dutchwomanabroad

last day of xmas vacation

2012-01-08T06:43:00.000-08:00

what a pity, it is over. the days of lounging around and bringing kids to the slopes. got most of the xmas deco down. not all, that hurts too much. was on the phone the other day with a dutch guy. the dutch are crazy....... about skiing. the ones that like to ski, do it all year round. the town where my mother used to live, zoetermeer, has its own indoor skiing paradise. so even in summer you see people going in, dragging ski's and snowboards along. when i was small, before these indoor ski domes, people used to practice skiing on pine needles in the dunes. can you imagine that?! so the guy i was talking to, said he was going to austria for a week of skiing. leaving at 11 pm, after a day of working, driving all night, and then he would expect to be at the point of destination at 8am. then they would go for a little breakfast and then off hitting the slopes. and this is a story you hear from almost everyone. the last day they will ski until about 4 pm, pack and drive back and go to work the day they arrive. no relaxing at all. can you understand now why there are so many 'plaster flights' going from all places back to holland?!

dutchwomanabroad@gmail.com

new year 2012

2012-01-01T02:16:00.000-08:00

last night i was really missing the dutch tradional treats we eat on new years eve. our famous oilballs and applejacks. my family members will say 'yuk' and my thighs would balloon up even more if i had to eat all i would make. but one or two wouldn't have been misplaced. is it a good thing or a bad thing that i can go to bed at 11 pm and can sleep thru until the next morning? lordie, lordie, it seems like we live in a resort for the elderly. no fireworks starting at 4 pm and going on until 4 am the next day. no neighbors walking the streets with a bottle of champagne at midnight kissing and maybe a bit of brawling. i, ahum, we, usually, the last 5 years or so, spend the 31st at home alone. it is not my night of the year, i get a bit depressed, another year full of sh.. gone, and i hate all agitation about 'the new year', that everything will be different. i think 'new year, same sh..'. hubby falls asleep at his usual 7.50 pm and i will sit under the hood in the kitchen with a book, smoking and drinking by myself. boys went off to locarno this year with friends. and if you sit at home alone, as i do, and eventhough it is not my evening, it still would be nice to go out the door at midnight and see some people. a no-go around here. but then going to bed early gives you a great start in the new year with no hangover and the 1st of january is not a wasted day.

wishing you all a great 2012. x

xmas day 2011

2011-12-25T05:00:00.000-08:00

sitting here on the sofa, pondering how i will fill my time, it came to me ..... time to write. getting a cup of tea ready, lunch has been eaten. a very easy one, bread and salmon, cheese and other goodies. so how come i do not have a big xmas lunch with the family as the italian tradition preaches? first off, how can one have a xmas lunch with sun outside would be my question to the enquirer. it is so not inspiring. that is what i found out the 25th of december 1993. i was on my own in locarno, sun and no snow. i took myself up the mountain towards s. bernardino above locarno. lordie, what was that day hot. it must have been 10 degrees or more, like today, and i got into a real sweat. but back to the italian lunch now. most people i hear, are complaining about having the family and inlaws at the house on first xmas day. i don't complain, i just do not have them over. after our children were born, we had a couple of times lunch at my hubbies parents' place, then another couple of times at my sister-in-law's house. i hated it. throwing away a day sitting around, being bored. the one day in the year that you are allowed to do nothing. and then there is nothing christmassy about the day when it feels like spring. feeling that it was my turn to organize something i said ok, but on my terms. doing it as my german heritage dictates it, the evening of the 24 th. it seemed that the whole world crumbled. it was a no go for the italian minds. well, either that or nothing at all. hubby dear was pulled over after a bit of fighting. my big motive was how will you enjoy my xmas decorations during daytime. i spent loads of time to pull everything together. my house, my rules, so it went the way i wanted it. we did it a couple of years in a row. big succes, not lasting too long, and a long day afterwards to recover from heartburn and other stuff. then i quit because i thought it would be time for my brother-in-law to take action for once. that never happened. yesterday we had another go at it, after we escaped it for 2 or 3 years in a row. my parents-in-law are getting older and i thought it would be nice to have all four grandsons around the table for once. everyone really appreciated it, it was nice. but this morning the man of the house said next year, no party, just the four of us is enough. we are lazy buggers, and pj-huggers.

merry xmas to all of you!

what about snow this year?

