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1. Never use the word "Dutch" in front of a Hollander. It reminds
him too much of the word "Deutsch" which is a word for Germans and
other things he doesn't like. A Dutchman is a Hollander or a
Nederlander.
2. Never ever try to speak Hollands even if you have lived in
Holland for more than five years. Not only will it give you a
splitting headache but also Hollanders won't understand a single
word of what you are trying to say. Foreigners are expected to
speak English or gibberish. Speaking gibberish they are easy prey for
pickpockets since they can't make a report to the police.
3. Also never try to eat "drop". Drop is a kind of licorice that
only Hollanders can eat. It can be recognized by its colour: black.
The taste is a cross between printer ink (blue) and earwax.
Hollanders absolutely love it and eat kilos of the revolting stuff.
There is a nationwide conspiracy to look at the faces of foreigners
who are tricked into believing it is edible.
4. Do not buy wooden shoes. They will look absolutely silly on you.
Which is ofcourse the main reason for selling them to you in the
first place. A Hollander himself wouldn't like to be found dead in
them. (As a matter of fact, they wouldn't like to be found dead at
all)
5. Do not make holes in dikes. Behaviour like that is not only
frowned upon but in certain cases can get you stoned to death with
wooden shoes by an angry mob. You may feel free however to stick a
finger in any dike you like. It'll get you a few good laughs from
the natives.
6. A Hollander is always right and he knows it. With this in the
back of your mind it is easy to deal with most of them. If ever you
get into an argument with a Hollander, tell him that he is
absolutely right and that you see the error of your ways. This will
drive him absolutely crazy: Since you are a foreigner you can't be
right. You agree with him. Therefore he also cannot be right.
Impossible! He is a Hollander. But.. why.. he.. At this point you
may want to stand back and watch him try to strangle himself with a
tulip.
7. Windmills are unavoidable.
8. It is not necessary to show an interest in tulips, windmills,
wooden shoes or cheese. Every Hollander knows that you came for the
softdrugs or the Amsterdam red light district, the Walletjes. Both
are available in a large quantity and are easy to find. Ask any
Hollander age six or older or any French tourist (see items 19 &
20)
9. Avoid fans of soccer games at all cost. Soccer in Holland is
merely an excuse used for bashing in the brains of just about
everyone else, including yours, after the game is won. ...Or
lost...Or if it is a draw. It is also very unwise to stand near a
policeman during these festivities. (see item 10) Also, whenever
there's a Hollander around: "Don't mention the '74 final!". You'll
end up in an ongoing discussion about how well the Orange team
played and how marvellous it is that a small country like Holland
has such a good team and blah-de-blah-de-blah.
10. Policemen in Holland may be used for throwing things at. If you
feel like hitting someone or something, use a policeman. No
Hollander will pay any attention if you decide to hit, maim, or
kick a policeman in the groin. Policemen represent authority and no
Hollander recognizes any authority higher than himself. You may
also note that a lot of Hollandse policemen are in fact foreigners
tricked into taking the job.
11. Hollanders do not like to spend money, they'd sooner cut off
their own ears. A Hollander will become a friend for life if you
give him something for free. (Note: Social diseases are an
exception) LOL This might explain the success of MacDonald's in
Holland. The story that copper wire is an invention of two
Hollanders fighting over a found cent is absolutely true.
12. Holland is small. There is a rumour that Holland is put inside
during rainstorms. Not true, but that is mainly because it rains
about 365 days each year. This might also explain those wooden
shoes: They float. Yes, Holland is small and Hollanders are proud
of it. They will grab every opportunity to point out to you that the
nation has accomplished great things, despite of it being so small.
A suitable answer to this swank is the Hollander's imperialistic
past. Wich brings us -rather nicely- to item 13.
13. If you wish to insult a Hollander -and sooner or later you
will - simply tell him you don't think he is a pacifist. Now immediately
start running for your life. He'll want to prove to you that he is
a peace loving person and he won't stop proving this until your
intestines are scattered all over the floor. However, mentioning a
supposedly imperialistic past considering Surinam and/or Indonesia,
will instantly reduce a Hollander to a pathetic, sniffing and
crying child, begging for forgiveness.
