People often ask me what it’s like to live in Canada, and that’s a very difficult answer.  There are things you can say that generally apply to all of Canada, like the people speak English or love hockey, but when it comes down to day to day life and the people you interact with, that largely depends on where exactly in Canada you are coming from.

A while back I did a photo comparison Google style of my hometown and the current city I live in, to show people the vast differences between where I come from and where I live now.  I think that gave people a pretty good idea of how different life is for me now than it was growing up… but it didn’t really tell people about what life in that small town on the east coast of Canada was like.

When you come from the Maritimes, it’s a completely different experience than in a lot of the rest of the country, and it’s often very difficult to describe.  Today I saw something a woman from my hometown put on her status message on Facebook and it made me laugh, because it sums up what life in the Maritimes is like perfectly.

This is life in the Maritimes according to Jeff Foxworthy (edited into a proper list for blog-friendly reading)

You may live in the Maritimes if…

Your local Tasty Treat is closed from September through May

Someone in a Home Depot store offers you assistance and they don’t even work there

You’ve worn shorts and a jacket at the same time

You’ve had a lengthy telephone conversation with……………… someone who dialed a wrong number

“Vacation” means going anywhere south of Saint John for the weekend

You measure distance in hours

You know several people who have hit a deer more than once

You have switched from ‘heat’ to ‘A/C’ in the same day and back again

You can drive 110 kms through 2 feet of snow during a raging blizzard without flinching

You install security lights on your house and garage, but leave both doors unlocked

You carry jumpers in your car and your wife knows how to use them

You design your kid’s Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit

Driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow

You know all 4 seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter and road construction

You have more kms on your snow blower than your car

You find -12C degrees “a little chilly”

You actually understand these jokes!!

I can relate to every single one of the jokes on that list.  As I was reading it on my friend’s profile I was laughing to myself and thinking of home, and it really is like that!

People who don’t work in shops actually will help you, they are friendly and there’s a true sense of community.  I wore Halloween costumes over snowsuits!

I don’t even know what I was in this photo, a rabbit? a cat? a pink marshmallow?  Regardless, I may have been a chunky kid but you can bet your ass there was a snowsuit under there!

I knew if I looked I’d find a photo of my father wearing shorts and a jacket when all the sane people have the sense to wear actual pants.  He is living, breathing proof that these jokes are not just jokes, but facts.  Crazy, crazy bastard.

I have actually made friends by talking to random strangers who have dialled the wrong number, or having dialled one myself, I shit you not.

I admit, this did make me a little homesick but after all these years I’m used to it.  I just consider myself lucky to grow up in a place that is so unique and full of charm that makes me laugh like this when I think back on the time I spent there.  The Maritimes is such a great place to live, especially Cape Breton Island. It may not be great in the way a lot of people would like, there’s not a lot of money and not always a lot to do either, but the crazy friendly people and the beauty of the surroundings give it something no amount of money could ever buy, something I’m yet to find here in the Netherlands.

Related posts:

1. Canadutch Goes Live!
2. I’m Gonna Live Forever!

There is an area downtown in my hometown called the Ballast Grounds. I have been there more times than I can even begin to count. My father’s barber shop was there for many years, I played there as a child while waiting for him to finish work, I hung out there from time to time as a teenager with nothing better to do and I got my very first set of car keys there when my father handed them to me after getting my drivers license.

The one thing I have never done is really look at it and really see it.

Like most other things I notice when I go back home, this is something I only appreciated once I was gone.  This small strip of land where people keep their fishing boats never really impressed me much or even crossed my mind when I lived there… but when I was home I couldn’t wait to walk down there and take it in with my camera.  Here are some of my favorites from the day I finally did…

It was a beautiful day that day, warm enough to walk around in just a t-shirt in the middle of October.  I spent a while sitting on a bench just enjoying the view and, just like old times, waiting for dad to get off work and come meet me.

I’m glad I’m able to recognize just how much beauty there is where I come from.  I also love that after living there for 21 years and visiting numerous times, there are still things that I see differently every time.  I can’t wait to go back.

