A Zwarte Piet band in the parade.
Another Zwarte Piet band. Disturbing, isn't it?
The kids on this float think it's OK.
Here's the big deal - Sinter Klaas himself riding a white horse.
Wow, I can’t believe another week has already flow by! I meant to write a blog entry on Sunday, but it didn’t happen. Let’s catch up!
Saturday was the Sinter Klaas festival for Naarden. Naarden is a really cool city just a bit north of Bussum. The city is surrounded by canals making it like a small island, about five blocks long and three blocks wide. When they have a party, it’s like a huge street party. It’s much cooler than Bussum. Saturday night, Dennis and I bundled up against the cold and walked about 30 minutes to get to the center of Naarden. The streets were closed to car traffic and all lit up with Christmas lights. Kids were playing in the streets and parents were drinking mulled wine. We wandered around until we heard the parade starting up. Finding a nice spot on the sidewalk, we stood by to watch.
The parade was short like in most small towns. There were a couple of bands, a fire truck, about 5 floats with tons of kids on them, a group of Zwarte Piets throwing candy, and finally Sinter Klaas on his white horse.
Here’s another confusing Sinter Klaas fact: Sinter Klaas and Santa Klaus are two different people. Sinter Klass is a saint who was a real person. Santa Klaus is a fictitious character who represents the commercial side of Christmas. It seems that the Dutch and German immigrants to the US brought their Sinter Klaas traditions with them. Over the years, the traditions changed to become what we know today as American Christmas. More recently, the shops in the Netherlands have tried to get people to buy more stuff at Christmas and started using Santa Klaus in their advertising. So, Santa Klaus represents the commercial, American style Christmas. The whole thing is a bit like a dog chasing its tail!
Dennis and I spent much of this week in our Dutch language class. It was a three day immersion course for people with some knowledge of Dutch. There were four students total, so we got a lot of individualized attention, especially when the other guys were late! The class held in the teacher’s house in Bussum, so we were able to walk over. We sat at the kitchen table for the lessons and she even made lunch for us! We had to speak Dutch the whole time, which was very hard for me. The other two guys seemed to be able to say exactly what they wanted while I struggled for every word. Whenever we did exercises on paper, I seemed to do OK. From the Teach Yourself Dutch book, I had learned a lot of the grammar and spelling rules. And, since I took a lot of Spanish classes in high school, I have a basic understanding of how foreign languages work. One guy in the class was shocked to find out that you can’t just take an English sentence and translate every word. You actually have to start thinking in Dutch to get the right word order and idioms.
I got a lot of practice on speaking and the teacher gave us lots of things to do at home to keep learning. But the best part of the class was the teacher’s pets (as in cats and dog, not “teacher’s pets”). While we worked the little black cat, named Minnie, would sit on my lap and purr. The dog, a big black Labrador, would stick his graying nose in between me and Dennis to try to get some attention. I have been missing Lady recently, so it was nice to have a dog around. On the last day, the teacher took us out for a walk in the woods to get some fresh air while we working on verb conjugations. The dog was so excited to go along that he barked in the car the whole way to the woods.
Now that the Dutch classes are over, I need to start speaking Dutch at work. It’s been kind of nice to have a few days away from the office, but everyone knows I was at a Dutch class. I hope they don’t expect too much!
Saturday was the Sinter Klaas festival for Naarden. Naarden is a really cool city just a bit north of Bussum. The city is surrounded by canals making it like a small island, about five blocks long and three blocks wide. When they have a party, it’s like a huge street party. It’s much cooler than Bussum. Saturday night, Dennis and I bundled up against the cold and walked about 30 minutes to get to the center of Naarden. The streets were closed to car traffic and all lit up with Christmas lights. Kids were playing in the streets and parents were drinking mulled wine. We wandered around until we heard the parade starting up. Finding a nice spot on the sidewalk, we stood by to watch.
The parade was short like in most small towns. There were a couple of bands, a fire truck, about 5 floats with tons of kids on them, a group of Zwarte Piets throwing candy, and finally Sinter Klaas on his white horse.
Here’s another confusing Sinter Klaas fact: Sinter Klaas and Santa Klaus are two different people. Sinter Klass is a saint who was a real person. Santa Klaus is a fictitious character who represents the commercial side of Christmas. It seems that the Dutch and German immigrants to the US brought their Sinter Klaas traditions with them. Over the years, the traditions changed to become what we know today as American Christmas. More recently, the shops in the Netherlands have tried to get people to buy more stuff at Christmas and started using Santa Klaus in their advertising. So, Santa Klaus represents the commercial, American style Christmas. The whole thing is a bit like a dog chasing its tail!
Dennis and I spent much of this week in our Dutch language class. It was a three day immersion course for people with some knowledge of Dutch. There were four students total, so we got a lot of individualized attention, especially when the other guys were late! The class held in the teacher’s house in Bussum, so we were able to walk over. We sat at the kitchen table for the lessons and she even made lunch for us! We had to speak Dutch the whole time, which was very hard for me. The other two guys seemed to be able to say exactly what they wanted while I struggled for every word. Whenever we did exercises on paper, I seemed to do OK. From the Teach Yourself Dutch book, I had learned a lot of the grammar and spelling rules. And, since I took a lot of Spanish classes in high school, I have a basic understanding of how foreign languages work. One guy in the class was shocked to find out that you can’t just take an English sentence and translate every word. You actually have to start thinking in Dutch to get the right word order and idioms.
I got a lot of practice on speaking and the teacher gave us lots of things to do at home to keep learning. But the best part of the class was the teacher’s pets (as in cats and dog, not “teacher’s pets”). While we worked the little black cat, named Minnie, would sit on my lap and purr. The dog, a big black Labrador, would stick his graying nose in between me and Dennis to try to get some attention. I have been missing Lady recently, so it was nice to have a dog around. On the last day, the teacher took us out for a walk in the woods to get some fresh air while we working on verb conjugations. The dog was so excited to go along that he barked in the car the whole way to the woods.
Now that the Dutch classes are over, I need to start speaking Dutch at work. It’s been kind of nice to have a few days away from the office, but everyone knows I was at a Dutch class. I hope they don’t expect too much!
With the Thanksgiving holiday this week, it was a nice quiet week to be out of the office. We didn’t do anything special for Thanksgiving day, but I will cook some turkey drumsticks this weekend. I found out that I can order a whole turkey at the grocery store, but they normally don’t carry them until Christmas. It’s hard to get in the Thanksgiving mood when nobody else celebrates it. Even though the British people speak English, they don’t have Thanksgiving.
PS - I'm writing my blog while the repairman fixes the water heater. He was surprised that it held out for us and didn't quit working. But right now the heat is off and he's been going in and out so it's getting really COLD in here! I'm going to shut this off and put on my coat!
3 comments:
So, Sinter Klaas is a saint with an Ethiopian slave? Hmmm. I wonder if Santa Claus actually was derived from his name. There is too much similarity to be totally unrelated, don't you think? I think I need to look up the history of Santa Claus! Are you talking to Nova in Dutch now?
No, it's a Moroccan slave. I'd bet they are related too! Way too similar in name.
Hello,
Did you mentioned something about Dutch classes ? Could you give me phone number of it ? Cause i'm based next to that city. Thanks.
My email is ozelamibh@gmail.com
Greets,
Daniel
Post a Comment