14. The Hollanders are supposed to be tolerant. They are not. They
simply make too much money from the sale of soft- and hard-drugs,
Malaysian women and pornography to foreigners to let an opportunity
for making a good profit go by.
15. The main form of public transportation in Holland is bikes.
Feel free to take any bike of which you are able to pick the lock. Don't
expect your own bike however to be where you left it three minutes
earlier. The hunting season for bikes is open 365 days a year. Have
fun.
16. At nearly every meal in Holland you will find a small vicious
looking blade with a slit in it. It is called a "kaasschaaf" and is
used for taking very thin (the see-through kind) slices of the
cheese. Yes, it is indeed an invention made by a Nederlander. Never
cut cheese with a knife, you'll make an utter fool of yourself.
Another peculiar dinner tool is the "flessenlikker", which
literally means "bottle-licker", but which is best translated by
"yoghurt-scraper".
Note that this tool is not meant to get rid of an itchy back or for
your nightly escapades. It's designed to clean out bottles of
yoghurt or "vla" which is a sort of custard. The Nederlanders wants
to use absolutely every millilitre of the yoghurt or 'vla' he
bought. He paid for all of it and he'll jolly well eat all of it.
17. At the time of this writing, the Hollandse economy is doing
quite well. The Hollanders say that this is the result of extensive
negotiating between parties like the unions, the employers and the
government. They even have a name for this: The polder model.
Foreigners are made to believe that this polder model is the key to
a healthy economy and if others should follow this polder model,
their economy's will also improve dramatically. This is utter
nonsense. Hollanders just love to talk and talk and talk. Calling
all this talking negotiations only gives them a sense of doing
something useful. Talk is not cheap in Holland.
18. Hollanders like to drown fried potato's in litres of mayonnaise
and put it in small paper bags. This is called "een patatje met".
One of these bags can sustain life over an indefinite period. Not
everyone agrees if it is the sort of life worth living. Some
foreigners however are reported to have actually liked eating it.
19. Hollanders have a special and unique service for -mainly-
French tourists. As soon as they cross the border between Belgium and
Holland, they are welcomed enthusiastically by young men in fast
cars. These young people wish to point out to the French tourist
where the more interesting touristy places in Holland can be found.
Strangely enough they always seem to end up in a coffee shop (see
item 20). Funny people those French.
20. There is a fast and guaranteed way of making a complete fool of
yourself in Holland: Enter a coffee shop and ask for a cappuccino.
Coffee shops do not -remember this- do not sell coffee. You can
however get a good number of other stimulating drugs there. For
some unknown reason coffee shops are extremely popular with French
tourists.
21. A Fries is a semi-detached sort of Nederlander, living in the
north of the country in a province all for himself. He is fond of
frozen water, Beerenburg (which is a form of euthanasia with
alcohol) and continuously pointing out to non-Fries Hollanders that
they are -indeed- not Fries. The rest of the Hollanders look upon
this behaviour with the good natured ambivalent feelings that
parents have for an obstinate child.
22. On the matter of what books to buy before you come to Holland,
I can recommend the following: The complete works of William
Shakespeare or a leather-bound volume of the Encyclopaedia
Britannica (the 1913 copy: Fr to He). In my experience these two
books have just about the right weight for clubbing a pushy drug
dealer or pimp on the head without leaving any marks. After hitting
you might want to drop the book you were carrying at that moment
for a more speedy retreat. Bring plenty of books.
23. Do not bother to hire a car. Not only can you steal more bikes
than you will need but car-traffic in Holland is not something you
will enjoy. In the rest of the world traffic jams are measured in
miles or kilometres, Nederlandse traffic jams are measured in
weeks.
As a matter of fact, the more persistent traffic-jams are well
worth a touristic visit. The sight of starving people in an expensive
Mercedes can be quite uplifting if you are of a philosophic nature.
You may want to bring some pieces of bread with you to throw
through open car windows. The resulting fights can often be worth
>watching.
24. Contrary to popular belief, you may not bring your mother-in-
law to Holland for do-it-yourself euthanasia. Tourists are warned not
to take these matters into their own hands.
