As Requested and much awaited, here is my list of the little things I’ve noticed about The Netherlands that make it unique. To get things started off on the right foot, we’ll jump right into talking about toilets! On family vacations abroad while I was growing up, my siblings can attest, I was weirdly obsessed with different toilets. You never knew there could be so many forms to serve a function! And where our toilets in the US are pretty much identical from sea to shining sea, in the rest of the world they seem to differ from house to house. I used to take photos of them and always thought I would make a collection of all of the various types I came across. I’m sure my mom probably thought I was just a creep when she went to get our film developed (camera film, whaat?!). But I digress… In Holland there are a couple of things I’ve never noticed before in other places I’ve trekked across Europe. Firstly and most awkwardly, it has a bit of a “landing” before the bowl where everything sort of sits before being washed away. Why in the world this exists other than to create aroma issues, I have no idea. Someone told me it had to do with water conservation, but it takes quite a bit of water just to flush things off of this landing. So, I’m calling bs on that one. pun intended.    I hope Josefien forgives me for posting a photo of her toilet on the Internet. In other bathroom news in Holland, their toilet paper here is really thick! 4 ply is standard, and if you’re being cheap, you can buy 3 ply. 2 ply hardly exists and I’m pretty sure is only for hobos in the lowest tiers of society.   Third and last potty related observation about The Netherlands is that using the restroom publicly is hardly EVER free of charge. Getting a beer at a bar? Still gotta pay 50 cents to pee! Paid 20 Euro to get into this music festival? I invite you to wait in this long line to pay 50 cents for the privilege of peeing in this port-a-potty! Even waiting on a platform at a Train Station for a train to come, you must pay to use the toilet. (Although I should mention that the aforementioned quality of toilet paper here never wavers)  I feel personally conflicted about this because I’ve had multiple conversations about how i would gladly pay a nominal fee to use a nice public restroom in large cities in NYC where it seems entirely impossible to find public restrooms. And my sister Molly has frequently told me terrible stories about how residents of NYC will just not drink water to avoid having to find a restroom and then passed out from dehydration but the city refuses to get public restrooms that require pay for use because it just “isn’t right to have to pay to use the restroom”. Stuck doing the pee dance in the middle of times square, I would gladly pay to use a restroom, but somehow it just feels wrong that I paid 8 Euro to see the windmill at Kinderdijk and yet am still obliged to pay 50 cents to relieve my bladder. On to better and less potty-related items… BIKES!       I know the Dutch are famous for their biking, and not without reason, their biking infrastructure is second to none and every street you go down will have at least 50 bikes parked along the sidewalk. Our housemate told us that there are more bikes in Holland than there are people and I definitely believe it. Along every major road there is a bike path. And not just a “lane” on the street, it has it’s own road parallel to the road but separate even with it’s own traffice signals, adorably in the shape of a bike. There are also bike paths running from city to city cutting right through beautiful farm land and very well maintained! Chris and I have taken advantage of these extensive bike paths in the last few weeks taking on long bike trips from city to city.  

 And people of all ages bike here which is so amazing But don’t be fooled by how cute little old dutch ladies on bikes look, the dutch take their bike lanes very seriously and don’t suffer fools going the wrong way or taking up too much room in the lane lightly. I had a woman purposefully knock me off of my bike because she was incensed that I was going the wrong way in the lane. We also learned that the bell on a bike should only be used when necessary to let someone know they’re in the way or doing something wrong. When we first arrived, I rang my bell just to let a lady know I was passing her on the left and she was INCENSED that I had rung my bell at her. She let me know by throwing me an angry look and ringing her bell at me incessantly as I passed. But the Dutch also show a lot of affection in the way they ride bikes. I’ve seen the best and strangest things happen on bikes in the time we’ve been here. I’ve seen couples holding hands and kissing while riding their respective bikes, I’ve seen them carry their friends and family on the back and front of their bikes. I once saw three grown men sharing a single bike. It’s really impressive. But they also carry their babies, too! Apart from the magic of the Bakfiets, which is essentially a bike modfied to have a big wooden compartment for kids to ride in in the front, many people here have carriers on the front and backs of their bikes, or tandem bikes made for one adult and one child, and I even once saw a man just carrying an infant in his arms while riding home from the beach. Yesteday Chris and I saw a couple that were holding hands while one rode a bike and the other was skating on a long board.       They can also carry a 24 case of beer with one hand while riding home on a bike and have crates designed just for this purpose. Aptly, the Duolingo app Chris and I have been practicing our Dutch with used this phrase last week:   I’m sure I’ll be using this phrase all the time… Another cool aspect of the bike culture in NL is that bikes get flyered at music events!       Another strange aspect of Dutch life is that they love to drink little beers. At pretty much any restaurant or bar, you can order for 2 or 3 euro, a “bierje” which is just a beer served in a small glass.    While this is really pleasant with dinner, it is a little weird at a festival or event. As I mentioned in a previous blog, they have amazing festivals nearly every weekend in the summer. 🙂 But at these festivals you wait in line to buy a 2 Euro beer twice the size of a dixie cup. Since no one wants to wait in line every time they finish a tiny beer, you can get them in little cardboard cup holders in sets of 6! Which I actually find adorable and charming, but it leads to little baby cups littering the ground everywhere you walk because trash cans are impossible to find.    When Chris and I were at a huge free festival called ParkPop, there were little kids running around collecting these disposed cups and turning them into veritable art installations and forts! That part was actually pretty cool. I’ve also noticed that the Dutch don’t seem to ever use top sheets in their beds. Chris and I have been house surfing a lot and staying in various places and each bed seems to come standard with a fitted sheet below and just a feather duvet with a duvet cover on top! Growing up in the Texas heat and being used to sleeping under just a sheet, this particular oddity of Holland drives me a little crazy at night. It’s too hot under the covers and too cold out of them!  Not that I’m complaining, we’ve been totally blessed with amazing places to stay, but it’s my job to come up with these random tidbits, ya know. Speaking of sleepless nights, the birds here are CRAZY! Chris and I will frequently wake up in the night both laughing because of the bizarre noises the apparently mutant seagulls make here. Sometimes it sounds like they’re laughing maniacally, sometimes it sounds other worldly. I’m never short of amazed by the crazy sounds of birds here. I took a short video the other night for your amusement:    And while we’re on the topic of weird videos, here’s a video of our neighbor trying to vacuum up some of her clothes that fell down from her drying rack and landed on the roof below.    It should also be mentioned that virtually no one owns a dryer here (as is common in most of Europe) and, randomly, their washing machines have wash cycles ranging from 2 hours at the shortest and 4 hours at the longest. To end this unusually long post, I’ll just say that other things we’re getting used to here in our own experience are little things like not having ridden in a car in 2 months! Going from spending at least an hour in my car every day in the states, it feels a little weird! And I haven’t blow dryed my hair in 8 weeks! Also, they laugh at the idea that American grocery stores have baggers that bag your groceries. Silly Americans…here the checkers throw your items to their left and have a big lever that sweeps them to one side so they can b Next post, I’ll tell the harrowing tale of getting stung in the eye by a bee in a gigantic rose garden! ❤