American picks up 6 Dutch habits — Life in the Netherlands & the Dutch lifestyle

hi everyone i'm ava and today i want to talk to you about six dutch habits that i picked up since i moved to the netherlands from the u.s a year ago can you believe it in a year i have picked up some dutch habits these were things that i did not do in the u.s and i'm pretty sure most americans don't do them but my experience has been that these things are dutch and as an american i've started doing things a little differently so let's start with number one and that is opening the window even when it is really really cold outside for embeiche frissolux for some fresh air i couldn't believe it when i found myself a few days ago so it's been pretty hot recently when i'm filming this mid-september but we had a couple of really cold mornings and i found myself opening my windows these windows that you see here so that i could get a little bit of fresh air i would never do that in the us if it is cold we shut our windows we even turn up our heat we do everything possible to make it as warm as we can indoors whereas here i've started to find that a little stuffy my girlfriend would actually always do this when we lived together back in the u.s in philadelphia she would open the windows in the middle of the winter and i would be so confused because you know your it gets really cold so you're paying for heat and at the time i just didn't understand it i didn't know why we needed to have our windows open so often when we were living back in the u.s even though she wanted to keep the windows open i pushed against it i was like no no no we are keeping the apartment warm because it is winter what are you doing this makes absolutely no sense then fast forward a little bit and i started living in the netherlands on my own while she was finishing up her job in the us and i started to notice well you know my apartment gets a little bit stuffy why don't i open up the windows well it's not that cold today it's not that cold today and then i kept doing it until i realized it was december it was absolutely freezing and if i didn't have my window open for at least part of the morning or part of the day i would just not be able to focus on my work i wouldn't feel like i really woken up so i really am now a believer in opening your windows even when it's cold for a bit of fresh air go figure things i never thought i would do in my entire life number two on this list is riding a bike when you have to go anywhere that's more than like a 10 minute walk this to me is unbelievable first of all i am so uncomfortable biking still i'm a lot more comfortable than i used to be but i'm still not at a point where it is absolutely natural for me to be biking everywhere and it's absolutely not the case that i feel like a bike is the extension of my body my soul and my being like the dutch people watching this video probably feel about their bikes for me biking is just an easy way to get around and in the us i really liked walking i would walk everywhere so i'm from new york city where i grew up just walking the entirety of new york city it was not uncommon for me to walk from east village or chinatown way down south to up north in manhattan too like i don't know the upper east side or something it was really common for me to walk for hours and just feel really good and invigorated now i noticed that if i need to go somewhere that's a 20 30 minute walk i'm going to think twice about walking i'm going to choose to ride my bike i really really did not think that would happen when i first moved to the netherlands if i had to go somewhere that was a 40 minute walk i would prefer to walk because i just thought it was a nice walk it was a nice way to stretch some muscles whereas now i am getting on my bike i'm going to deal with my clumsiness on the bicycle i'm going to deal with all the other bicyclists running past me all of that because i cannot fathom walking 40 minutes to go have dinner somewhere or anything and i have to say that this has been a recent change because i have been uncomfortable biking because i just didn't grow up biking i grew up in big cities where i i learned how to bike at some point but i never practice so you know how you say like you're just supposed to get on a bike and your muscle memory will do all the work well that's just not true i am living proof that that is just not true that said even for someone like me i cannot imagine walking that much when i have the option of riding my bike so this is definitely very very dutch in the u.s not everyone prefers to walk but driving your car or taking public transport will be the alternatives we're not as used to biking as people are here obviously the netherlands is the biking capital of the world number three is not being able to stay indoors when it is sunny outside in the u.s it is sunny like all the time all the time there are way more sunny days even in the winter than they are cloudy days here in the netherlands it's a little different i happen to like cloudy days i like rain i like the cold temperate weather i don't like it when it gets too hot one of the reasons why i love living in the netherlands i know that's not how most people feel but that's how i feel i'm a little different in many ways so even as someone who likes it when it is cloudy and not too sunny and not too warm i find that i cannot stay indoors anymore since i moved to the netherlands because everybody when the sun is out the dutch folk are out they are enjoying everything that the horika the cafes the restaurants have to offer they go to parks they they just really make the most out of a sunny day and in the u.s i didn't really feel that way i noticed that my girlfriend who was dutch she would really want to get out of the house when it was sunny but it is sunny all the time so we would be out all the time and that was just not the case for me i did not have this urge and i think many americans don't have this strong urge to make the most out of every sunny day because really if you don't do something today you could just do something tomorrow or the day after but here i now cannot sit indoors like today for example it is a sunny day outside and i wanted to film this video because i wanted to share these dutch habits with you but i had to first go for a walk sit outside drink some coffee get some brunch because it is a nice sunny day the old me the old american me would just stay indoors and just do my thing because it doesn't matter if it's sunny out or not so this is another one of those things that really surprised me i probably started noticing that i was doing this in march when it really got to be more sunny outside and i thought to myself oh my god this is my chance and i caught myself i caught myself doing it number four is grocery shopping more frequently now in the u.s we really like to go grocery shopping maybe once or twice a week i know i'm generalizing here but this is pretty common we have a lot of stores that are catered to exactly that to buying involved like a store like costco maybe where you can just get everything in bulk in one place and you maybe go there once a week you know if you have a big family you grab all the stuff you need and then you just don't make very many frequent trips here in the netherlands i've noticed that people are really not hesitant to go to a grocery store at the drop of a hat i've even experienced being at someone's place for dinner and then they're like oh do we feel like dessert let's just go out and get some dessert at the grocery store we would do this in the u.s but really not as often as i've seen people bring this up here in the netherlands i've also noticed that because of the corona regulations where people