5 things I've only seen in the Netherlands & as an American I'm still surprised by them!

hi everyone I'm Ava and I'm an American living in the Netherlands and today I wanted to talk to you about some things that I feel like I've only seen in the Netherlands but first i'm going to get myself a little treat at this cute little vegan cafe down the street so let's go [Music] and in case you're wondering I got myself a box full of pastel de natas so it's a great day to be me obviously they're not just for me and my girlfriend they're just for me okay well enough about the pastela natas which by the way were so good I wanted to tell you about these things that I feel like either only happen in the Netherlands or only Dutch people do and the first thing I want to tell you about was how in the Netherlands as opposed to in other countries when let's say as an as a tourist you might walk into a store and then you might ask let's say if I as an American was in Italy I might ask the person working at the store do you speak English and then we would continue our conversation there because I don't speak any Italian however I feel like the Netherlands is one of the few not the only place in the world where you walk into a store and then sometimes they might ask you what language you speak so that they could communicate to you in that language because I feel like the average Dutch person speaks at least a few languages now you might be thinking Ava are you serious and yes I am I've seen this happen where people Dutch people are talking to their customers in a language that's not English in Dutch I actually have a story to share with you about this in the US I actually knew someone who is this middle-aged man who looks very Dutch this tall very white blonde person with blue eyes and he told my girlfriend we were all the us together my girlfriend is Dutch so he told my Dutch girlfriend that when he was in Netherlands people kept thinking he was Dutch so when he would go into stores the people working at the store would just speak to him in Dutch a perfectly reasonable assumption considering he looks like the stereotypical Dutch person but then he would say oh I don't speak Dutch and then they would apologize to him and say oh no tell me what language do you speak so that we can speak to you in that language and he was amazed by this so he told us the story and again it stayed with me and I've really seen this happen here in the Netherlands I feel like some of the more common languages that Dutch people speak are German French and Spanish in addition to English and Dutch so you can pretty much get around a lot of Europe with those languages oh of course let's not forget Italian maybe some people know some Swedish it really is a wide range and I think in school you have to learn as a Dutch person when you're kind of half a person you know kid as a Dutch kid you need to learn English and Dutch and then you have to take another language as well so I think many people take French or German Spanish I think is another common option but it's also because Dutch and German are so similar that the I think Dutch people kind of understand a lot of German passively anyway so in the end they end up speaking like 3.5 languages I have to say that as an American I'm of course very impressed by this because Americans speak English we may speak some Spanish but when we say we speak a little bit of Spanish we're talking donde esta la biblioteca we're not talking what a Dutch person says oh I speak a little bit of English and then they continue to speak in perfect Flawless English making me a native English speaker look bad okay so number one was how I was impressed by Dutch people number two is a little bit more how I was shocked by Dutch people because here in the Netherlands they swear and curse just like everywhere else in the world it is a completely unexceptional linguistic phenomenon however what is not unexceptional is that in the Netherlands they swear and curse with diseases and I have to say that when I hear this out in the wild because it is a very common occurrence I am always a little shocked not because I'm a prude or anything or I think there's anything wrong with cursing it's I think I personally think it's a very natural way of expressing emotion as long as you know you have a wide variety of range to express emotion basically I think there's nothing wrong with it but I still can't help being a little taken aback when I hear people shouting to another person go get typhus or tuberculosis and it just seems odd and a little strange and I have to say that most of these diseases or diseases from the past probably is not a coincidence it probably has some historical relationship to the present of course however when people start cursing with cancer and I think some Dutch people have expressed that to me as well that that's a more harsher level of swearing so if you swear using can answer which is something we still experience in our society that's like really really tough and harsh so I am not a native user of cursing with diseases so um and I also have never tried to do this in Dutch because it just it just seems wrong it seems like I'm pretending to sound more Dutch but like in what way so I just don't do it I have the f word in English you know moving on to number three that I personally am a big fan of which is food that you can get out of a wall I'm talking warm meals that you can just pick out of a wall and pay with your card so basically you