Related posts:

1. Canadian Beauty – “Over Home”
2. The Partial Canadian
3. Canadian by Association

I was working on this photo from Canada today and I found myself sort of amused because in a way it represents who I am right now.  Proudly Canadian but with a piece missing, the piece of me that belongs to the Netherlands now.

Strange how certain things pop into your mind now and then, like how you can find yourself in or identify with a photo like this.

More photos from Canada coming soon, still slaving away at them!

Related posts:

1. Canadian Beauty – “Over Home”
2. Canadian Beauty – The Ballast Grounds
3. Canadian by Association

These photos were taken one afternoon while my parents and I were taking a drive “Over Home”, which means taking the old roads through Point Edward on the way to Sydney.  It’s called “Over Home” because it’s where my mother grew up and where most of her family still lives today.

I brought my camera along to try to capture photos of the places I’ve driven so many times but never stopped to notice in all the years I lived there.  It’s amazing how much more you notice after being away for a while.

The sky seems to go on forever, so much air and so much space.  You can see my hometown on the other side of the harbour.

A church I’ve passed a million times going back and forth to my grandparents but never stopped to look at. It’s really quite pretty, this setting.

I small cemetery on the road to Point Edward. Who knows, maybe one of my distant relatives are buried here.

The harbour between Point Edward and my hometown, North Sydney.  The gap you see in the distance in the middle is where it opens up to the Atlantic.  The ferries travel back and forth through there daily on their way to Newfoundland.

I took this photo of the waterfront in Sydney from the shore of Westmount.  I don’t remember there ever being cruise ships in Sydney when I was growing up but it’s become a regular destination for them now.  I laughed as I watched the tourists walking around bundled up in their winter jackets, hats and mittens.  I was still wearing my summer jacket.

Another view of the waterfront of Sydney from the Westmount Yacht Club.  You can’t tell but it was so windy that day!

This is something I miss so much, the sunlight on the water.  I guess when you live on an island there is water like this everywhere you go.  If it weren’t for the wind and my parents waiting for me I could have sat on those rocks for hours, just breathing and enjoying the peace.

This bridge connects Coxheath and Sydney River.  I’ve driven over it many many times in my lifetime but that day was the first time I’d ever gone over it on foot. It was like walking across a rope bridge it jiggled so much with every car that went by.

I am settled back into the Netherlands now, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss the beauty and the space in Cape Breton.  There is just so much air, I can breathe and relax there in a way I can never seem to do here. I miss that a lot.  I really must find a ‘Zen’ place here in Rotterdam that can give me that feeling I get everywhere when I’m home in Canada.

Related posts:

1. Canadian Beauty – The Ballast Grounds
2. The Partial Canadian
3. 101 List – Fly Home To Canada Alone

No, even though it may seem like it, I have not fallen off the face of the earth.  I’ve just been laying low and getting back into the swing of things after returning to the Netherlands.  I’ve not been feeling particularly bloggy and I figured I’d wait until I did rather than trying to force it.

Anyhow, this is about my 101 List entry about flying home to Canada by myself, which I DID! Yay me!

For many of you this probably doesn’t seem like the biggest accomplishment in the world, but for me it’s been all about getting over my fears.  For the last 11 years I have never gone back to Canada without my husband.  Partially because I just hate being apart from him, but also because he acts like a buffer for me when I fly.

I gained a lot of weight over the years while I was living here and the bigger I got the more I hated flying.  I tolerated it when my husband would come with me because I’d just take a seat on the aisle with him next to me, that way I didn’t have to worry about being squished up next to a stranger.  The stranger thing also had multiple levels of discomfort.  Firstly, I just hate being that close to someone I don’t know.  I’ll always put a seat between me and the stranger in the movie theater, I’ll choose an empty row of seats on the tram or train rather than sit next to someone.  Antisocial? I dunno, but that’s just how I am.  On top of that, with my weight issues and insecurity about that, I loathed the thought of sitting there all tense and trying to squeeze myself into a smaller form so that my hip doesn’t invade someone else’s seat or my shoulders don’t allow them to sit comfortably, or worst of all… put them through an entire flight without an arm rest because my giant butt won’t let it go down.

