De Pont

Or is it het pont? I'm not sure.

Anyway, we live on the other side of the river. The most direct way to get from our village to the other side of the river is to use a pont! I love using the pont, despite occassional motion sickness if I'm blocked in by other cars and can't see the water. Of course, it helps that I get to see one of the best roadsigns ever every time we use it.



Imagine doing this in America: turning off your motor and your lights while you wait the 5 minutes for the pont, even in the cold or hot or night.



The excitement builds as the pont makes its way across the river!



And when it crashes into the riverbank (or is it river bank?) the motors turn on and the bicyclers get ready to GO!



And then the next load gets on and enjoys views like this during the crossing.



It's also so easy to appreciate how the Dutch appreciate being outside when you see them outside of their cars, walking down to the river edge as they wait for the pont to come or how they leave their cars to enjoy the sun as they are crossing on a nice day.

Nothing Beats

A lady in the grocery store telling me I have a "heel mooie meisje". It beats even a spring sunshiny day in the Netherlands for two reasons: (1) It's nice to see that your daughter brings joy to other people and (2) I can reply to such people in Dutch and they continue to speak Dutch to me. I have them fooled! (Or at least I can fool myself by thinking I have them fooled!)

When I Grow Up

I want THIS for my backyard. Yep, went to Keukenhof. Also bicycled around the tulip fields. Just as pretty as last year! And the year before!

Nothing Beats

Sun shiny springtime in the Netherlands.

Hazards of Dutch Living

I don’t know when it happened, but it did. I like watching…golf. I’ve never played a hole in my life, but there is something exciting (oh, goodness, I can’t believe I just wrote that) about watching a tournament. I don’t have live coverage of golf tournaments here, but I still “watch” the tournament via Leaderboard updates on the web. So here I am, tired, eyes burning, 15 minutes before 1 a.m., and I cannot make myself go to bed because Tiger is on the 17th hole and is two strokes behind the leader on Sunday at the Masters!

Compounding Confusion

The Dutchlanguage is full of compoundwords. I guess I’ve been here in the Netherlands too long, because now I’m getting myself all confused. Now, I know that my Englishlanguageskills are failing a bit, but this is bad. At first, way back when we were living in Rotterdam, I could easily point out compoundwordproblems – like when the churchbulletin said “weddingservice” instead of “wedding service”. Well, that’s all gone kaput. Take, for instance, the package of toiletpaper that I stare at when I’m…err…on the toilet. So, in English, is it toilet paper or toiletpaper?

And what about the carton of sinaasappelsap? Again, in my mother tongue, is it orangejuice or orange juice?

Is it attraction park or attractionpark?

Is it babywipes or baby wipes?

Is it oatmeal or oat meal? (What am I doing with German oatmeal anyway?)

Is it wheat flour or wheatflour? (Why not just flour, come to think of it?)

Is it applesauce or apple sauce?

Is it peanutcheese…I mean peanutbutter or peanut butter? (Pindakaas literally means peanutcheese. I like it!)

Is it Nilehorse or hippopotamus? (Oh, wait, that’s not really a compoundword.)

In fact, there are so many compoundwords in this language, that there is special grammar associated with them. For example, “Hand and Nail Cream” is (translated) “hand- and nailcream”. That little dash had me scratching my head for awhile a few months ago, “Hmm, does that exist in English?” I thought. I don’t think so, but it seems awfully convenient.

Thank goodness for the little red squigglyline underneath all the wrong compoundwords when I type them into MS Word. Keeps me a little less confused, unless my computer isn't close by. Or is it closeby?

Nightmares

I had a horrible dream last night. I had the opportunity to go to - three guesses - c'mon now, it's not that hard - KEUKENHOF!

BUT I didn't have batteries for my camera charged and I only had space for 40 pictures remaining on my MemoryStick.

Horrors.