Stuff Dutch People Like wants to wish you all a very happy 2012!
2011 was a blast; after procrastinating for years, we finally started the SDPL blog and could not be happier with the wealth of enthusiastic feedback and interaction received.
Thank you for being an incredibly passionate, critical, opinionated, direct, amusing, and spirited group of readers! (sounds kinda like the Dutch, eh?)
The goal of this blog has always been to inform, amuse and, above all, have a little fun!
For those of you still trying to decipher the Dutch: we hope we can continue to makes things a little less blurry! Although we aren’t making any promises. It ain’t an easy task 😉
I can see clearly now...
I hope you keep on doing this for a long time. It’s immensely amusing. 🙂
Happy New year to you too 🙂
Welcome in 2012 🙂
Happy New Year! Love your site x
Here since 2 years and enjoying this blog immensely! May I suggest a few other topics:
– Thrift. (I am actually genuinely interested in the underlying mechanisms and to see a sensed debate on the topic, anyone living here can’t but notice the obsession with even minute savings in most people. (+60k a year firm partner munching Euroshopper hagelslag in the lunchroom, anyone?) At the same time it’s an argument you can not really approach with a Dutch person, especially if you are aspiring for them to be friends with you.)
– Eating at your desk / while working in some other way.
– Not working in the middle of the day (Amsterdam this one. What are all these people of all ages doing living like students with papers and coffees at 11 am on a Tuesday?)
– Home birth. Now that’s an oddity that has potentially very dangerous consequences, yet everyone seems to happily advocate its “gezellig” qualities (also in one of your posts) over the “impersonal” hospital environment. The conviction is to the point of practically forcing even a foreign woman (a friend of mine) to give birth at home against her expressed will.
– Service culture or lack thereof (as cousin to the dat kan niet-entry). Again, impossible to discuss with Dutch friends, let alone the waiter or barman responsible. Fact remains that nowhere else I’ve been (all over the globe) not only does service frequently reach stunningly low standards (or rather perhaps, performed with very little interest and devotion to the completion of it). When this is pointed out the customer is usually put at fault for whatever happened (food not arriving, food wrong, forgotten etc) through bluntly telling them that there will now be another long wait since you are now at the bottom of the list again..duh.
– Washing of beer glasses in a quick dip in stagnant water and no rinsing, and other hygienic standards in restaurants and bars in general. Seriously, some of those contagious illnesses used as swearwords might not be so far away after all..:)
I love your blogs they are verry funny and so true!
I want to move to the Netherlands, and this is actually the most informative website I have found! i also love the comments… keep up the good work!
Hahaha I really enjoyed your posts, I’ve been here about a month and I totally can relate to a lot of stuff already, like the nose picking, the sinks with only cold water, the steep and dangerous stairs, amongst other things! I’m glad I’m not the only who finds some these things strange! On the other hands I do enjoy some stuff like MAYO WITH FRIES!!!! I’m so addicted! I even bought my own to make! and stroopwaffels of course are also good!
Hope you’re having a great 2013!