These are the thoughts of a fat person when they have to fly somewhere.

It’s funny because you hear a lot nowadays about overweight people and flying.  How they are thinking about making them pay for two seats or tax them higher, how people hate sitting next to them.  Hell, even one very famous over weight person was removed from a flight because the pilot felt it was unsafe because he didn’t fit properly in a single seat.

That horrified me.  What if that happened to me and I was all alone?  I’d be mortified!  It scared the bejesus out of me and for 11 years I let that get in the way of me going home on my own to see my family.  So we’d only go every 2-3-4 years when we could afford for us both to go.

There have always been a lot of arguments FOR me going home alone.  I’d get to spend more time just with me and my family, it’s crazy expensive for us both to go home, if I go by myself then we have all of his vacation days to do other things.  It all makes a lot of sense, but I never cared. I was not going home alone, no way, no how.

When I made the 101 List, I decided to add it because it’s something I knew I had to do.  My mother had already come here once by herself, yet I wouldn’t.  I HAD to get over my issues with flying by myself and make the effort to break the ice so that I could get home more often.

My first plan of attack?  LOSE SOME FUCKING WEIGHT!  Pardon my French.

Flying wasn’t the only thing that my weight got in the way of over the years.  There were a thousand reasons for me to take control and try to do something about it, but my upcoming flight definitely served as some major motivation not to give up along the way.  I was going to fit into that seat come HELL OR HIGH WATER!

Me enjoying a night out with my family in Canada

… and I DID!!  After a year of psyching myself up for it, dieting and trying to get past my issues, I stepped onto the plane 70 lbs lighter, slipped into my seat and tried to stop myself from squealing with delight as I discovered all the things that had changed.  The seatbelt fit, no more asking for an extension!! HOORAY!!!  SWEET, the armrest goes down!

I even had a stranger sitting in the seat right next to me, who did not have my hip invading his space and was able to rest comfortably on the armrest and sleep most of the way to London.  Thankfully, that was the only flight that I had someone right next to me, because I still didn’t dig the close proximity… but for an hour, I sat there taking up only my own space, perfectly delighted with myself.

The other flights were pretty great too.  On the long flight home I even had three seats to myself and was able to lay down and sleep a lot of the way.

Do I love flying now? God no, it’s a long trip home and it’s tiring.

Did I like being away from my husband for three weeks?  No, I missed him.  I was ok, but I missed him.

Did I love being able to spend three weeks with my parents, seeing friends, speaking in my own language, and being around my own people again?

OH HELL TO THE YES!!! … and I can’t wait to do it again!

Related posts:

1. 101 List – I Can Finally Say It!!
2. 101 List – My First Pedicure
3. 101 List – Sheldon The Wonder Fiets

Honestly! Every. Single. Time.

After a while I get sort of tired of answering it, because HELLO! Yes it’s different! I went from one of the biggest, most spacious, sparsely populated countries on the planet to one of the smallest, most cramped and densely populated ones.  What do you think, genius?!

In the past I’ve shown a comparison of the different cities I’ve lived in, compared the difference in the level of insanity of Christmas shopping here and in Canada, and how much more Dutch kids can do with snow than we have ever managed or bothered to.

I don’t think I’ve ever done an honest to goodness comparison of my hometown to my current city though.  A visual representation of just how massively different my life is now compared to what it was for the other 2/3 of my life.  Maybe I have, this blog has been on the go for over 6 years and I can’t be bothered to search the archives, but I know I’ve never done the Google maps version. So here you have it!

Let’s see if you can see the difference.

First we’ll have a look at the shopping experience in my hometown compared to here in the city of Rotterdam.

This is the main street in my hometown of North Sydney, Nova Scotia.  Nice wide roads, ample parking, lots of space and very few people.  There is not really much public transit to speak of, except perhaps the odd bus, so you either have to walk or drive to get there.  There is not a lot of variety in regards to shopping, so most people from North Sydney will go to Sydney (25 mins drive) for their real shopping needs.  When I lived there I rarely ever visited this downtown area unless I wanted to rent a movie or visit my father at his barber shop.  I had no other reason to really…

Uh, except for that summer I spent working at the new Subway.  Longest summer of my life.

