Questions about living in The Netherlands

Stijloor

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Mikishots

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In Canada (back when I was a wee lad, probably about 35 years ago), the Netherlands was one of the topics in our Social Studies program that received a fair bit of attention. To this day, the words "polder" and "Zuiderzee" are burned into my mind, even though I cannot remember exactly what they are. Especially that last one - I always spelled it wrong and got yelled at by the teacher; I can spell it very well now.

I'm from British Columbia and the weed in the Netherlands ain't nothing special anyway...or so I've heard. ;)

One day I will visit.
 

TPMB4

Quite Involved in Discussions
And good sprinters but poor mountain climbers (cycling).

Well what do you expect? If you haven't got any big hill to get good at climbing you might as well get your cycling thrills cycling on the flat fast!!
 
I'll tell you one thing: If I wear wooden shoes (very common in Sweden - probably more so than in The Netherlands) when I go abroad, people will immediately jump to the conclusion that I am Dutch. This is not entirely incorrect, as I actually do have Dutch roots, but it has nothing to do with the shoes. :D

Swedish wooden shoes look a bit different from the traditional Dutch Klompen, btw.

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/Claes
 

TPMB4

Quite Involved in Discussions
When I was a boy a mate had a pair of shoes like those Claes. In fact his whole family did. Wooden shoes (clogs) were actually not unheard of among the farmers in the area. My mate was the grandson of the farmer who owned the land around where we lived. He used to wear them on the farm. If I remember he said they were better than shoes and boots on the farm for some reason.

I've heard they aree supposed to be good for your feet if you have a good pair. I guess the best are made to fit your own feet, custom made if you like. Never had a pair or anything like them though so never know. I don't have Dutch blood in me so perhaps I'm never meant to know what clogs are like!!
 
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Ron Boumans

We have had some cold weeks recently and I have been wearing my clogs regularly. The wood is a good isolator, so I didn't get cold feet. Once you are used to the technique of walking with them, they are very comfortable. My clogs are made of willow, which is stronger than the cheaper poplar wood. They are made by copying the old clogs, which means that every new pair has a better fit. I even had my orthopedic insoles copied into them recently. Worked very well.

Clogs may look out of date, and only interesting for tourists. But I hope you understand that is only part of the whole story.
 
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Ron Boumans

We Dutch are also very good at pointing a finger at someone else. We are trained to do that in schools and we have regular competitions with big prices.

There is a very good reason for training our pointing fingers as a nation: suppose you are walking along one of our many dikes, and you discover a small leakage...
 
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