I’ve had some friends ask for an update on life abroad: ‘What does it FEEL like? We all know it’s pretty!’ Part of me thinks ‘has it really only been four months’?! But it also feels like so long ago when we hopped on a plane and then waited several months for our crates to arrive. But they eventually arrived in August and thankfully weren’t on this shipment in Rotterdam.
Which means, I guess, that surprisingly we found moving abroad to be much easier than we thought? I added a question mark because I know we can’t predict the future. But at the present, it’s been strangely familiar living in the Netherlands. Honestly, I don’t remember much of the first two months. I already feel like a different person somehow. Does this mean I now have ‘sea legs’? First, I’ll touch on the similarities and then mention the differences using a specific subject below. I can dive into different theme if anyone wants to know more about a particular topic.
Familiar
There are million videos and articles on how the Dutch are different than the US but they are usually grounded in similarities. Let’s be frank, the Netherlands is probably the closest in culture to the US (yes, the good and the not so good) than other EU countries. Many things are just done in different ways for good reason and sometimes not, I’m sure. Like the streets. I know. Yes, I’m going to briefly touch on streets because I’m obsessed with them but they are a perfect example for this ‘similar yet different’ example. Many streets are cobblestone for practical purposes. They also happen to be stunningly laid.
They are like this for a reason, because the soil is so unstable if they were all paved like in the US, they would constantly be repairing them. And with real weather, cables have all been undergrounded so accessing them needs to be easy. Yes, I know, the US has ‘real’ weather too. There should be an entire different post about this but I won’t digress at the moment. If there’s another reason for the cobblestones, I’d love to know but this is what I’ve been told so far.
Yet, not familiar?
Last week we walked north on the charming, cobblestoned Warmoesstraat in Haarlem, surrounded by cozy cafes and charming buildings with the giant St. Bavo’s church looming at the end of the block. I should have taken a picture but we were running errands and life continues and so I give you a Google Maps view instead below. I paused briefly and said to my teen ‘I can’t believe we live here! It’s so beautiful!’ before popping into Huismuis on the right to look for a muffin tin and a jar opener. So is life.
But on a broader scale, we’re literally and metaphorically traversing a new language in cooking, communicating, shopping, meeting people, creativity, lighting, style, measurements, transportation, friendships, cleaning, sounds, weather and even birds!
All of these differences are mostly minute, but familiar. Like the literal miniature diorama above from the charming Sam & Julia store in Amsterdam (definitely worth a visit even if you have no children!). So here’s my example: if I want to cook, it involves shopping for groceries on foot or on bike (or lazily ordering grocery delivery) in a new language, sorting through mostly prepackaged produce, self checkout in Dutch (mastered it!), navigating a tiny fridge (maybe this explains this popular commercial??), working on a counter height made for giants (I’m almost 6’ tall and it’s still high), a 3rd degree burn option coming out of your main water tap depending on which way the nozzle is turned (it’s truly popular here!), an induction stove (new to us at least) that works like magic (I LOVE it!), rice that cooks in fifteen minutes that’s not half bad (oh Japanese sushi rice, I dearly miss you!), dish soap that I haven’t quite come to love yet (either too watery or total goo), and a fancy dishwasher that plays a video projection on your floor telling you when your dishes will be clean.
Cool, right?! That’s just in a forty minute span of time. You get the idea. There are countless moments like this every day, depending on the theme. But they are slowly becoming familiar and some of it leads to many laughs. To keep our sanity through it all, there’s nothing more rewarding than keeping an old routine which for me involves sitting down in my cozy reading nook in the evening and texting/Facetiming with friends (but now they drink their morning coffee while I have a glass of wine). Tell me if you’re interested in hearing about any other differences I touched on above. Don’t get me started on the lighting!
Such a vivid description of how fragmented bits of a new life and environment can be and how commonplace and unremarkable they become soon enough. Love this journal you're doing!
Are you taking language classes?