DutchInLaw

For the sake of planning, fun, and sanity, we're working with unit studies this year for music/Bible/art/science. Pippin still has his normal 2nd grade workbooks: Explode the Code for reading/writing, Developmental Math for math, and Thinking Skills for spatial development, as well Dutch group 3/4 workpages for language. And we have Mystery of History for history, and an ample supply of library books and chapter readers. But our electives have been more random over the last year or so, so having the unit studies planned out is extra fun for all of us. Especially now that Bloom is in preschool 3/4 and is ready for more than wooden puzzles or scribbling on coloring pages. And knowing there is a new little one on the way, it makes me feel better to be preparing easy crafts or making library lists for late-pregnancy-life or newborn-life times when I just don't have the energy to sit at the table and check workbooks.... For January, our themes were:  Bible: Creation, Adam and Eve Ar...

Sometimes I feel like writing a blog post about the fun and interesting things that come our way while living in Holland. Sometimes I just feel like dropping a ton of photos into a post so there's at least some sort of recap. (Also sometimes (most of the time) I take so many hundreds of photos that my computer fills up and gets upset at me, which means I really need to get better about clearing them out.) So, here you are. Alsjeblieft .  This is hagelslag (literally, hail-strike), the chocolate sprinkles that Dutch people put on bread. But this particularly kind is so fancy, it's called HAGEL-SWAG. I can't even.  Soft summer evenings with bike paths up the dike. Beautiful but annoying to bike up.  Sometimes we do school outside. Because, why not? Pippin continues creating with pattern blocks. His six-year old explanations of what he has made are not brief, but they are entertaining.  Our blueberry bushes give us about a handful a week.  Friends come over for pl...

Because sometimes the photos and videos fill up my computer faster than I can think what to do with them. Photos from a trip to Rotterdam last August, when the weather was typically Dutch - rainy for a few hours, then glorious sunshine after that.  The metro is the easiest way to get to and from downtown Rotterdam - no parking fees, no crowded streets. A quick swipe of an OV chip card, and you're on your way. One solution to car parking shortages downtown: buy a tiny car and park it sideways. Trams (above-ground public transport) have the right of way and ring their bells in warning.   The city architecture is a mix of new, old, and very old, but there's always somewhere to lean a bike while you run errands or check out the shops.                                The Koopgoot (literally 'Shopping Gutter') is an open sort of tunnel that cuts through downtown and is full of shops of all ...

Not everyone finds books delicious, but a lot of us do. And if you're a homeschooler, or a homeschooling parent, you likely find books ESPECIALLY delicious. Sadly, the price of living and inflation and food goes up... and the price of books doesn't go down. Sometimes I give silent screams when I walk into a store here in Holland, turn over a cute little board book, and find that it costs 8 euros. For a board book that will probably be chewed on for a year or two before it's past repair. A 'normal' paperback easily costs 10-15 euros, so keeping up a book habit can get pricey, and the quality of books matters more. (At least, the internal quality of books mattes; half of the books we own are second-hand, which is why we can afford so many books :D :D :D). We also have library passes at not one but three libraries in the region, and regularly check out our limit for the kids (ten books per pass). In 2020, the estimated population size of the Netherlands is about 17 mil...

After March 2020, most public events in the Netherlands have been cancelled due to the COVID-19 epidemic, including my favorites like the Furiade in Maassluis and the Ladies Run in Rotterdam. When I search for '2020 Brandersfeest', I read that the organizers aren't sure what the situation will be in September, but they're discussing spreading the activities over a whole month instead of one weekend. So I'm glad we went last year and gave our kids a taste of what it's like when the nearby city of Schiedam holds a festival. In September 2019, the metro line extension from Schiedam towards Hook of Holland had just opened, so our family decided to try it out. The RET had even announced that travel along the new Hoekse Lijn would be free for everyone that day! And there would be refreshments! There was some good-natured grumbling about how all that sounded wonderful, until you considered that the metro renovation was planned to last 5 months (during which ...

Maybe I'm totally crazy to even consider it, but I log into the familiar blue and white NANOWRIMO website anyway. National Novel Writing Month? Sure, I may be about twenty weeks pregnant, living in a fixer-upper house overseas, and spending my days as expat mother and wife, but why not start writing a new novel this November? I'm sure the first people who signed up for the NANOWRIMO challenge were crazy too. And the people who first had the idea to turn the international, vague dream of "Write a novel some day" into a website with definable numbers and a voracious writing community. I didn't know anything of the sort existed until a few years ago, and now I enthusiastically sign up for almost every new session or 'camp' throughout the year. But the big pull is, of course, the month of November, when people around the world look at the slogan on the site header, "The world needs your novel," and decide it's somehow true.  The site...

Ingeburgerd can be translated as 'adjusted' or 'integrated'. Not surprisingly, the Dutch government has made inburgering mandatory for most people applying for residency or citizenship. If you intend to stay in the Netherlands long-term, the requirements include language and social tests, such as the NT2. While legal paperwork and diplomas are important, not everything can be measured by piece of paper. You don't get a certificate for just feeling like you're well-adjusted in Dutch society. But approving nods from colleagues and friends, or sometimes even just the lack of patient corrections can show you're on the right path to blending in. Sometimes it really is the little things that matter.... You know you're ingeburgerd when.... You nonchalantly swipe your card past the reader in the tram, train, or metro station without looking. You finish someone's sentence with an appropriate slogan. I.e. "That's the power-" ...

After stressing over paperwork for an international regulation I didn't even know existed, due to no financial advisor, and finding a container of decaying fried chicken behind the fridge in the process of scrubbing dried coconut milk inside the fridge, I'm ready for a nice scented soak in a bathtub that apparently wouldn't even be standard issue in a 4-bedroom house that could hypothetically be bought if we did find a financial advisor who knows things about mortgages and international tax regulations. Maybe once the paperwork clears there will be a blog post (hopefully not too scathing) about the hassle of trying to find answers on buying a house, sharing a bank account, and paying taxes as an expat spouse....

I often see comments and questions in the expat facebook group from people who have just moved to Rotterdam from another country. I had a chance to adjust gradually - 5 years in a village in the north of Holland, then a year and a half in a town nearby Rotterdam. By the time I actually moved into this metropolis I was fluent in Dutch and knew my way around the city. But to come here directly... that could be quite a shock.