Now, downtown Rotterdam…

These are photos of your typical downtown shopping experience in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.  It’s pretty much the polar opposite of North Sydney.  People, LOTS and LOTS of people.

There are some wide streets and very narrow streets, but sometimes none at all.  The majority of the city center is not open to vehicles, which can be a blessing and a curse depending on how you prefer to get there.  It is easily accessible by bus, tram, metro, train, and bicycle so if you prefer to get there by those modes of transportation, you’d probably love the fact that you can walk along the shopping streets without constantly watching out for cars.

On the other hand, if you prefer to travel by car, going to the city center may be the bane of your existence in the Rotterdam.  There are many parking garages but they are not cheap and parking on the street can be hit or miss, literally!  You have to be very careful when opening car doors as you are likely to have your door blown off by a passing vehicle or knock someone off their bicycle.  That is, if you can find a spot on the street at all and if you do, you’ll probably pay more for that than if you had gone to a parking garage anyway.

One very good thing about the city center in Rotterdam is that the shopping is fantastic.  There aren’t many things you will need that you won’t be able to find here.  There are everything from small personal shops to large electronics stores, department stores and even a huge bookstore with an entire section of English books.  Not to mention a wide range of restaurants, clubs and theaters.

Some down sides are that everyone knows the shopping is great here and the city has a lot of people, so any given day is 10x more busy than at the busiest point during Christmas in my hometown.  Also, the shops are only open one evening a week, on Friday. The rest of the time they close at normal business closing times.  They do make up for this by being open every Sunday though!

While the downtown area of North Sydney is usually hurting quite badly, you could always go up to the Northside Mall and try your luck.

Plus sides?  A massive (and FREE, OMG!) parking lot, spacious shops and general mall area, the ability to shop without feeling like you are in a stampede, and air conditioning.  Sweet, blessed air conditioning!

Down sides are that it’s only accessible by foot or by car and personally, I’ve never had a lot of luck there in regards to shopping.  There are very few shops in the mall that seem to survive and there is a lot of turnover.  Again, not a lot of variety which usually lead to me going to another mall in another town instead.

On my last visit home there was only one store in the entire mall that made it worth the visit, an adorable shop full of home deco called Granny’s Country Cottage. I would link to their website, but apparently they don’t have one.  All I know is that I have no idea how I’m going to visit that shop again with my measly one suitcase limit from Air Canada.  I could spend a FORTUNE in that shop!  Besides Granny’s, there is a large supermarket chain (Sobey’s), a dollar store (or at least there was last time I was there), a department store (Zellers) and well, other than that I have no freaking idea.  I just remember walking through the mall and feeling like I was in a ghost town.

Perhaps that had more to do with me having adjusted to the insanity of the malls in Rotterdam than the malls back home really being empty though.

Speaking of malls in Rotterdam…

There are a few, but this is the closest shopping mall to where I live.  Zuidplein Winkelcentrum is about a 5 minute drive from my house, if that.  Again, like the city center, it will meet most if not all of your shopping needs with a decent sized supermarket, department stores, restaurants and pretty much everything else you’d be looking for.  From the outside you’d probably hardly recognize it as a mall but from the inside there is quite a lot to be found.

When I first moved here I lived in another area not too far from Zuidplein and I couldn’t stand visiting this mall. It was always very dark, dated, warm and crowded. I would go there only if I absolutely had to.  Thankfully they’ve put a lot of work into it over the years, raising the ceilings and trying to give it a bit more of a spacious and airy feeling.

One major plus point besides the variety is it’s accessibility.  There is a metro station inside the mall, as well as a bus terminal below it.

Like the city center, major down side is the CROWDS and parking situation.  There is a paid indoor and street parking and it doesn’t matter if you visit the malls here at 9:30 am on a Tuesday morning, you’ll spend your entire time dodging and weaving people, ignoring their screaming children and waiting in line at the registers.

