Attitude of Gratitude

My friend Stacie has been blogging for the past two years and has been encouraging me to join in the fun. First, because I am an expat living in Amsterdam and travel a lot for my job which I guess others might find interesting. And second, because I have lots of stoopid stories about funny things that happen to me. So here I am, not knowing what to write about or where this journey will take me. Let’s get started!

An introduction: I am a dual national American/Brit that has been living as an expat in the center of A’dam for the last 2 years. No, I haven’t learned Dutch and really don’t have any real incentive to do so because they all speak English. If I speak in Dutch, they immediate respond in English, so what is the point? If they do happen to respond in Dutch, the conversation usually goes something like this:

Me: “Mag ik drie bierjes alstublieft?’ (May I have three beers please?)
Them: (saying something in Dutch)
Me: I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that (in English)
Them: We ran out of every type of beer and only are serving wine right now.

Therefore, I might as well not speak in Dutch.

One little thing about the Dutch, then I promise not to dawg the Dutch anymore (at least not in this post). Have you heard the saying “Let’s go Dutch”? I never actually put two and two together until I got there, but the Dutch are cheap. And I don’t mean frugal or cost conscious, I mean full-on cheap. For example, I was gathering money for a gift for a much loved co-worker who was leaving our company. Most people chipped in 10 to 15 Euros each. The Dutch chipped in 5 euros.

Rest assured that when the “Let’s go Dutch” expression was lovingly created it was with the Dutch peoples in mind…