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Guest
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I know this has been done before but for all the newbies 
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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)
- 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.
- 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.
- Windmills are unavoidable.
- 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)
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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 al this
talking negotiations only gives them a sense of doing something useful. Talk
is not cheap in Holland.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Holland has more cities than only Amsterdam. ike ..erm. ..Well, it has!!
- 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.
- 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.
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 Holy Avenger of the OHF and part time Pinguindiebjäger
[This message has been edited by Sir_Tainly (edited 08-29-2001).]
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08-29-2001, 05:34 AM
The Dutch were the last nation to invade England. In 1667 they sailed up the River Medway and sunk a lot of stuff and then blockaded the Thames.
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