were advised not to go to the grocery store too often people would say well i did so good this week i've only been going every other day so i've been really surprised by that because every other day in the us is well really frequent it's like what are you buying but i think the difference comes from the fact that here i've seen even if this may not be true my experience has been that the grocery stores almost seem to be designed for people to just quickly go in grab what they need and come out as soon as possible the stores are small there are few items available you don't need to make too many choices and there are these really fast efficient self checkout counters so everything is really quick and easy in the us is just a little different we have more choices and not as many self checkout counters at the grocery stores but i think it's just how we americans also view grocery shopping we tend to include it as a chore or as an item on our list like okay maybe twice this week i'll go grocery shopping or at the end of the week i'll go grocery shopping but it's really not the case that oh i really feel like making something today so i'm gonna go grocery shopping that doesn't happen very often and the last thing i want to say about this is in the u.s it's not very common to get your lunch at the grocery store so here in the netherlands if you are at lunch you can simply in your lunch break go to a grocery store because there are also so very many grocery stores like on every other block you will find a grocery store whereas in the us grocery stores are more spread out this might also contribute to how frequently people go to the grocery store in the netherlands during your lunch break you could just pop into a grocery store and get yourself a salad a multi salad and these are really great things that you can get for lunch and you don't need to plan ahead but again this is not something that i see happening in the u.s we don't really have these lunch salads or pre-packaged meals that you can just eat in the middle of your day you know we usually have food that you can heat up in the microwave so not something that you can just quickly consume and i think these maldives saladas or these salads are really just one more example of how people just quickly go into a grocery store and come out we would go to a restaurant to grab our food or another takeout place to grab some lunch here people go to the grocery store number five on this list is also related to grocery stores and that is now every time i go to the grocery store okay maybe not every time but quite frequently when i go to the grocery store i find myself buying tuccia or just so that i can enjoy some freshly baked goods in the u.s i would just buy chocolate to have with my meal or throughout the day buying these baked goods isn't as common we definitely have some kind of baked goods in the u.s but they don't tend to be fresh at the grocery store maybe some grocery stores and not others but as a result i never really bought full-on desserts or full-on like apple pie at the grocery store that i would then have at home there are definitely places in the u.s like whole foods where you can get some freshly baked goods but it's definitely not as common and it's not as good and there isn't that much variety i know that's one place people go to to buy birthday cakes for instance at a grocery store but i would not buy that on a daily basis here it is quite frequent that i find myself buying these little pastries and things and yeah my diet has changed a little bit because of that i have never consumed so much sugar so what do you guys do let me know in the comments if you are like me and you buy pastries often at the grocery store or if you're american and watching this what do you think do you buy a lot of pastries in the us let me know in the comments i'm curious to hear about your experiences and finally number six i have found myself eating more cold lunches than ever since i moved to the netherlands and not just that i almost don't want to eat hot lunches anymore in the us getting hot lunches like getting chinese food for lunch is very common also what's pretty common is eating leftovers from the night before if you have leftover thai food from the night before you will eat it for lunch you won't wait to eat it for dinner eating it at lunch is totally a-okay totally acceptable i remember when my girlfriend and i visited the netherlands the first time since we started dating and this was still pretty recent into her stay in the u.s when she had moved there and her family was asking her about her diet in the u.s because they were concerned that she might just be eating burgers or i don't know what the concern was but i mean i can see how you know that is legit a legitimate thought to have that maybe it's fast food is what's more available in the us if you're not quite familiar with how things work uh that's not the case in big cities definitely but they would ask her about what she ate for lunch for instance and my girlfriend would just say like you know sometimes i just have leftovers for lunch and people were shocked they were like what you're going to eat warm food warm leftovers for lunch that doesn't make any sense and to me it didn't make sense that you wouldn't do that so even though my girlfriend had this idea in her head she actually gravitated towards the way americans did things towards how i did things which is just eating whatever was available for lunch you can also just go out and get lunch in the u.s and oftentimes that is hot lunch we of course eat salad which is cold but we have very many hot lunches here that is not the case you could of course get a salad but what is pretty common and what i have so willingly adopted is the bowser hum eating sandwiches or bother hum for lunch i did not do this in the us but when i moved to the netherlands and started working i found myself taking a few sandwiches with me to work and i was especially surprised when one day i really wanted i craved a hacklesslach sandwich at lunch for lunch when i think of chocolate sprinkles i still 100 think of special occasions dessert candy but here apple stock chocolate sprinkles are a very common thing to have for breakfast and i think it's possible to eat them for lunch i don't know that's what i've started doing not every day but i definitely do it because it is delicious why wouldn't you want chocolate for lunch i mean who can argue with that so of course i very quickly adopted this habit of eating botox for lunch especially because oftentimes bother hum involves really really delicious dutch cheese which i am a fan of anyway so when i found myself taking both her home to work five days in a row i knew that i had changed for the better and now i'm surprised that i actually find it a bit weird to eat warm lunches like i'm just not used to it anymore it's just how my diet has changed so those were six dutch habits that i have developed since i moved to the netherlands a year ago i know this is not the end i know i will develop more dutch habits in the meantime if you are dutch and watching this let me know if you can think of any other stereotypically dutch habits that maybe you do and if you are not dutch and watching this let me know if any of these things surprised you or stood out to you

Channel: Dutch Americano

Views: 58,555

Keywords: Dutch lifestyle, life in the netherlands, dutch experience, american in the netherlands, american expat, dutch habits, netherlands, expat in the netherlands, expat in amsterdam, life in amsterdam, dutch things, living in the netherlands, expat living in the netherlands

Id: 1ECdeQffaFA

Length: 14min 56sec (896 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 20 2020