In November this semester we had various spare days, so I was able to visit my Dutch friend, Bianca. We met each other in 2005. So I took off together with 2 other Belgian friends for 2 days to Venray in the Netherlands.

Some experiences were that although they speak the same language and ‘culture’, they differ so much from us, Belgians! They are more open and spontaneous. When I entered her home, her family was so welcoming, I already felt home. It is a normal house, like in Belgium. But their bathroom, it is so small; it wasn’t bigger than our toilet but it did contain a bath, shower and washbasin. You could hardly move in there.

But a thing which I found less is that they are more direct and often talk big. You can really see that they have a low-context language, their message is explicit. They often say what they think, for example my two friends and I are (by coincidence) blond, redhead and brunette, and when Bianca introduced us to some of her friends, the first thing they said was “hey, K3.”, with a strange tone. When I am introduced to someone I usually would be more ‘polite’ and say ‘Hello’ or ‘Welcome’. So I think their openness has advantages but also disadvantages.

Another thing that is typical for them is of course their Holland accent. Although we speak the same language, various words have another meaning, for example we say ‘wiet’ not only for ‘drugs’ but also for ‘onkruid’. They found these funny and said things like “jij rookt onkruid”. Another thing is, although they learned French at school, they are almost unable to say one word in French.

She told us several things, for example, secondary school is already done at sometimes 2, 3 and exceptionally 4 p.m. It is more relaxed there. While in Belgium we had to stay at school until 4 and sometimes 5 p.m. (except for Wednesday).

Further we had a drink, went to the cinema, and got a ‘guided tour’ throughout Venray… We had a pleasant time over there!