2011-12-11T05:48:00.000-08:00

december 11th, mountains brown, no snow to be seen from our house. i looked on the website of bosco gurin and there is a little white to be seen. i long to see some rain and snow. big son asked me when there would finally come some heavenly water. if i say that i need rain, people here get very upset. why would someone want rain or snow?well, i suppose it is something which helps us to keep alive! after 2 hours all ticino people are fed up with down poor, and it is not as if they are always outside and in that moment they are confined to stay put. i love rain and snow because it relaxes my brain and it tells me it is okay to nothing for once in a while. me, big egoist, loves the snow for myself and family. a lot of ticino people do not think about the economic side of snow for this part of the country. we have some really nice little skiing areas and i hope they will be around for a long time. so to keep them going...let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

december

2011-12-08T11:20:00.000-08:00

'sinterklaas has left'. well, almost, pigging out on 'pepernoten' as i write. i went to holland twice in the last month, so i had all the time to get the sweets we need to celebrate sinterklaas. i was in holland just the days before our number 1 celebration, and i was sad to see that they was hardly any decoration, there was no sinterklaas in any of the big departmentstores to receive children. a big change from a couple of years ago. my sons sat often in sinterklaas' lap to tell him what they would like to get. i saw only 4 zwarte pieten, the old guy's helpers. it was really a downer. people do celebrate the event on the evening of the 5th still in a big way, bigger than christmas. when i flew back to switzerland, my big sons for the evening 'believed' again. they will do anything to get a gift. i recall the times that we celebrated it with another dutch family and other nights just my little family. so much excitement, frightened children hearing zwarte piet knock on the door. but now sinterklaas is out of the door and we are getting ready for xmas. in holland it is usually not celebrated with gifts. it is a day for love and world peace. having a german mom, i was a lucky girl that i got gifts twice in december. we also do xmas for our family, but not in such a lavish way as sinterklaas. my sons know that. people will ask me what dutch people eat traditionally on the 25th. i haven't got a clue.....rabbit? my mother always did 'chicken fondue' with broth on the 24th, very easy always does it;) decorations are up now. the next thing we will do is starting to think about dinner. for a couple of years we did nothing. 3 days of pj's, xmas movies and leftovers. heaven! this year i thought it would be nice to have the inlaws over(for them, they are getting old)....i might regret it...not because of this extended family, but because i hate having to do to much. a lot of work for what? my dinner would be a bottle of wine accompanied by a piece of cheese. i am also born with the dna easy does it. but no it will not be like that:( hubby dear and his mother have been talking. i had to bring 'gerookte paling'(smoked eel) from the fish guy on the 'albert cuyp' market in amsterdam. they blabbered on about in what way he should cook the shrimp. cold or warm shrimp, that is still the question. we have to have something not fish based for the boys who do little fish. i am famous for my pies.....so you can imagine what i have to do. i will be glad when that night is over. and then we will live up to the 31st. 'oliebollen', tradional dutch sweet grease balls(yes we do have a dutch cuisine), delicious, i might think about it to make them. and what we will be doing that evening.....i am famous for going to bed at 10. i don't give a d... about that evening. new year...same sh.. that is my motto. why should i wait up for that? anyway, i wish all of you happy holidays. a big 'smack' to you from dutchwomanabroad

having almost no one left in holland

2011-12-06T11:24:00.000-08:00

it is over, i am an orphan. no daddy, no mommy. all i have left is a house which i cannot keep, my two lovely cousins twice removed and my childhood friend. i am not counting other family all twice or more removed, they are not in my life. when my mother told me she was ill in february 2011 one of my first thoughts was 'if you go, what will i do? you are my great support and my connection to holland'. the poor thing was hospitalized for almost 5 months and in august 2011 she finally found her resting place. during this time i flew more then usual to holland. i have always had a lot of homesickness. i just like holland more than switzerland. but since big love will not move up north, i am stuck here. i told him, if i would have known ahead how i feel now, i would never have left my country of birth. when i go back now, like last week, i enjoy being there more then before. it is as if i would go there for the last time and i have to take in every thing as it would be the last time. i know that my country will be my country for always, even if things change. and change is not always for the worse. i will just look forward and see what the future will bring me.

reading a book about 'the dutchwoman'

2011-11-23T12:35:00.000-08:00

on my last trip to holland, i went as usual into a bookstore, and found just the book i wanted....a book i did not know existed! 'het poldermodel - de nederlandse vrouw', 'the poldermodel - the dutchwoman' by female writer santje kramer. the writer interviewed men and women from foreign countries who live in holland for this book( i am always on the look out for books about holland and its inhabitants. it helps me to get rid off or to stimulate my homesickness, whatever the day asks for). foreigners see the dutchwoman as one drressed in jeans, with crocs or uggs on their feet or any kind of flat shoe like boots(big favorite), equal to a man as in having a strong caracter, not working a lot, keeping hair short, talks like a construction worker and is not capable of flirting. i wrote the next email to the writer as a response to her work.

