lekker fietsen naar de oude kerk met een boterham met pindakaas in het zakje.

My first weekend is coming to an end. Even though I had two days off I'm exhausted and tired all the time. It's just so much to take in. Tomorrow will be the hardest I think. Wish me luck!

There are already some things I can tell you about the Netherlands.

Nummertje Een: De fiets!
Everyone knows that the Dutch use their bicycles all the time. Kids learn how to ride a bike basically as soon as they can walk. 4 year old J (yes, she's 4, not 5. I don't know why I always thought she's five...) learned how to ride a bike without training wheels yesterday. Because she just turned 4 and that's about time. Obviously it's late for a kid here. Some can ride their bike at an age of three.
And the bicycles look different. You can tell that they use it like a car. To do everything. I'll take some pictures myself (I'm really lazy at taking picture right now, but I hardly ever take pictures when I'm new to a place...doesn't make sense I know), but for now, that's how most of the bikes look like

with a built in lock and all the fancy stuff.

Nummertje Twee: Boterham met pindakaas!

That's bread with peanutbutter. First the bread. I don't see their bread as bread. It's more like toast or sandwich. It's super soft and comes in slices. There are quite a lot of variations and I'm glad that my host mom doesn't usually buy white bread, but still. It's so soft you could probably squish the whole loaf into a ball that fits in your hands. I don't get the point of bread without a nice bread crust. Why do we have teeth then?

And the pindakaas. They love it. There's a whole shelf just for pindakaas at the grocery store and C told me that if I want to be Dutch I have to try peanut butter. Or hagelslag. But that's a whole different and very messy story.

Nummertje Drie: Openbaar vervoer!

Public Transport System. Especially trains.

What they told me at university about the trains in the Netherlands: Don't use them!

What they tell me here about the trains in the Netherlands: Don't use them!

I'm going to check that myself, but from what they tell me, trains are either late or cancelled and it takes you forever to get from A to B thanks to that. Let's see how this will turn out. 

Keep your fingers crossed. I love trains.

Nummertje Vier: Kaas!

Yes, they do eat a lot of cheese. And mayonnaise. Don't know why. Dutch food isn't healthy at all.

Nummertje Fijf: Geld!

I had the weirdest situation at the grocery store today. I wouldn't have thought that I would get confused by the money, since Austria and the Netherlands both use Euros. But there is a difference.

In the Netherlands they don't use 1 and 2 cent coins. Nevertheless it happens that at the check out they come up with prices like €4.19. I have no idea how this is possible. 

So today this exact thing happened. It said 4.19. I had a lot of coins in my wallet and I'm used to count every cent. I handed the cashier 4.19. He looked very confused about the 1 and 2 cent coins. You can pay with those coins. The thing is. You can't pay 4.19. 19 cent don't exist. If it says 4.19 you have to pay 4.20. 

To sum this up, I had to give the cashier another cent to make it 4.20 although the stuff I bought was only 4.19.

Nummertje Ses: Kerken!

Almost half of the population isn't religious here. Therefore it isn't suprising me at all that churches shut down all the time. (I found a nice article about that HERE, which is about the town I live in).

Now there are a lot of empty useless churches. That's why they're going to turn this thing into a library and a restaurant. Yes. A library and a restaurant. I'm not joking. (not my picture, btw)

I think that's about it for now. There will be more very Dutch things. The real weirdness is probably still hidden somewhere. Every country has it's strange side and I'm ready to find this side.