Another down side is the lack of air conditioning.  Perhaps they have it in the malls here, but if they do, they aren’t using it.  When you walk into shopping centers in the dead heat of summer, it’s like walking into someone else’s mouth.  It’s warm, humid, stuffy and it smells like… people.  People who have never walked into any of the pharmacies and bought themselves a stick of deodorant.  There are exceptions to this rule, some shops have air conditioning, but they are few and far between and when you do find them you dread the thought of stepping out of them and into the mall again.

This is what it looks like to drive along the waterfront of North Sydney.

This is what it looks like to drive along the waterfront in Rotterdam.

I don’t think it really requires a lot of explanation. Like everything else there are pros and cons for both.  The waterfront in my hometown is beautiful, peaceful and whenever I am there it warms the cockles of my heart.

The waterfront in Rotterdam is bustling, there are boats coming and going at all times, there are a lot of cars, tourists, people on bicycles, people walking, sounds, buildings, things to do and… well, just a lot of all kinds of everything at once.

Sometimes when I’m here in Rotterdam I long to be able to go down and sit at a park by the water in my hometown… but when I was a teenager I sat there dreaming about how I’d one day get out of there and see the world.  Life can be funny like that.

This is the highway I drove a thousand times over the years.  I have driven it to collge, to work, to movies, to the beach, out with friends and to visit boyfriends.  My father taught me how to drive on this highway.  I was pulled over for speeding on this highway.  I spun out and nearly killed myself one winter on this highway.

I have driven alone with the windows down, the wind in my hair and my heart full while singing on this highway.

I felt free on this highway…. but this highway has only ever taken me to the same places I’ve been a million times before.

This is part of the highway here in Rotterdam.

Big, busy, confusing, fast…  I have driven on this highway, but not in 10 years.  I can’t drive on this highway because my Canadian drivers license couldn’t be transferred to the Netherlands.  In order for me to drive here we need to spend hundreds, possibly a thousand euro on driving lessons and tests.  So I am now just a passenger.

I have never been alone on this highway.  I sit in the passenger seat while friends drive on this highway.  I look out the window while Xander drives me places on this highway.

I never have my windows down and rarely sing on this highway.

I feel trapped, insecure, and depressed on this highway… but this highway has taken me to places I never imagined I’d ever see.

This photo did not come from Google maps, because North Sydney is so small and apparently (according to Google) insignificant that they never bothered to do street view for anything other than the main streets.  I took this photo in 2007 from the back steps of my parents’ house.  It’s the view from the first home I’ve ever known.

I played in that grass, I learned to ride my bicycle on that street, I played with my friends and trick or treated at those houses. I took photos here before my high school prom.  I would pull into that driveway after work, an evening with my boyfriend, a night out at the clubs with my girlfriends or a day at the beach.

This is the only home I’d known for the first 21 years of my life.

This was the first home I’ve ever known in the Netherlands.

I spent a lot of time between those walls.  I felt lost and confused, I was depressed,  I missed my family and miss the green spaces of home.  I didn’t understand anything going on around me and I knew only one person in the entire country.  There were no girlfriends, there was no family, no days at the beach.

My world was turned upside down and inside out.  It was a puzzle that I just couldn’t seem to solve.

I left that house a year later to move into our current home. Now, after 11 years of ups and downs, I do understand what is going on around me, there are girlfriends, there’s family and there are days at the beach.

Sometimes my life still feels like a puzzle, but I’ve found most of the pieces already.  I know that one day I will see the full picture again.

So, do I find it different here in Rotterdam after growing up in Canada?  Of course I do.

Which do I like better?  Neither.

I love my hometown for it’s beauty, simplicity and space.  For the kindness and the welcoming nature of the people and because it’s where I grew up.  It’s where my family is.  It’s where I can be with my people, my language and my culture.  I will always love North Sydney and Cape Breton Island because they hold 21 years worth of memories that I could never have had anywhere else.