dear santje,
i can tell you something, come and have a look in ticino! the women there are not dressed to their best. you would think the swiss would have the money to buy nice things and the italian influence in ticino would make the fashion sence come up.... but no! crocs are a big thing here, the whole family walks around on them. most women are color blind. and if you drop by at someone's house after working hours they are lying around in sportwear which has known better days. during the weekend the whole family, grandparents, kids, everyone, walk around in 'think pink' matching sets. when i am in holland, i would not even think to dress in that way and walk around in the streets. it is not done! you will be gapped at. me, a girl from the hague, and one of my 'big city' girlfriend here from geneva, have talked about this. we started down dressing:( . we will be stared at when we go around in a short skirt, nice tights, highheeled boots, scarf, sunglasses. women might be staring out of jealousy and men will be licking their lips. and then all those women who walk around like hippies: black potatoe sack, hennaed hair, one short and one long earring. gross! the only woman i know where you can ring the bell at 7 in the morning and she will be dressed up to the nines, is a dutch friend living just down the road. and what i missed in the book was the jeanjacket. that catches more my eye than the jeans.

looking forward to all your responses, or thru this page or by email to dutchwomanabroad@gmail.com

see you soon!

what do you want in a wife or girlfriend

2011-11-22T12:44:00.000-08:00

talking to my nephew gained by pairing up with his uncle, we came to talk about life as a couple. this nephew is very worldwise. his english is poor, but he gets around by using hands and feet comunicating with everyone. he is still living in ticino, but his view is very opened up. he has traveled around the world. we got into a personal discussion about being part of a couple. he is a smart looking guy. watches the way he dresses, and keeps in shape. the right guy if i would have a daughter and this daughter would not be his niece:). he is end twenties and i asked if he had a girlfriend, his answer was 'no'. all the girls from ticino he has gone out with, have been very disturbing about him meeting up with his friends. always badgering and being jealous. i told him get a dutch girlfriend! well, maybe it is only me between dutch girls, but i am am quite cool about laws between lovers. not that i would appreciate it if my big love would get himself a girl on the side, but i see that he has his needs to be in male company. last saturday we had an invitation for diner of one of his friends. and when i found i found out it was only male company, i just let him go by himself. ofcourse he could abuse the situation, but i believe he will not. my big love bought a big house up on top of a mountain more or less and there is lots to do. so most weekends he will be away and have some friends join him for work and play. i see that he needs male company as i need female company, and we have to let the other one go sometimes. this is not very customary in the relationships i see around me. there is often a payback requested. is this habitual in other countries? i think in holland people are more open to let the other one do what he/she needs, but maybe i am wrong.

getting back on track writing while being by myself

2011-08-12T11:53:00.000-07:00

i left my dutch blogsite, does not function very well anymore. so i am back here. have do get back to writing about my life. eventhough maybe no one is interested:)

on my own at home. it has been ages, if i do not count the night hubby was in the mountain house and the boys were camping out on the mountain behind our house. i am on my own, with all the animals, for 10 days. it is so strange. the men went out on an all male vacation, sailing in croatia with friends. i feel a bit lost.

it has been almost 2 years that i haven't been writing my blog and i can tell you in those two years i have been getting better with being stuck in the necks of the woods, a small village in ticino. eventhough my ties to holland are still very good, i am more laid back and feel much more at home in this part of the world. must be aging;)

getting back to talk about being home alone. how many times are there that i think, i wish i would be just living on my own again, having no one to worry about but myself. but now, 10 whole days just on my own. how will i fill up those days? walk the dog, doing some housework, getting my adminstration done and then there is lots of time left. reading a book, that gets boring also after a couple of hours. this summer has not been that good, so i think going to river and have a swim must be out of the question. but maybe i will go. and then i will have loads of time to rethink my blog and see in what direction it will go.

