The realities of growing up dutch...

My mom sent me an interesting forward labelled "You Know You Are Dutch When..." And so I thought that I would post some of the things which definately were part of my childhood - so that those who don't know me may make some sense of me (only some) and those who do know me (and are probably dutch - if you are not...good for you!) can probably relate to some of this:

- oh and maybe I made a few comments in relation to life here and those habits that Katharine has to put up with.

You Know You're Dutch When...

• When looking in the fridge, you never trust that the yogurt or margarine containers contain what the label says. - sorry K...they are just cheap tupperware
• You were green before it was popular. Why recycle when you can just reuse! - only here they don't recycle. I'm getting out of practice.
• You have a pair a wooden shoes in your house. - not in Honduras...but if this sentence doesn't faze you then you have already been sucked in.
• You've eaten oliebollen at New Years. The frying going on here could give oliebollen a run for its money!
• You enjoy chocolate sprinkle (hagelslag) sandwiches. They have it here - but it is for baking only!
• You have cousins who wear size 14 shoes and are over 6'4" Hey anyone in Honduras over 5'8 is already special.
• You wash and reuse plastic cups and plastic cutlery. Why wouldn't you?
• The most frequent phrase uttered growing up was "Turn off the lights!" Sorry Katharine - I think I picked that up.
• You get a chocolate letter every year for Christmas. This year was the first year in my life the I did not.
• You like krokets. That is not a spelling error - though if I tried to describe this yumminess here it would end up sounding really gross. It is a food - and it is really good.
• You know that Vla is better than regular old pudding. No, "Vla" is not a swear word.
• You have an afghan knitted by your Oma. I had a sweater that was bright pink - my cousin had one that was flourscent green. We glowed.
• Your Oma had a calendar with everyone's birthdays & anniversaries spelled out in capital letters (bonus points if it hung in the bathroom!) Sorry to say but I have complex problems not having one here. I have no idea whose birthday it is when.
• You've been known to recycle aluminum foil... and ziploc bags. Excuse me but both these products are not biodegradable and should be reused.
• You own a special utensil that is only used for cutting cheese. And to think that I brought in this object to science class for them to guess what it was!!!
• You reuse teabags. You don't?
• You put a little water into the jar of tomato sauce and shake it to make sure you got it all out. Don't you?
• You like dubbel zout drops, and have occasionally tricked a friend into trying one. Yeah, or may have tricked my students.
• You've put mayonnaise on your french fries. H--e-ll--oo.
• You go to the "Dutch Store" because the smell brings back so many childhood memories. Why go to the Dutch Store when you can open a bag of dropjies and get the same high?
• Everything is Do-It-Yourself - it's cheaper than hiring someone. Ahh, this may explain my tendency not to let people do things for me.

This was quite a self-revelatory exercise.