Why The Dutch Are Different, No Air Conditioning Struggle, Integration Update

i am just trying to get through this heat wave it's almost 32 degrees out so and i believe it's supposed to be like that all weekend so it is a little bit rough there's kind of a no air conditioning culture here in the netherlands and coming from the states where there's always air conditioning to a point where i can see it now that it's very wasteful you know for example just movie theaters in the states it'll be so hot out and they'll make it freezing in the theater where you need a blanket this huge theater and there's only just a few people in there things like that that i can see now that it's just um it's just a waste of energy and um you just deal with it like the dutch by the way it's friday august 12th i was wondering if they were going to still have the market just the idea of fish out on display in this heat i just don't really know but it looks like they had it today so on fridays they have the market here i am just on my way to the bibliotheque i want to show you guys the library in the town that i live it's beautiful so on the first floor they have um a bookstore which is lovely and the second floor is the library [Music] [Music] i just want to show you guys that they literally have a crib here these are the kinds of things that you would never see in the states little things like that that are just going to make a mom's life so much easier not only is it really child friendly it's also very modern in comparison to a library in the states this machine here you literally just place your books here and you don't even have to do anything else it pops up on the screen it automatically knows who you are what the book is so i thought that was crazy i was like how does it know but it just does i do have to say you do pay a membership fee here but um it's very small and look at what you get in gratis krantz somebody just gave me that's very nice what's going on i don't know what they're talking about but i will go home and find out okay i just sat down i know a lot of you guys don't really like when i film here because the ducks can be actually really obnoxious but i also don't like to film in crowded places i just get really embarrassed and uncomfortable i don't really like to draw attention to myself like that today i wanted to do a book review on this is one of my favorite books i think every expat that moved to the netherlands should read this it's called why the dutch are different by ben coates i don't think that there's a lot of non-fiction literature on dutch culture and lifestyle in the way that there is for example france or some of the other countries there's a lot of bias for those countries but i think there should be more good literature like this book for expats like me who are trying to learn and um assimilate themselves into the netherlands lifestyle culture history parenting the netherlands i don't think there's i wish there was more non-fiction literature and i just want to share what i thought of the book and some things that i learned so he starts off the book by saying that the netherlands is a place where everybody knows a little but no one knows a lot and i find that very true and i think there's kind of a perception from the us and some western countries where the netherlands is just so liberal and it's just the most liberal place in the world and i think that that's just yeah western interpretation or perception of the country but it's it's actually really not i learned so much it talked about the uh the political assassinations that occurred in the early 2000s that i had no idea about and believe me i was really young when that happened so please don't call me ignorant but i was shocked to learn about those it also talks about the the hunger winter famine from the 1940s another thing that i found really interesting it talked about dutch cuisine i think that you know the netherlands has kind of this reputation for kind of having boring or bland food and i always wondered why that was and it actually he said his theory was because in the golden age the dutch were colonizing they were you know building this global trade empire and they had so much access to all these different spices and intern international exotic flavors and stuff like that so for that reason the dutch cuisine kind of actually failed to develop because it didn't it didn't have to they just had all this great food from other countries so yeah no no hate on dutch food i do love a bitter bolin once in a while you know but i'm not going to say it's the most flavorful food in the world but i do want to end with this quote that i really liked um the netherlands for all its faults was happier than britain more efficient than france more tolerant than america more worldly than norway more modern than belgium and more fun than germany sorry germany i think that that's true if you're wondering how i've been doing and just wanted an integration update i'm doing fine i had an appointment with my integration advisor at the jamenta last week and she told me i was going to take a test and i thought it would be on maybe some language or culture but it was one of those weird iq tests where you pick a random butterfly or it'll ask what's the sequence what's the next order so um hopefully i did okay what if i picked the wrong butterfly my friend was like are you gonna get deported and the route that i'm gonna be taking for my integration is the b1 route so i have to get to a b1 language proficiency within three years i believe so and i think i'm expected to do some volunteer work and stuff like that so i know that some of the other expats like yovi or dutch americano they have some videos on the inburgering process so i'll definitely have to check some of those out i am also working on getting my rib of ice so i take my theory exam tomorrow morning actually so wish me luck it's not an easy exam you know what uh it's asking me about all these different motor carriages that i never even knew about in the states if you had asked me what a speed pedilec what a well i knew what a moped was but a pro mobile and i'm expected to know all the uh speed limits for all of these in different areas and some of it you know i'm never gonna drive a trailer in my life i promise but they want me to know which emergency brake system it needs depending on the weight of the trailer and you know so i think it's like a 40 pass rate so i'm just gonna do my best now if you happen to be a kennis immigrant which i am not you just get your license converted the dutch government is like oh don't worry about it we'll just give you driver's license me as a lowly regular immigrants i have to actually learn how to drive so some of you guys are probably just gonna think that i'm being salty at the cbs for just handing out these drivers licenses to these expats i'm not being salty because honestly even if i was eligible for the 30 license exchange i would still want to take a theory class and learn how to drive because it's completely different it's not comparable to the states and driving rules do you think it's well i just think it's sketch to just give out these drivers licenses to these expats for just because you have a good job you you get a driver's license automatically it just doesn't really i don't know personally i i don't think it's appropriate i do really appreciate that some of the content on the exam includes environmentally safe driving for example try not to drive with your windows down if you don't have to stuff like that so i think the netherlands actually plans on going all the electric zero emissions by i think 20 30 i believe okay i hope you guys have a really great weekend despite the heat and yeah i'll talk to you guys soon [Music] do [Music] you

Channel: Expat Ellen

Views: 66,520

Keywords: Netherlands, Expat, Rijbewijs, Dutch

Id: b3iD8vgnQ-g

Length: 10min 33sec (633 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 13 2022