Uit een reisgids

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 of course 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 marvelous 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. If you wish to insult a Hollander -and sooner or 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
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 al 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. Like ...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.

[Dit bericht is gewijzigd door JosBoes op 31-01-2004 17:33]

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Op zaterdag 31 januari 2004 17:45 schreef TC03 het volgende:

[..]

!

Waar heb je dit precies vandaan?

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een tijdje geleden kwam een japanse student bij ons langs.
die vond het echt heel raar dat overal de gordijnen open stonden. toen we door de straten liepen wist hij niet wat hij moest doen toen ie al die families voor de tv zag zitten. hij ging zwaaien en gekke gezichten trekken naar al die families. kreeg hij weer allerlei middelvingers terug. hij helemaal overstuur.

quote:

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Op zaterdag 31 januari 2004 22:32 schreef Captain_Chaos het volgende:
Nu weet ik het echt zeker:

Ik ben er óók één !

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