmas presents. However, the snag is that Dutch shops offer to wrap your gifts for free..... Yes, for free... and this means the Dutch are queued out of the shop doors in their droves for their free wrapping. Unless you are partial to Bart Smit or V & D wrapping paper, do yourself a favour, shop online and wrap your own presents.

5. Smiles are not Included in the Price of your Shopping

Dutch customer service comes as a surprise to foreigners. In fact, you can spend your first few months in the Netherlands trying to find customer service. There is a rule to obey in shops - failure to comply is at your own peril.

"Thou shalt not interrupt employees whilst they are talking to each other about their weekends or homework and don't talk to employees whilst they are on a private telephone call." Accept that they clearly have better things to do than what they are actually paid to do. If you can ring up your own purchases, then all the better.

Returning your trolley is an art form in the
Netherlands

6. Strategically Return your Shopping Trolley

Always put your shopping trolley back at the end of the longest row of trolleys, even if this means returning it to a row which trails over the main road, blocks the entrance to a lift or path or crosses a motorway. Your aim is to hinder other shoppers and block the passage of cars. You need your 50 cents back right? And your legs have given up the will to live after your tiring shopping excursion? You can't possibly walk the extra few metres to the short row of trolleys.

7. Combine Supermarket Shopping with a Workout

Try to see hopping over empty boxes, careering around stock carts, and pegging it back to the shop entrance for that one elusive product they keep moving around, as exercise. Don't complain about products stacked high and out of reach - see it as a chance for a good stretch (or alternatively a way of getting into conversation with a tall Dutch person).

8. Plan the Emptying of your Shopping Trolley

Conveyor belts in the Netherlands are mini versions of those in other countries. Hence, if you place your bread anywhere but the end of the belt, you have approximately 2.3 seconds to run past the cashier to the end of the belt to save your bread before it turns prematurely into breadcrumbs. If you are planning to make breadcrumbs with your loaf, then this will save you effort and time later. However, if you want to make sandwiches with it, place it at the end of the belt when you empty your shopping, or practice your sprinting, because the employee behind the till will not rescue it for you. See tip 5.

On a similar note, do not open bottles of fizzy drinks, beer or wine directly on your return home. They will need to settle after their hazardous journey along the, albeit short, conveyor belt.

And on this subject.. don't pack your shopping into bags or crates at the end of the conveyor belt. Throw it all back in your trolley and pack it into bags whilst you hover at your car boot in the car park. It's much more efficient and you can't get your car out yet anyway because of the line of shopping trolleys across the car park......

Good luck!

"The Eight Tips" Series: Tongue in Cheek Survival Guide

Starting this week is a new series expertly designed (i.e based on my almost ten years here) to help you (as long as "you" is an expat) adapt to life in the Netherlands. The series will be eight tips every week to help you nail a specific aspect of living like a Dutchman. Thursday starts with shopping.

It is lighthearted, a bit tongue in cheek but you know how the saying goes... there's no smoke without fire.....

Eight Ways to Improve Your Dutch Language Skills

Dutch is not the easiest language to learn and depending on your personal circumstances it can be tricky to pick it up. Some expats have to attend a compulsory inburgeringscursus, which includes Dutch language lessons, but if you are from the EU then such courses are not obligatory and it might be a little harder to get yourself motivated to attend evening Dutch classes. Sometimes an employer will pay for you to attend language tuition, and sometimes even in work hours.

Whatever your situation, living in the Netherlands means you need to have some level of Dutch language skills to get around, even if it is just to be able to read traffic signs and shop notices. Here are some ways to improve your skills:

1. Formal language tuition: after a few years here I realised that although I understood a lot of Dutch and could certainly get by, my writing and grammar was not up to scratch so I went for a few lessons. I went to Poldertaal in The Hague and I can highly recommend Gerrie Soede and her methods, but there are lots of other teachers and courses around the country.


2. Read Dutch newspapers and magazines: the more you read, the more vocab you pick up and you'll soon find that you can get by when you are out and about.


3. Watch Dutch TV: and by this I don't mean Dutch spoken TV, but take the time to watch English spoken programs on Dutch channels. You will easily pick up new Dutch words, their meaning and spelling from the subtitles whilst being entertained.


4. Story time at the library: obviously this works best if you actually take a child of the right age with you, otherwise you may get strange looks. This is a great way not only for your children to pick up Dutch, but you too. You will learn theme based words and Dutch songs, as well as the opportunity to take books home with you from the library (again certain conditions apply - library membership is recommended as stealing library books is frowned upon). This leads on to my next tip....


5. Borrow Dutch books from the library: particularly handy if you borrow the Dutch version of a book you have already read in English. This way you know the story and already have the gist of the book and can concentrate on the vocab.


6. Be strict: if you have a Dutch partner and in-laws ask them to be real mean and speak only Dutch to you. This is how I gained a lot of my Dutch - not that I asked my in-laws to stop speaking English to me: they just did. However, it works a treat because you are forced to speak Dutch and concentrate!


7. Books or CD's: Hugo's Dutch in Three Months is a good example of a helpful book to move your Dutch along


8. Talk to Dutch work colleagues: if you work with Dutch people ask them for help to get you speaking more Dutch in the workplace. You could set up Dutch conversation sessions one lunchtime a week with a group of you to motivate you, over lunch in a meeting room or in the staff lunchroom. Make it fun!