Unwritten Dutch rules to follow in the Netherlands | American in the Netherlands

hi everyone i'm ava i'm an american living here in the netherlands and today i wanted to talk to you about some unwritten dutch rules now before i go on to these unwritten dutch rules i wanted to thank you all for your kind words and support on the last video that i made which was being gay in the u.s versus the netherlands where i shared my coming out story with you and i wanted to just thank you all for the positivity because it wasn't an easy video for me to make and i really appreciate the support that you all gave me in that video and that you all continue to give me by watching the videos and leaving wonderful comments and just saying nice things or teaching me things every day so with that said let's move on to the unwritten dutch rules now first of all what do i even mean by unwritten rules well you know when you move to another country or you go visit another country there are these little cultural norms that people tell you about but some of them you kind of just have to figure out in the time that you spend in that place so i have definitely been building up a list in my head of these unwritten dutch rules or norms or things that weren't just super obvious to me because people were telling me or because i read it read about it on the internet it's these are just subtle things that dutch people do on a daily basis so if you are in the netherlands you might want to do these things otherwise you might be perceived as rude or weird and i don't know which one i prefer but if i'm being quite honest with you but that said i wanted to share some of this with you today because maybe if you're dutch you don't realize these things and maybe if you are an unsuspecting visitor or migrant expat like me then you might not realize they exist so with that said let us move on to the first thing i wanted to talk about today which is when you go to a cafe if you were like me you love cafes you come to europe you want to go to all the european cafes dutch cafes the cutest so but when you are there there is one thing i need to tell you you need to order a drink with whatever else you're ordering you might be thinking wait isn't that just what you do at a cafe yes but in the u.s cafes and coffee shops where you get coffee are a little different from restaurants so if you go to a restaurant you typically want to order the whole shebang but when you go to a cafe in the u.s you could pretty much just order what you want now here in the netherlands on my first trip here and as some of you might know the first time i visited the netherlands was in amsterdam so that is where the story takes place where i wanted to try some dutch apple pie that was really very high on my list now being the good tourist that i am i just wanted to try everything so i had spent like six days seven days just doing nothing but stuffing my face with all the cheese bread coffee you name it so what i wanted to try my dutch apple pie i was already pretty full and i don't know about you but drinks to me also kind of add to that fullness also in the us you really just order what you're going to consume at a cafe or coffee shop this will make sense momentarily so i just wanted to try this apple pie and my girlfriend and i go to the dri graffias in amsterdam and we sit down and my girlfriend orders a tea and a slice of apple pie and i ordered a slice of apple pie so i was just like okay that's what i want and the waitress who was standing there was very confused she looked at me and was like yes what else would you like with your apple pie i didn't know what to tell her i was just like i wanted an apple pie i think that's okay i said so smilingly like nothing was wrong and then when she left my girlfriend looks at me and goes you know that was a little bit rude so needless to say i didn't know that i was being rude i only wanted the apple pie i did not see the point in first of all ordering something that i wouldn't enjoy in that moment because i wasn't really going to that cafe for a drink and secondly i just didn't feel like spending three euros on something i didn't want at that moment but now i understand that if you go to a cafe here in the netherlands you want to order something to eat and something to drink if you don't order something to eat that seems to be fine but you always want to order something to drink don't ask me why that's just how it is and if you are dutch and have some ideas why they might be let me know in the comments below i think that if you order something to eat without something to drink it's just considered rude because it's like come on if you're going out to eat something then just don't be cheap spend that money you have to order something to drink anyway you get the point so moving on to number two okay so the second thing on this list has to do with something that i've talked about pretty often in my videos and that is about the fact that dutch people don't like to stand in line wait in line queue however you want to say it they do not like to form these little things and wait their turn to go do something they do i guess wait for their turn but just not in this line they don't see the point in doing that however with this comes the tip unwritten rule that i will offer you today which is you might want to keep a note of where you are in line who is in front of you who got there before you who got there after you you kind of want to keep a mental account of these things this is so straightforward to dutch people that they don't even think about it but i'm not used to not standing in line so i never thought that i would need to actually stand there and pay attention i'm on my phone i'm not looking to see who got there before me or after me and this became pretty obvious that it wasn't just a me thing and an american thing when i went to the american consulate in amsterdam so one time i had to go to the american consulate in amsterdam to take care of some visa paperwork fun stuff but an american consulate is a great place where you see a lot of americans because it is the american consulate and i got to observe certain american things that americans do and one of those had to do with not being aware that there was no line so we all entered this room and this was during the pandemic so i don't know if that really adds anything to the story anyway it was during the pandemic just a fun fact but we were all there in this room you know trying to keep distance so we were thinking about that and we were all seated in this hall and we had to be called one by one so i guess that's where the pandemic comes into play i don't know shut up ava anyway so it's during the pandemic but we were sitting there in this room and we needed to go one by one up to this counter in a different part of the room that we couldn't see and we would be called but not by name it would just be like who is next and at some point we were all sitting there and one of the officers comes into the room and says okay who's next and who is after that person because we needed to form a line to keep distance from each other and we didn't know a room full of americans there were probably 15 of us in there and we had no idea who had gotten him before us after us who was next who was after that person and there was a dutch person working there she was kind of doing something else in the meantime so not really paying attention but it seemed to be so second nature to her that she just looks up from whatever she was doing and was like he was there first and then you were second and then after you it was you and then you and then you and we were like how does she know is she like she has some supernatural powers what is