Smoky Cogs

I have a great fondness for sweets, but the Dutch have a “treat” that is, at least to me, rather unpalatable. This is the Dutch favourite, salmiak – a type of salty liquorice.

I love conventional liquorice, having grown up chewing through countless bags of liquorice allsorts, but had quite a surprise when I tried salmiak.

My first reaction was that it tasted like cough mixture. I wasn’t too far off with this though, as I was soon to learn that one of the main ingredients of salmiak is ammonium chloride, which is what gives salmiak its saltiness and also happens to be the main ingredient in cough syrups.

In addition to this, I learned that ammonium chloride is used to make zinc-carbon batteries, and is used as a textile dye, in cleaning products and even shampoo.

Up to now, I have enjoyed just about all the food I have encountered in the Netherlands, but I doubt I can get used to eating cough medicine as a treat.

The Dutch are a normally quite easy-going people, but that all changes in the run-up to New Years Eve.

Fireworks are normally banned in the Netherlands, but a few days before New Years Eve, it is legal to sell fireworks. Between 10pm on New Years Eve until 2am the next morning, it is also legal to set them off.

During the week leading up to New Years Eve, it was clearly apparent that not that many people were actually following the law all that well.

Leading up to New Years Eve, the amount of bangs grew progressively worse, despite it not being legal to set off fireworks yet. I love fireworks, but hearing a continuous invasion of noise is not that pleasant.

As the clock struck 12 on the 31st of December, the real fun started, and I was not prepared for what I experienced.

The entire neighbourhood erupted in a continous display of light and noise for a solid hour. The sheer scale of the fireworks was far beyond even the professional displays I have seen in the past, and this was just backyard fireworks.

The Dutch spent about 64 million euros on fireworks, which is an astounding figure in my mind.

The entire thing just strikes me at being at odds with the normal Dutch personality that made this experience all the more heightened for me

Previously I spoke about how thrifty the Dutch are in buying things. In getting rid of their old stuff, they are the exact opposite. I have never met a more generous culture than the Dutch.

When the Dutch want to throw out old furniture or other goods, they normally leave it out on the pavement on a particular day of the week. This day can be variable depending where you live. This stuff is then freely available for anyone who would like to take it, to take it away – free of charge.

Sometimes, they will also advertise on sites such as Marktplaats that they have free stuff to give away to anyone willing to come and collect it.

The reasons for this are still very unclear to me. Noone can give me a definite answer. I can understand for people without cars who would find it tricky to dispose of unwanted goods, but this phenomenon permeates through all levels of society.

This is the single most effective way to build up badly needed furniture for a newly settled immigrant family. Quite a few items in my own house have been free cast-offs from other people.

This habit of the Dutch is a major plus point to living in the Netherlands.

Walking down any Dutch shopping street, you will be hard-pressed to find exclusive boutiques. Rather you will find shop after shop of budget stores such as Xenos, Blokker, and those non-descript “everything-for-a-euro” type bargain stores.

It might seem to be stinginess, but it is not quite like that. They just like to get the most value for their money that they can. The Dutch are famous for their thriftiness.

This also means that the most effective way to get the Dutch to actually buy things is to put them on sale, so Dutch shops are always filled with discounts and sale items. Every week, it seems as if they try and push several trees worth of advertising brochures through our mailbox.

The upside to all of this, is that it is very easy to get good deals on just about everything here in the Netherlands. I certainly cannot complain about it at all.

The Canta is a type of car. Just barely.

It looks (and sounds) more like a Go-Kart that has a full body attached.

The Canta, developed as a joint venture of Waaienberg and TNO, is aimed for handicapped people to give them greater mobility, and each car can be customised so as to accomodate the abilities of each owner.

There is another interesting fact about this tiny car. It is so small that it is allowed to drive on the bicycle lanes throughout the Netherlands. The first time you hear one of these nearing down behind you while you are on your bike can be a little unsettling though.

Most of the western world is well acquanted with the jolly rotund man we like to call Santa Claus, who visits us with his reindeer-driven sleigh every Christmas Eve.

Well, the Dutch do things slightly differently. Here, we have Sinterklaas who is the main holiday figure.

Sinterklaas visits the Netherlands every year, arriving in mid November from Spain on a steamboat, and is assisted by his “Zwarte Pieten” (Black Peters). His official celebratory day though is on the 5th December, when he delivers presents to children. This year, Sinterklaas arrives later today.

Instead of reindeer, he rides around the rooftops on his horse, named Amerigo.

Now, if his name, as well as his philantophic tendencies are not enough of a clue, both Sinterklaas and Santa Claus are, in fact, based on the same historical figure, and many claim that Santa Claus is a direct adaption of Sinterklaas.

The real Saint Nicholas (as us English speakers know him), lived from 280 to 342, and is the patron saint of children, sailors, and oddly enough, Amsterdam. He was a bishop of Myra, which is now in modern-day Turkey.

Today, the 11th of November is the day the Dutch celebrate Sint Maarten.

Sint Maarten, or to give his Anglicised name, Saint Martin (316 – 11 November 397), was the Bishop of Tours back in his day. His main claim to fame is the legend, that once during a snowstorm, he cut his cloak in half to share with a beggar, who would otherwise have frozen to death.

To celebrate the day, the children, carrying lanterns, go from door to door, singing particular Sint Maarten songs, and then get given sweets in return.

This custom might be sounding suspiciously like what happens on Halloween, which, in general, the Dutch don’t celebrate, and only a few days apart.

In any event, it promises to be an interesting night ahead…