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02/07/2008 at 22:51
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I've made very little progress understanding Dutch in the nearly three months we've been here, so I'm excited to start language lessons soon. Yesterday I met with a tutor to do a quick analysis of how I learn languagues and figure out where we should start. I didn't really learn any new words or phrases during the brief meeting but I did pick up two little darlings of Dutch culture to file away.
1.) When a Dutch person says "let's drink a cup of coffee" it may be a metaphor for "let's talk about something important" or "let's figure out a problem." I find it funny and ironic, that a culture well known for being very direct, uses the most abundant activity in this country (drinking coffee) as a symbol for 'cutting to the chase.' I don't even know why they bother to call it coffee. If you want to go to a 'coffeeshop' you're most likely not going to find any coffee. Just juice and Mary Jane. And as of yesterday, you can't even smoke (tobacco) there anymore. No worries, you can still inhale up to five grams of pure ganja.
2.) When someone offers you the warm brown beverage it often comes with a cookie. Be sure to only take one and put the lid back on the cookie box (apparently they don't use a jar nor do they like stale cookies). The coffee to cookie ratio is 1:1. If you want two cookies you have to drink two cups of coffee. I don't really care for coffee nor cookies. "No thanks, I don't like coffee," I usually respond. I'll be modifying this stock answer when offered coffee in the future though. It's important to say, "No thank you, maybe later," because in addition to being a metaphor, coffee is also a welcoming agent. Offering coffee is like saying, "please make yourself at home."