going on so after that we all looked up from our phones that's what us americans like to do when we're sitting down we always need to be doing something right or is that just a human thing i don't know but we were not paying attention we started paying attention and we were like okay we need to make sure who's next and remember this order and then it was fine because we are capable of doing it it's just not something that's second nature to us because we like to sit in line we like to get a number but in this case we didn't get one of those numbers that you get when you go to a government building or an official building here in the netherlands so that was a fun incident that told me about this unwritten rule of always making sure where you were in line now the next couple of things that i want to talk about have to do with little traffic rules both foot traffic and bike traffic so number three has to do with when you are on your bike in the netherlands now generally speaking it is amazing to bike here there may be a few places here and there where there's a lot of traffic or whatever and it gets a bit dangerous but the u.s is just full of danger so i am here like la la la on my bike and loving it but there are some differences that come with the different biking infrastructure and the viking culture here in the netherlands versus the u.s and one of these differences is ringing your bell when you are on your bicycle biking along on the bike lane or fewer in the us most likely the street now in the u.s if you are biking and you want to overtake someone or you want to let a pedestrian know that you're coming you ring your bike bell you go bring them ring and ring like crazy or you yell things like on your left or on your right if you're trying to let a pedestrian know that you're coming in that direction so in the us we really like to communicate that we're coming and you need to be aware and watch out for us bikes because we're going to get you whereas here in the netherlands no no no that does not happen you do not go around ringing your bike at people that is rude and most of all just unnecessary so most of the time this is fine but i had to really get used to it because when i bike through utrecht for instance which has a pretty busy city center there are always people around and before the pandemic people around drinking having a great time and there's some areas where i really want to just let people know that i'm coming by ringing my bicycle bell just a little bit but no that is so not accepted people look at you and they're like why are you doing this we will hear the bike coming whereas in the us we probably wouldn't hear the bike coming we're not really watching out for bikes but here in the netherlands they are so don't just go ringing your bike bell people are going to look at you like you're crazy and you will see that the other bikers and pedestrians kind of just figure it out i'm amazed at how people do this i am still getting used to it but it is very much a thing where you don't just go bling-bling don't do it i'm telling you don't do it number four on this list is related to the one i just talked about which also has to do with when you are on your bike or actually even when you're walking in any kind of traffic if you are in any kind of traffic you want to make sure that you're always going with the flow this was one of those unwritten rules that once i learned it it benefited me immensely it was like an immediate switch and things became easier for me especially when i was on my bike but also when i was walking i don't really drive i don't know if you guys have figured that out for my videos but i don't drive so i cannot tell you about driving but i do know that if you're on your bike or if you're walking around what you don't want to do what you want to avoid is for instance if you see someone you know crossing the street you don't want to just randomly slow down for that person to perhaps cross the street what you want to do is you want to just keep going and let that person know with your face or however with your body movement your bike movement that you are going to keep going and they should wait their turn or conversely if you are that pedestrian you don't want to just kind of linger and not let that biker know that you are maybe going to cross the street or not you just need to go ahead and do it i feel like to dutch people that just seems like how you go about everyday life but in the us you kind of want to be a little more careful with traffic so if you're a pedestrian you do want to be careful about whether the car or the bike is slowing down and the reverse is also true if you are on a bike and if you see someone crossing you want to let them know that you will slow down for them so that is interesting i found that to be an interesting difference and i found that biking in the netherlands got way easier once i started to do that and finally number five on this list the last unwritten rule that i wanted to talk to you about is a bit weird it feels like it shouldn't even go on this list or on any list but i'm sharing it with you in case it is helpful or interesting and that is that even though dutch people speak perfect english and in some places you may even hear people speaking english without an accident dutch people prefer speaking dutch that is something that is really hard for i think me and i suspect other americans as well to wrap their head around because in the u.s a lot of people speak english with an accent or they're from a different place and they speak english but over time they be they become comfortable speaking english so for them it's not that they have to think about speaking english on a daily basis because they live in the us where people speak english and they just have an accent but they're completely okay with it and they're bilingual or multilingual even and here in the netherlands i have found time and time again that even if the person speaks english just like i do they still prefer speaking dutch so if there is any moment where they can speak dutch they will switch to dutch and that is an unwritten rule that might be helpful if you are visiting here because if you try and learn dutch this will help you because even if your dutch is not as good it might be nice for the other person to speak their language i feel like even when people are comfortable i still hear things at work like oh but we had to speak english in the morning and it was really early and i wish we just spoke dutch so especially in cases like your work environment it might be helpful to know that dutch people really prefer speaking dutch it is true that they don't mind speaking english but sometimes they mind and that was a little bit of a surprise to me because you touch people just sound so fluent when you speak english most of the times i mean sometimes i get emails from you in perfect english and i almost am startled that there's a touch person a person who probably doesn't prefer speaking english over dutch sending me this kind of message or email so there you have it so those are my five unwritten dutch rules that i wanted to share with you today if you have any comments about anything that i've said in this video you know what to do leave them down below until next time

Channel: Dutch Americano

Views: 72,324

Keywords: Dutch rules, visiting the Netherlands, life in the Netherlands, travelling to the Netherlands, American in the Netherlands, American expat in the Netherlands, expat in the Netherlands, Dutch things, Dutch culture, funny Dutch, life in Holland, Dutch lifestyle, Dutch lifestyle and culture

Id: KjhlqTUqGeU

Length: 14min 58sec (898 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 17 2021