1. You should greet friends (and even acquaintances) with 3 kisses –I am trying to instate just one. Enough is enough already.
2. You should bring cake (or treats) to work for your colleagues in two instances 1) your birthday 2) if you are late –this can be quite costly : )
3. At a typical Dutch housewarming or birthday you should congratulate everyone in attendance ("gefeliciteerd") –I was at a friends housewarming a few weekends ago and attempted to ask an explanation for this, but the only response I could drum up was “tradition”. Still puzzled.
4. The Dutch love their deep fried treats. My personal favourite is the deep fried unidentifiable meat pressed into the shape of spare ribs –if you haven’t seen this one yet, stop by my work cafeteria any day!
5. A typical Dutch lunch consists of a carton of karnemelk (read: sour milk), 4 pieces of bread, a slice of meat and some cheese.
6. The average Dutch will eat four kilos of drop per year (Drop is a shockingly fowl-tasting version of black liquorice. I dare anyone to eat 4 kilos of it!)
7. One fifth of Holland’s population is of foreign descent. Something they haven’t quite come to terms with yet.
8. Bathtubs are not uncommon, but definetly not a standard fixture of all apartments.
9. There are over 600,000 bicycles in Amsterdam. That’s almost one per person.
10. Only 5% of the prostitutes found in de Wallen (Amsterdam’s Red Light district) were born in the Netherlands.
11. 78% of the Dutch population have “no problems whatsoever with prostitution”
12. When you order a soda water, ice tea, or white beer your drink will come with a lemon and a stampertjes—a stir stick with a disc at the bottom to crush your lemon. Brilliant invention, why is this only in Holland?!
13. There are over 10,000 woonboten (houseboats) in Holland.
14. And shocker of shockers...the clog isn’t a Dutch invention!