I love The Netherlands because it’s forced me to break out of my bubble and see the world through different eyes.  To learn another language and culture, to see more of the world and visit countries I never even dreamed I’d see in my lifetime.  I love it because it’s given me 11 years of new experiences, memories, family and friends.  Most of all,  the chance to grow and broaden my horizons.

They are both my home, but also not… Like many others, I am floating in an uncomfortable Expat Limbo where I have two homes, but no real home at all.

When I go to Canada, North Sydney is as foreign to me now as the Netherlands.  So much has changed, *I* have changed.  I am still Canadian, but I am also Dutch.  I am no longer that small town girl, but I am not truly a city girl either.

So please, next time you meet an expat or someone who is new to your city or country, ask them what they like to do in their spare time, ask about their hobbies, their famlies, if they’ve seen a good movie lately or if they have any holiday plans for the summer… because if you ask us to compare where we’ve come from to where we are, we will never be able to give you a straight answer, because we often simply don’t know ourselves.

Related posts:

1. Expat Life: Creating Your Own Traditions
2. Paying it Forward – Blog Style!
3. An Expat Meme

She has her own dog grooming business and gave us these cute Canada Day bandanas for the dogs to wear to show their pride!  It’s a pity she didn’t live closer because I’d definitely go to her rather than our regular groomer, who is in the process of plucking Pixel as I type this!

Yes, she may look like a giant furball now but when she comes home she’ll be tiny and smooth and ready for summer!

Ok, so the dogs really aren’t Canadian, but I am and I’m their mama, so they get Canadian citizenship by default, right?

Thank you Candee!!

Related posts:

1. The Partial Canadian
2. Canadian Invasion
3. She is Canadian!

After almost 11 years living in another country, it still amazes me how deeply I still love Canada.  Especially the east coast.  Nova Scotia is my home, Cape Breton Island holds a piece of my heart and is part of who I am like only another Caper could truly understand…

I’m not at all homesick on Canada Day this year, not even a little bit.  I’m a picture of calm and acceptance.  I am cool personified.

In fact, I didn’t even burst into tears when I heard our national anthem in this video… nor when I saw the dude standing on the rocks at Peggy’s Cove.

Really, I didn’t.  Would I lie to you?

Well, even if I did, it’s not like you can prove it.

Happy Canada Day everyone, especially to all those amazingly friendly, funny and crazy Capers I love so much!  I’ll see you in October!

Related posts:

1. 101 List – Fly Home To Canada Alone
2. Canada, Baby!
3. My Second Day in Canada

There are a few cultural differences that become glaringly obvious when you move to a new country.  For me, one of of them has been the issue of taking off shoes when you enter someone’s home.  I would make a sweeping statement about how in Canada everyone takes off their shoes when they enter the house, but after the bagged milk thing, I realize not everything is as widely Canadian as I thought.  So I will say, where I come from in Canada, the first thing you do when you walk through the door, is take off your shoes. 

I was recently reminded of this after seeing a discussion about it on Gawker, where the author was outraged that people had a party and asked their guests to remove their shoes at the door.  Even though they gave prior notice on the invitation and even had little slippers for people to wear.  Seriously, what more do people want?

Growing up I was taught to never wear my shoes in someone’s house.  It’s considered to be VERY rude.  If I ran in the house after playing and forgot to take my shoes off, my mother would be on me like white on rice… and even though my father seemed to forget quite frequently, for the 21 years I lived with them she never failed to remind him to get his ass into the porch and take off his shoes.  I think she would have had a cardiac arrest right on the spot if I ever tried to pull that at someone else’s house, because it would mean she had given birth to a little barbarian with no manners to speak of. 

It is still so deep within me that, to this day, I am absolutely incapable of entering someone else’s house without taking my shoes off.  When we go to friends they often look at me weird and tell me I don’t have to take them off, but I’m like… oh yes, I do… I so do.

I pondered that maybe we started this because of the nasty weather we get in Canada.  That people don’t want us tromping through their houses with dirt and snow all over our boots, but I don’t think that’s it.   Here in the Netherlands it is not the norm to remove your shoes, even though this country is quite often wet and dirty.  That’s not even mentioning the ridiculous amount of dog shit on the foot paths here.  So if it were something that came to be because of dirty shoes, I think that definitely would have happened here as well.