25. Whether you are catholic, Muslim or worshipper of Urrrgl, god
of all honest politicians, in Holland you are likely to run into a
church, temple or oak-tree-and-virgin of your liking. Hollanders
are supposed to be very tolerant of other believes, ways of life and
religious convictions. They are not. The only reason for there
being so many different churches, sects and cults is the fact that
Hollanders disagree on just about anything. A Hollander is always
right (see item 6) and anyone who thinks different than him can
jolly well bugger off and start his own church.
26. Holland is a kingdom. It has no king but a queen and her
husband is no king but a prince. The queen doesn't rule the country -well,
not much anyway- but she is very good at opening bridges, roads and
visiting other countries. She is also very decorative at state
banquets. Her son, the crown prince, will be king as soon as she
stops queening (nice word eh. Now his wife won't be a queen but
she will be a princess because Nederland is much too small for a
king and a queen at the same time. On April the 30th its Queen's
Day, which is not the birthday of the queen, but the birthday of
princess Juliana the queen's mother (who used to be the queen). It
is no wonder that more and more Nederlanders wish to make Holland a
republic. Queen's Day, by the way, has nothing to do with royal
festivities. It's just a Hollander's excuse to drink large
quantities of alcohol. On Queen's Day Hollanders also
sell garbage in the streets.
27. It might be wise to learn how to swim if you visit Holland. No,
the dikes will hold, that is not the problem. The huge amount of
ditches, moats, canals, rivers and brooks can however lead to
mistakes. The shiny nice new asphalt road that you wish to drive
your car on during a rainstorm, may in fact not be a road at all.
28. The Hollandse art. Most Nederlandse painters get to be famous
only after they have died. That is a very sensible arrangement from
the publics point of view. Not only do you get large quantities of
paintings -a man has got to eat, right?- but it also makes a nice
investment for art-lovers. The painters themselves do not share
this view at all but are unable to do anything about it. In at least one
case the frustration has led to self-mutilation involving an ear.
29. If one of your Hollandse friends invites you for a birthday
party, prepare yourself for a unique experience. Unique, because it
can only be compared to taking place on a wooden chair which has a
sharp nail driven through the underside of the seat, and not being
able to move for a month. More than one foreigner has been driven
to the brink of insanity in just one evening. A Hollandse birthday
party consists of sitting in a chair, talking to other Hollanders
about your work, your car, foreigners and politics. You are
expected to leave at 11 pm and you'll gladly do so.
30. Do not get sick in Nederland. Over the last ten years, the
famous Hollandse healthcare has been privatised. These days some
operations, like open heart surgery, have a waiting list of more
than six months. The doctors don't think that is a problem, "More
than half of our patients for open heart surgery never even show up
anyway" they say. Some Nederlandse patients who have become
desperate, move to a country like Mozambique, Iraq or Pakistan
where healthcare is infinitely better.
31. Nederlanders leave their curtains open in the evening. This
used to be so that the neighbours could always check if your family
didn't gamble or drink alcohol. These days it is a precaution
against junkies trying to steal the stereo from the family car,
parked in front of the house. It has the fortunate side effect that
you can watch Hollanders in their natural surroundings, in front of
the television, watching soaps.
32. Holland has more cities than only Amsterdam. ike ..erm.
..Well, it has!!
33. Hollandse beer has made quite a reputation for itself over the
years. Some people even drink it. Brewing is indeed one of the
things Hollanders traditionaly do very well. Holland never used to
be a country with anything more interesting to do than to drink
oneself blind in new and interesting ways or make paintings. This
made the beer industry very popular. Experts claim that once you
have drank Hollandse beer like Heineken, Grolsch or Amstel, all
other beers taste like the tapwater in a Rotterdam hotel.
34. Hollandse tapwater is safe to drink. This is quite remarkable
considering that most drinking water comes from poluted rivers like
the Rhine. Plans to improve the quality of the riverwater, so that
fish like salmon will return to Hollandse rivers to spawn, can
count on strong resistance from the Nederlanders. They don't like the
idea of animals having sex in their drinking water.
