Sunday, March 14, 2010

Some Eating Thoughts

Well, as you probably have read, I find the culture here in the Netherlands fascinating. But, of course we are returning to the US. Land of 24 hour food availability, where only rarely will we be in restaurants that take 2 hours for a single meal. So, looking back on our time here: the Dutch love all you can eat. They will enjoy a buffet for Chinese/Indonesian food, or will stop by your table for a marked menu in a Sushi or Tapas restaurant. The Dutch also admire French, Italian, and Greek food. Despite my cooking a traditional Dutch dish, and despite their love of pancakes, the Dutch really don't usually buy Dutch food out (except the pancakes and of course all things fried -- from fast food type places).

So, we have no TGIFridays (I am sure there is one in Amsterdam) type eating options, but it has been wonderful to get to know life here in a day to day way. In some ways we are more Dutch than many of the other people Eric works with, as we eat in most of the week (except a coffee out occasionally and our date night) and hardly travel (except to the US for weddings). And basically live at home. I get the feeling that if we lived in a city, where we had less living space and more options out, that my understanding of Dutch life would be different. So, take my understanding of it, as my understanding of American life might be after spending several years in a town of 40,000 people. The only difference, is that in the US, this would be a suburb of Eindhoven.

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