take care, bye

being back on my turf

2009-07-02T06:08:00.000-07:00

i have been one week in the netherlands at this moment, i enjoy being back. had some time with my family and friends, and it was just like in the old days. not being about the whole year doesn't really make a difference, we just pick up where we have left off. for me it is so relaxing being on my turf in some kind of way. i had a very nice encounter yesterday. i was doing some shopping therapy and there was this girl(okay, lady) getting on the mobile staircase and i just had to call her "l.......". she turned around and she just said"hi, l......"(meeting someone in a city of 117.000 isn't very obvious and she lives elsewhere). i have been seeing this old friend on photos of my rowing career in the haque whenever i open my album. i had been thinking of her once in a while. and there she was. exchanging a few words and we were so familiar again. and for sure we'll meet up on my next trip to holland, in october. yes, i am already planning and just a weekend won't be enough. i feel i do not see my mother often enough and i think for me it's important to keep up friendships for when i am older and do not have any close family left. tomorrow we go up north to my cousins house for a couple of days and then we will head back south. and that'll be fine also. then i will spend many evenings talking and thinking about what i did in my home country. and probably someone dutch will drop by on their vacation. i feel whole again.

a dutch woman in the ticino summer

2009-06-23T00:18:00.000-07:00

this is my 17th summer in ticino. when i first came here i was so overwhelmed by the great weather. those july nights sitting at a bar in the piazza until very late without freezing like i was used to in holland(or maybe it was just the fuel i poored down that kept me warm?). without opening the curtains in the morning one would know the weather would be perfect, one could smell the sun in the air. it was very easy to get used to the temperature and not having to bring an umbrella where ever i would go in case of a little summer shower. then in august there would be a change in the weather. still warm but thunderstorms almost every night with rain pooring down like it would be the last day of the earth. and then the next day it would be hot again. ofcourse every year would be a bit different. when the boys were very small, i can recall that some days we just couldn't get out of the house because of the rain, which wasn't bad at times. but the summer would be nice and warm. then we had the hot summers like 2004, everyday over 35 degrees. those are the only ones people around here recall, and they will tell you it was always like that, in the old days(which isn't correct, i checked with a meteoman i know!). last year's summer was 5 days of sun and two days of rain. my sons and their friends didn't mind, doing a day inside with lego, computers, and doing whatever wasn't bad. being inside with rain felt like relaxing to them(those were their words!). and now the summer of 2009. yesterday i started to prepare my suitcase for going to the netherlands. and all my nice summer tops were still in a box waiting for the good weather to arrive. i have loads of sundresses and skirts which are hanging in my closet and would surely like to be worn. BUT WHEN??????? my legs are a little tanned thanks to tennis and a selftanning lotion. but i keep having to cover them up because of cloudy weather. and if it is finally a day with sun there is a hurricane wind. luckily i didn't come and stay here for the nice weather like many foreigners, because the way it is now i could just as well live in holland.

finally going home!

2009-06-12T10:54:00.000-07:00

it has been decided a couple of days ago: i am going home with the boys(as in sons)! we are leaving in 10 days. i am so happy(i am sitting here, clapping my hands like a small child). it was august last year that i was walking on dutch soil! in my mind i am already in the car motoring along the 'route du soleil' in france, like between metz and thionville, going up and over the rolling hills. i am getting more and more hyper. making lists of what to buy, and that's why we go by car. on the aeroplane i always have trouble with being 'overweighed' a kilo or 20. i have to buy 'drop'(licorice as you can nowhere buy it), hagelslag(chocolate sprinkles to put on bread), tomatosoup, rookworst(smoked sausage), tea, tulip bulbs, etc., etc. i have to go to the gardencenter intratuin to buy stuff, a.k.a. things that will be cute, gather dust and are not very necessary for my hubby, but oh so nice for making my home and garden 'gezellig'(meaning cozy, but even better!). i have to buy clothes that are my style. i change books with my bookfriend(there are always 2 bags each filled with exactly ten books going back and forth). i am looking in the internet to decide with the boys where we will go and what we will see. we have our ceremonies, our things that we do there. like riding our bikes after diner about the city or walking and looking into peoples lives thru their windows(we dutch don't do curtains). we go to the different playgrounds, inside and outside. we are going to visit two cousins and their families. i am sooooo haaaaapy!!!!!! i will sit with my cousins for hours, sipping tea and talking loads, that'll be sooooo nice! talking about the past and whatever is going on now. i really miss my people and my country. i wish i could go there every weekend, but that would be to expensive. i like living where i live, but i miss 'my things' from back home!

