I almost feel embarrassed to write this post. It was very näive to believe that "you'll be fine, everyone speaks English" would mean that we'd be able to live life normally and get by with only English. I can't imagine what it would be like if we hadn't taken that conversational Dutch course last spring.

There is no doubt that it is quite easy to travel in Holland because it is true: Many people do speak SOME English. We just failed to realize that printed English would be virtually nonexistent. All of the signs are in Dutch, all of the forms and contracts are in Dutch, all of the words on the groceries are in Dutch, all of the menus are in Dutch, IKEA is even in Dutch. It is one thing to travel here, another to live here.

For instance, there is a sign in front of the bank that says "verboden om fiets voor vensters te parkeren". Now we can guess that "verboden" means "forbidden" and we know that "fiets" is bike. So we think it means the we can't park our bike in front of the bank. Except that there are 50 other bikes parked there, so what do we do? It turns out that they just don't want you to park your bike in front of the windows.

We also feel like the blind leading the blind when we go grocery shopping. It is one thing to recognize products - potatoes, carrots, soup, chips, pop, wine, beer - but when it comes to cooking instructions, your guess is as good as mine. And I had a really hard time finding the right type of cleaning products - if there wasn't a picture on the bottle, I might be cleaning the bathroom with oven cleaner!

We have definitely increased our vocabulary by just being here and getting around. It is like learning French in Canada by reading the back of the cereal box. I actually start a semi-intensive course next month, so by Christmas I should be in much better shape. And I purchased a Dutch dictionary which also helps.

Now, if we could just figure out the road signs, I think I'd start to like biking more...