I have been living in the Netherlands for 10 years now and my brain still never fails to crack and twitch every time someone enters my home without removing their shoes.  I watch them come in with their dirty, wet shoes and walk up the hall, into my living room and onto my sofa.  I once even saw a friend put their feet up on my new footstool (with their shoes on)… which almost gave me a stroke.  Year after year, visitor after visitor, I’ve bitten my tongue and tried to adapt.  That’s just how people do things here and I have never wanted to be the weirdo who asks people to take off their shoes.  

Until recently…

I eventually just said the hell with it and when having a gathering this winter I asked people to take them off.  We had children here and with tile floors and wet weather things could get slippery pretty quick.  Nobody seemed to mind, or at least they didn’t say anything to my face.

It can be such a fine balance at times when you try to accept new cultures, especially when it’s so blatantly going against your own.  When you are brought up to behave in a certain way and believe certain things, even with something as simple as removing your shoes, it’s very difficult to change just because of a change in location.  It can be confusing at times to decide when it’s good to hold on to your own cultures without appearing to be stubborn or refusing to adapt.

I’ve thought a lot about this issue after seeing some other Canadian friends of mine complaining about people here barging into their house with their shoes on.  Then again after reading the article on Gawker and realizing it’s not just an issue of being an expat but also differing opinions among people in their own countries.  Most of the people commenting on the article were in America and their opinions varied quite widely.  Although I did notice that the comments reflected that Canada and Japan appear to feel more strongly about not wearing shoes in the house.

I spent a lot of time not integrating here, and it’s still a work in progress.  I do believe that when I am out among the Dutch I should try harder to speak their language, I should start riding my bike and get out and experience things the Dutch way.  Even though I am not quite there yet, I do think that this is the way I should be living my life.  I live in the Netherlands, it’s up to me to adapt to their way of life in regards to the language and life here in general.

Should that extend to my own home though?  Where is the line?  Should the culture of the country I live in take over in every aspect of my life or is it ok to, at least in part, view my house as a sort of sanctuary.  A bit of Canadian soil in the Netherlands, so to speak… where I can live comfortably by my own beliefs and cultures.

I’m really curious about this, because the bigger part of me wants to say “Oh HELL TO THE NO!  This is MAH house and if you don’t like it you can getthefuckout!!” but then there’s the other side of me who doesn’t want to create an issue, recognizes that it’s really not such a big deal and thinks, just shut up and mop up after them when they leave.

What do you think? 

Where are you from?  Do you take your shoes off when you enter someone else’s house?  Do you think it’s rude not to, or that it’s rude of them to ask you to?

Are you an Expat in NL who has come across this issue?  An expat in another country who experienced this?

This inquiring mind wants to know!

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A while back I went out for dinner with a friend and we somehow got on the topic of milk.  They couldn’t believe me when I told them that we get our milk in bags back in Canada.

They also couldn’t believe that we actually had a milk man who would come in the morning and leave our milk between our screen and wooden back doors!  It’s true, we’d leave a little note with what we want and he’d leave it there for us.  I remember many times coming home from school at lunch and open the screen door to have the milk fall out at my feet.

Also, in primary school we used to get milk for our little break treat.  It was a mini bag with a little straw you’d punch it with to drink it, but some of us just ripped the corner off with our teeth and sucked it out, cuz we were hardcore.

A friend of mine shared this video on Facebook yesterday and I laughed because it’s so normal to me, even after 10 years living out of the country.  I think some of my Euro friends might find this interesting though!  My friend on Facebook is American and he didn’t know about it until a friend showed this to him… and he’s right next door to Canada!

So yes, in Canada we drink milk from bags.  No, I have never bothered closing that little corner and I swear, milk never went off as quickly there as it appears to here.  I drank a lot more milk in Canada than I do here, so that may be why.  I also just liked the milk better there for some reason.  I guess we just have better cows!

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