tennis and thighs

2009-06-12T10:11:00.000-07:00

i just started, after a thousand years, to play tennis again. i found my racket which i must have been bought over 15 years ago and it still does the job. there are some nice ladies with whom i try to get the ball across the net. i love doing sports, and this is a nice way for me to be in touch with women from 'le terre di pedemonte', the spot i live in. i don't like playing inside. for me the surrounding of the small tennisclub is a big plus: trees, mountains, a relaxing area. one of my friends is already calling our threesome 'the desperate housewives of pedemonte'. i think that's cute, since we're all doing the housewive stuff as a second job. the thing where i wanted to get to is the next: when you have a good look around the tenniscourts, there is one thing very strange if you think about it. isn't it that all women are very anxious about the way they look. at christmas lots of us have been totally pigging out. so then comes new year and we make a resolution: from january first we are going on a diet. how many get thru the first month? then comes easter with loads of goodies. we eat and eat. and when the first warm weather is hitting us, we get very aware of what there is still to do before fitting into a bikini. so we worry, we pinch our cellulite, we cry, we scream, we go to fitness centers. where would women show themselves in 'that' shape? not near a swimmingpool or on the beach, no way! but strangely at the tenniscourt they do. it seems that there is absolutely no shame. every woman wears a short skirt, and i don't mean a skirt above the knee. no, i mean a skirt where you can see the underwear without the woman having to bend over! and nobody is ashamed or selfconscious. you see your skinnyminnie-dried out-overtanned legs, the cottagecheese-jello-wobbly thighs, the spidervain legs, the milk white thighs, the rhino butt, the hairy extremities, and whatever else there is. and nobody gives a damn, it's like a turned around world. but at least there is one place where we can be ourselves without being tough on us that we are not good enough(even the perfect ones usually moan). hear, hear for the tenniscourts and the freedom of womens thighs!
by the way, i, DWA, wear shorts. i don't want to bother looking for perfect undies to wear. (when i was small i had the tennisundies with lace frills on the backside!) the shorts aren't for estetic reasons. they have great pockets to stuff 3 balls each. i don't like balls in my underwear, i'd rather have something else there:)

to marry or not to marry

2009-05-31T10:44:00.000-07:00

TALKING WITH MY YOUNGEST SON

i have to drive my youngest son to school, which takes us a long 45 minutes, he almost always has an argument to dive into. the other day he asked about matrimony. he always chooses difficult things to talk about, where i think 'can't we just discuss the weather or family activities?'. so the other day it was matrimony. 'why do you have to pay to be married?'. 'because someone has to write papers'. 'how many papers?' 'one or two.'. 'why does that cost so much?'. 'i don't know, someone wants to get rich?'. 'can't you do it for free?'. 'i don't think so'. then we got to talk about marriage. and i was very upfront to him. i said for a man, as i see it, it is a big mistake. i see to many couples around me where there is a divorce and then the man totally has to give up the possibility of creating another life for himself. he has to pay not only for the children, which ofcourse should be the case, but also for the wife. and the dear man has nothing left to make a 'new life' with. you might know these women who will tell the judge that they have to take care of children who are already overripe. she doesn't want to lift a finger, because he once loved her, and she probably loved him, and they promised to be together in good times and in bad, so now he has to pay. ofcourse there are many men who misbehaved and the woman has a good reason to divorce. but there are also situations where two persons just don't work enough to try and work things out. and then 'boom,we'll divorce'. i probably had sex with too many men, but it seems like i found the right one(we'll see in another 30 years:). my dear old granny said to me once "if you go to the market to buy fruit, don't turn to the first fruitstall, but go around and see what there is and try which one sells the best fruit". for a 90 year old she was very forward. where i live now, maybe everywhere it's like that, i see people who get together at the tender age of between 15 and 18 and stay together forever(whatever that means). it seems that there is the big search for the one, and when some person who seems a bit more interested arrives, 'trackate'(a ticinese dialect expression) we are a couple and won't get seperated. i just don't get it. maybe because i am DUTCH and we might have a different view, more relaxed and more open. surely also lots of dutch people are young loves forever, but some are more open to possibilities. the point i just wanted to get across to my boy was 'don't get married because you might get fried'. i don't want my son to have to suffer a mistake he might make for the rest of his life. his father and i live together for 15 years, we don't have any piece of paper to prove that we are a couple, and the day we might separate we'll see whatever comes. i want my son the be without burdens. in the world (ticino) where we live i see to many women who profit from a divorce, not being 'big enough' to take the opportunity to fend for themselves, most of them are like parasites, taking everything there is to take. i will see in a couple of years if the talk we had remained in his memory or if he does it the way he wants to. i just don't want him to get hurt.