observations III

November December

- when it starts to get cold, food stands for oliebollen (fried dough with powdered sugar) and belgian wafels pop up everywhere. People traditionally eat oliebollen on New Year's Eve. Cover pic is an olliebollen stand.

- at grocery stores, you can only pay with cash or Dutch debit card

- during November until December 5th, people give each other chocolate letters of your initials or S for Sinterklaas. I've gotten so many chocolate A's!

- You get a fine of about 150 euros if you don't have your bike lights on when it's dark

- You can also get a fine from an NS worker for not buying a train ticket. They do surprise checks on the train

- Everyone speaks English, especially in the cities like Amsterdam and Utrecht and den Haag and Rotterdam. There are some occasions where one of my Dutch friends have tried to speak in Dutch to people who work at stores or waiters at restaurants, but they have to switch English cause they don't speak Dutch.

- As it has gotten colder, more people are wearing heavier coats and now wear beanies and scarves. I was wearing a beanie in October bc it was pretty chilly, but my friend Roos said "Not yet." But now people don't say anything about me wearing my beanie, so I guess it's cold enough.

- On the train, there's first and second class and everyone follows the rules and sit where they paid to sit. The first class section is always empty and the second class seats are full a lot of the times.

- There's this tiktok account that videotapes people who are running around the train station because some train transfers are only a few minutes apart. The account is called "NS sprinters" which is funny because the trains are called the NSsprinter.

- Also, the trains are ALWAYS on time. On occasion, they are one or two minutes and late, and Dutch people find that extremely annoying.

- The first question a Dutch interviewer asked the captain after the NL lost their game in the world cup was "Why did you miss your penalty kick?" Brutal.