walk into this place known as the Fabo there's also the smallers which is another company that does the same thing and it's basically a wall full of food items and I could just see a food item I like like a burger or a gas souffle a cheese souffle and I can just you know open this little uh container grab my burger or cheese souffle clearly can you tell that I like cheese souffles and then I can pay with my card and I'm good to go all of this takes about 30 seconds it's ridiculous how easy it is and it has not been great when I'm wandering around just you know with the tiny tiny hint of hunger in me or I just feel like having a snack and there it is so conveniently located at the station or in the middle of the city and then I just inevitably keep getting a cheese souffle so the Fabo and the smellers are really popular in the Netherlands and I have a feeling that the reason this like food in the wall concept took off was because a Dutch people are extremely efficient they don't want to waste any time when they want their food sounds a lot like Americans right but then also I feel like they also don't want to talk to people they don't want to do small talk they don't want to stand in line at the cash register and have to actually have an exchange no they just want the food and they figured out a way to get the food without doing all the talking and standing in line there you have it and I feel like how can America still be the land of fast food when in the Netherlands you have this the next one on the list is Dutch people's feelings towards wearing a helmet while biking they don't just have a disreference for it because you know very many people if it was all the same would choose not to wear a helmet obviously well maybe not obvious maybe some people enjoy it who am I to judge but in the Netherlands I find that very many people are almost offended by seeing a person wearing a helmet or they just it's their ideology like not wearing a helmet and I know many of them if they go abroad they struggle with this concept but I find it particularly interesting that they feel a bit more offended in the Netherlands because I think this comes from the fact that they you know Dutch people are proud of their biking infrastructure as they should be and I think when they see people wearing helmets it kind of like gets to them and it's like no the roads are safe why are you wearing a helmet whereas you know an American might just be like I don't know because I like safety and I want to stay alive but Dutch people feel like they're things more important than that yeah so for me the only place I've seen someone actually comment negatively on someone wearing a helmet has been in the Netherlands so that is how this point got on the list and the last thing I wanted to share with you today also has to do with bikes and in particular bike parking because so many people ride their bikes to certain hot spots like the station you will actually see very interesting ways of parking your bike I was amazed when I saw bike parking stations where you had to put your bike on top of another I mean we've all seen like car garages where you you know park your car sort of on top of each other but here they do that with bikes and also you have to do it yourself which I found quite intimidating in the beginning and who am I kidding still do I've only done this at Utrecht Central where I've parked my bike on top of another and it was quite an experience I had to pull down this like metal thing and then I had to get my bike which is this honestly quite heavy Oma feet uh which is like a grandma bicycle but basically it's very heavy it's not one of these like light mobile agile bikes it's a heavy heavy Contraption and had to take that heavy Contraption and put it on top of another Contraption and then slide it up and Dutch people seem to do this in the matter of just seconds and I'm in the bicycle stall and I see everybody just doing it very quickly and when I did this for the first time I was there it's like okay I'm gonna pretend I'm just like everybody else clearly not and then you know there I was struggling but then comes the part where once your bike is on this contraption that you're then supposed to like push it and then it just stays on top of the other bike and when I successfully did it I think I did it right I was amazed because me I just like was able to put this huge heavy bike on top of another bike and yep I feel like is it just me who's kind of intimidated by this although I will say after I've done it it just doesn't seem too bad but I wonder if Dutch people have feelings and uh thoughts about this so if you are a Dutch on watching this let me know in the comments down below those are a few things that I've only seen in the Netherlands or only seen Dutch people do of course big disclaimer I haven't been everywhere but I thought it was still interesting that I hadn't noticed these things before coming to the Netherlands now if you feel like there's something else that I've left out please let me know in the comments down below as usual until next time

Channel: Dutch Americano

Views: 168,338

Keywords: Dutch things, only in the Netherlands, the Netherlands, Dutch lifestyle, life in the Netherlands, American expat in the Netherlands, American in the Netherlands, American in the Netherlands vlog, Things Dutch people do, American abroad, the Dutch

Id: bAgm3DTJZWo

Length: 11min 9sec (669 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 06 2022