Saturdays' street market

It has been a quiet summer for my blog - I haven't posted anything new for a long time. Although not much new posts from me on the blog, it seems that I haven't stopped checking who is visiting my site... It is nice to see that when you have some content in your blog, it is more easier for people to find you out from search engines. I always feel guilty to those of you who have been visiting my blogs regularly: I know that you must be dissapointed to see that there is no update from me.

Anyway, I am back, and wish to keep my blog writing at a steady pace, if I keep my promise. I will continue writing about my orange journey.

A big reason for not updating my blog, is because Mrs. Aawara's Mom is here for a visit during the summer time. It is her first visit in Europe and the Netherlands. However, Mr. and Mrs. Aawara were both working and did not save enough holidays for her visit. Life for her were basically staying by herself during the day time. Living in an old dutch style apartment with winding staircases, it is our fear that she would be stuck in the apartment and not wanting to go out by herself when we were working in offices. It is true, she gave up her normal early morning walk habit which she has kept for a while while living in US.

Surprisingly, she found back her fun of shopping! She goes out to the town, and visited almost every single shops. During the weekend, she would drag me to some of those shops, which I had never visited till then, and show me what she saw and ask me whether I am also interested in. She always has something in mind to buy. She complained that I don't have a proper board for making dough. So during two months she was here, she brought home two wooden cutting board. The first one turned out to deformalized after soaked a little water in. The second one is better, and more expensive. She wanted to buy Mr. Aawara a vest, but we did not agree on anyone. So it might be still hanging in her mind for other shoppings in the future.

What she enjoyed the most, is the market. On Thursdays and Saturday, there are market selling vegetables and some other cheap stuff. I have lost my interest in the market not long after I came here. It is not that cheap, and also not that good. Sometimes the supermarket has better and cheaper deals. However, being with her, we found out a great fish market close to Rotterdam Blaak station on Tuesdays and Saturdays. She thinks it is very fresh fish, according to the fish eyes. Fish eyes will be sunken if it died too long. Our big worry is that each time we can not buy much. Our little frig only has a little freezer.

Mom grew up close to the sea, and she loves sea food. She enjoys the most picking up mussels and sea-weeds, digging out shells whenever she goes to beach. She was quite dissapointed in the Scheveningen beach, there is nother for her to collect there. Her conclusion is, because there is no rocks and only sand, there is nowhere they can grow upon. She might be right. On a Tuesday, I bought some crab legs home from that Blaak market. Those crab legs were in huge size, she said she had never seen that big crab legs, they must be very old crabs. How old can a crab live?

Comparing to the suburban life in the US, small towns in Europe does have some little charms that you need to live here long enough to find out, and to enjoy!

Living in the Netherlands without knowing Dutch

It has been more than a year since we moved to the Netherlands. I still remember those days last year this time we were walking around towns to look for signs of "Te Huur (For rent)". Once in a while, we got the interest to study the language, and for a while, we stopped learning, and all those we learned was slowly forgotten later. When you got the interest again, most of the things have to be learnt from the beginning again. We even paid for a computer software, Rossetta Stone, to learn the language. However, since Mr. Aawarra's boss paid for the cost of the software, we are not self--disciplined enough to being persistant in learning either.

So why not learning? My excuse most of the time when talking with people is that, most of the Dutch speaks English well. It is true. Almost everyboy you met on the streets, a shop, secretaries, doctors, all speaks good English. As long as you ask, you most of the time get your answers. Ture, there was once, we tried to ask the direction on the street to an old couple, we had trouble communicating. We tried hard to explain, still failed to get their answers. The frustration we found of not knowing the language is, we are some of the time excluded from knowing about what is happening. Once we passed by a synagogue, a group of people were listening to one person talking. We stopped, and not wanting to disturb them. So we didn't ask questions, and we didn't know what happened that time.

It is true that Dutch is not that difficult for English speakers to learn at all. It shares many similar workds, at least similar pronounciation. You could easily guess some of them if you pay attention. But I have to say that this country is not that English friendly country. Many website has both English and Dutch webpages. However, the information behind those clicks are highly varied. The Dutch website information are much more comprehensive and complete than the English version. It is not only in the website, but also in some service platforms, things like the train ticket machine in stations. You have to know Dutch to buy some certain kind of ticket.
I got to know this when I consulted a colleague about how to get the cheapest train tickets for a months' travel between two cities, which is like a train monthly ticket. She told me the name of the ticket she bought on NS ticket machine, and I only found the information in the dutch version of the website. Then I browsed through the website and there are quite a lot of information lack in the English website. It is really a disvantage of living in a country without knowing their language.

In your work environment, it might be also a frustration when others talking in Dutch around you. It is the most often instances that you feel yourself being excluded. Mr. Aawarra sometimes during the lunch time felt he was only physically present there, since his colleagues talking in Dutch. He can tolerate it well since he has been used to this kind of situations. After I worked, I started feeling a little discomfort when others came to talk with my officemate in Dutch. It is a feeling that you were kept out of knowing something, although this is already a very English friendly environment. The good part of this is, you got less disturbed by an unknown discussion while you are working on something important. You tend to be staying focused on your work.

The picture is from here. Dames means ladies, and heren means gentlemen. For lage, and Grote, try to think some similar English words.