Trip reflections

[fbhjr]

I wrote every day while I was over there and posted lots of pictures. But,
my overall impressions are not the same as the day to day activities.
So, this is more for my impressions than what I did.

It is clearly the land of milk products. I cannot remember any meal at any
place there where they did not offer milk, cheese, yogurt or a combination
of them all. Everyone I saw eating there had at least one of those every
meal. Even the sushi place offered milk and cheese products on the menu.
Being allergic to milk this posed a certain problem for me. I don’t know
any Dutch so it was very difficult for me to tell what would be safe to eat
or not.
So, I was very cautious about what I ate and where. To the point of eating
at American chains twice just because I knew that I could tell there if it
was safe for me to eat.
I’m very disappointed about that. The times I’ve gone to China I have been
willing to eat anything they put in front of me, and really enjoyed that.
But, milk products are quite uncommon in Chinese cooking. So, I was pretty
safe.
If I were ever to go back, I’d certainly want to learn to recognize the
Dutch words for those various milk products to make it easier to avoid them.

I was mistaken for a local several times. This bothered me as I could not
respond as I should.
Every time I had to say “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Dutch, do you speak
English?” I felt I was being a bad visitor to their country.
Comparing again to my trips in China, this was not a problem there. No one
has ever mistook me for being Chinese.
It wasn’t a problem for me in many places. Tram rides, convenience stores
and such I handed over my money and smiled and things were fine.
The market that wouldn’t take cash? Nope that was a problem as that wasn’t
at all clear to me until I got to the checkout.
I would just have liked to know more of the language. I know, I only had 4
days notice I was going, so there wasn’t much time to learn any. I’m not
good at learning new languages anyhow, so I doubt I could have learned
much. But, I wish I had known more.

The United States appears to be behind in credit card technology. All the
ones over there have chips built into them. Mine only had a magnetic
strip. So, I was not able to use my card at a lot of places. If I asked
they’d look at it and dig out an old reader, or just say “no” to it.
I don’t know if it is something our cards will move towards or not, but it
made it harder to use my card over there.

It is a very beautiful country. I can understand why so many artists are
from there or studied there. Even in the cities you have lots of parks and
canals that are very nice to look at.
The train rides at sunrise and sunset were particularly nice.

The folks there were very nice. Even if I felt a fool for not knowing
their language, they were nice about it. Even the guy begging for coins by
the train station switched to English when I told him I didn’t understand.
Even the machinist who wouldn’t do what we wanted was very polite, had us
into his house, gave us something to drink and chatted for a while before I
had the chance to talk with him about what we wanted.

I was frustrated at not getting done what I had intended to do for work. I
know there was nothing I could do about it and I did all I could do. But,
I had been sent for a reason and I didn’t get it done and that bothers me.
Of course I just heard the guy still hasn’t dropped off the finished part
and he had promised that he would do it by today with no doubt at all.
Yeah… Frustrating.

To some extent this “not now” attitude goes on with other things. While I
was there I rode 4 trains and 5 trams. Only once was I asked for a ticket.
When I went to buy my tram tickets, the drivers seemed annoyed that they
had to take my money.
I am very sure that on 8 of those 9 rides I could have not paid if I
wanted. Don’t know what would have happened on that one train out of
Amsterdam if I hadn’t had a ticket. Even then I probably could have
wandered off and sat somewhere else and not had the problem.

And, when entering the Netherlands, all I was asked was “how long are you
staying?”
Nothing else. No forms.
When coming home I had to fill out a form plus answer where I had been, who
I was seeing, why my company sent me there, where my company is located,
where the customer was located and how long I was there. Non-residents had
to give their fingerprints on both hands in addition to the forms and
questions.
“How long will you be here? Great, have a good time.”
When we went to Ireland we had to fill out forms and answer questions.
And, that was before 9/11.

So, that whole attitude is strange to me. I’m not saying good, bad or
anything else. Just strange to me.
At least they’re all friendly.

Comments

[chris-warrior.livejournal.com]

the milk thing and the part not being done thing would have frustrated me, too, but i'm glad travel (well, the document part of it) was easier than here (though perhaps they rely on the confused nature of their airport security to deter would-be terrorists so much that they don't need a long intake form?). i'm also glad the people are nice.

but, arg part not being done.

[endlessblush.livejournal.com]

Some countries just don't have the strict security that America does. I'm not surprised at the security in Ireland either given the IRA problems years ago.
It was nice to read your reflections of your trip - it's always nice to be able to speak a few words in the native language isn't it?

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

Yeah. At least in China I knew 12 words. Here I only knew two, yes and no. I need more than that...

[endlessblush.livejournal.com]

I think it makes a difference to the people who live there you know - if you at least try to speak some of the language they seem to be a little more patient with you. If you expect them to speak english then they can be quite rude and impatient with you. Especially the french!

[sorceress.livejournal.com]

That must have been a real pain in the bum being wary of food, as you said I'm sure they have a lot of milk products in their food over there... and it'd be hard not knowing the language.

But! It's nice to hear that the people were very nice, Netherlands is definitely somewhere I'd like to visit sometime since Ricky is half Dutch (he speaks German though and very little Dutch, mostly insults hehe).

Over here we have chips on our cards and also some banks have a new thing where you just tap your card on the reader and it goes through (it has an $80 limit or so) but all of our readers have the strip and chip.

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

It is a cool place and I'm glad I got to see it.
It would be nice to go back with my wife some time too. She studied art at university and would appreciate the museums even more than I did.

[manintheboat.livejournal.com]

I remember Italian security before 9/11. There was no security.

Portugal was pretty funny 2 January's ago. A suited man approaches you as you are trying to find your way around the airport, he's smiling. He's smiling like you are old friends. He says, "You are Americans?" and asks a few other small questions, stamps your boarding pass and points you to your plane.

[palusbuteo.livejournal.com]

Interesting perspective. Thanks for sharing it.

As much as I desire to go to Europe, I worry about what I can/can't eat thanks to my tree nut allergies.

When I worked for a short time at the Post Office, a coworker originally from Switzerland one day at lunch
offered me a piece of Swiss chocolate. It didn't even occur to either of us that there'd be nuts in it, as it was labelled
(in Swiss German only), as "plain chocolate".

Then I started getting my anaphylaxis reaction.

She was mortified and realized that "most Swiss chocolates" use hazelnut powder as a substitute for flour...
Thankfully my quick reaction to the reaction to take some Benadryl likely saved me a trip to the ER.

The floor supervisor was not at all pleased, although I think he was confused that someone could have a potential lethal reaction
to chocolate (laced with hazelnut), and that I had to leave work early, or, if he didn't mind it if I was to nap in the lounge as
taking Benadryl will make me comatose for about 2 hours and then groggy and disoriented for another 8.

Anyway, going to Europe and dealing with that worries me.
I had long thought about making a business card sized card with several languages on it (or the country(ies) I planned on going to)
warning the receiver of this problem and to help me out.

Of course, I haven't put that into action yet, nor have I gotten to Europe, and at this rate, may never get to go thanks to finances.
But that's my problem.

Sorry that the trip was so last-minute and you basically got nothing done.
I wonder if your boss was expecting that, which may explain why he was so adamant you go have some fun time at museums for a day
so that you didn't feel you totally wasted your time.
*shrug*