Dutch Adventure: Week Four
Week Four: Laundry, Laundry, Cooking, Gaming, and Gaming
Welcome to the fourth week of our Dutch Adventure, covering the dates of Sunday 2 September to Saturday 8 September. This week we did a bit of laundry, I tried my hand at cooking, and we got to play a bunch of games, yay!
On Sunday September 2nd we went to Comic Con Amsterdam, which I wrote about here.
Monday 3 September, 2018
Big Laundry Day! Normal loads take just over 2 hours to wash, and then there’s air drying afterward, so laundry isn’t as simple as it is in the US, or so it seems to me. Maybe it’s simpler here; put a load on and do other things until the washer sings at you. At any rate, we did 3 loads of laundry to wash up the new duvet cover, new bed sheet, and a standard clothing load. I think the washers hold less than the giant ones in the US so I’m doing a load every few days instead of once a week. Things do come out nice and clean though, and I know we’re using less water, so I generally feel good about it. Still not sure what all the buttons and knobs do…
Monday evening we rode our rented bikes to a friend’s house and played with 2 other folks (so 5 players total). There was lots of joking and teasing, which in the US would be more harsh feeling but somehow here it seems more lighthearted. Maybe it’s because the Dutch don’t seem to take things as personally (my opinion at the moment, your mileage may vary). I also had coffee (yum), and learned how to pronounce our host’s name correctly. Baby steps.
For gaming, first we played a silly game, Asking for Trobils (with a lot of English-based jokes) and then Order of the Gilded Compass, which is basically a re-implementation of another game I like, Alea Iacta Est, so I enjoyed Order of the Gilded Compass.
I’m noticing a lot more how games in English use slang or silly wordplay, and how that could be an impediment to reaching a multi-lingual community. Something I hope to keep in mind if/when we start developing boardgames ourselves.
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The middle of the week, Tues, Weds, Thurs (Sept 3, 4, 5) were days at home or running errands. No gaming, but lots of other stuff, like more laundry, grocery shopping, bicycling, and coffee. Very Dutch. It probably rained.
In the grocery store, they sell these bags in the produce area with all the things you need to make a particular meal, so we picked up a Thai Curry one at Jumbo (a grocery store, pronounced with a Y sound, not J, fyi). We had to provide our own rice and chicken, but otherwise, it was all there, including the raw veggies, a box of coconut milk, and a packet of red curry sauce. It’s pretty clever.
I spent an hour or so translating the recipe, and then got to work on chopping and prepping to actually cook it all. We had some potatoes and onions around, so I added a little extra.
Standing that long at the counter and stove makes my back hurt, so I will want to come up with more strategies on how to do this more often in the future. I did have Billy cut up the onions and garlic for me. 😉 Oh! I cooked with Lemongrass for the first time. Had to look online to find out what the heck that was and what you do with it. I may have gotten it right. I smashed the heck out of it and it smelled good, so probably.
In the end, the meal was super yummy (lekker) and we’ll do it again sometime.
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[Side note: I was in the middle of a cluster of my cluster headaches in this time, sigh.)
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Friday Sept 7 we went to Vendetta for the regularly scheduled Friday night gaming. It’s become our local hangout. The owner there is a hoot and always has an opinion. 
He charges €5 on Fri nights to game there, but he gives you 1:1 “Vendetta bucks” that you can use as credit in the store, so it’s working out for us so far as we have a number of games we want to get new or replace for ones that we left in the US.
We had ordered Billy’s current favorite game, The Mind, so we picked it up that night and played it as well as Clank!: Sunken Treasures brought by another gamer.
Saturday Sept 8 – Even with a good night on Friday, I was still dealing with headaches and overall light malaise, so I took it easy during the day.
Another gaming store in town, De Dobblesteen hosts gaming twice a month, so we went to check it out. Again, like at Vendetta, it’s after the store closes, which I find interesting. That street does have a bit of late night partying that happens, so I can see not wanting drunks wandering in if they’re not going to buy anything. Plus it seems to be a European thing to not be open from super early to super late. That whole life-work balance thing.
Anyway, there’s gaming space in the basement, so we got a table down there and played A Game of Thrones: Catan – Brotherhood of the Watch, which I had been wanting to play. The rules were in Dutch and only one of the 4 of us playing was fluent in Dutch (1-2-3 not it), so even though it was Catan, which we all know, it was an amusing time trying to figure out how things worked with the Wall and Night Watch and all. Billy downloaded the rules in English onto his phone, so we had that resource as well. Hurray for boardgamegeek.com!
We took the bus home after gaming. Looking around I read the notice printed on the door of the bus; it’s a reminder to “check out” on your way off the bus. I realized I read it without thinking about it. Progress in reading Dutch! I recalled the early days of learning to speak with my children, where we would spend time pointing at things and naming them. Learn the nouns. That’s where I am, with some simple sentences to go with them.
Sentences like ik heb honger (I have hunger) and kaas is lekker (cheese is tasty). And of course the first things you learn when you go somewhere – dank je (thank you), doei (bye, casual), and alstublieft (or a.u.b) which is a multi-use item including please (more coffee alstublieft) and a reply after thank you (kind of like “my pleasure”).
There’s your Dutch lesson for today. 🙂
Tot ziens!
