Treatise on the Netherlands

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Painting

I see many people painting their houses, fences, etc. Most houses are brick so there isn't much to paint. But people seem to keep things very tidy and nice looking here. So they don't seem to like any trim on the houses to look as if they aren't well maintained. But on the other side of things there is a ton of great graffiti. It is illegal to do graffiti but there are special legal places to paint. I've really been impressed with the street art and it so cool that is changes everyday. Sometimes really great art gets painted over and someone puts up crap. There is something liberating about both enjoying and destroying art. Like Vishnu and Shiva, something is always born again.

Transportation

The transportation systems here are quite amazing. I can travel to almost any city by train. They are fast, leave often, relatively inexpensive (12 euro round trip to Amsterdam - 1 hour each way), alot of them run through the night, there are bullet train connections to other countries, and the train stations are easily navigated and there are multilingual info desks everywhere. There are buses and trams to connect to anywhere that trains can't go and when the distance is short. One pass allows you to travel on all both trams and buses. These are frequent and easy to understand. Maps and schedules are everywhere. There is a website that you can type in a destination, starting point and time and it gives you the full directions to go by public transportation, how much it costs and how long the travel is. It is very easy to live here without a car and to use public transportation. There are even these taxis that leave from the train station with multiple people take you directly to your door in some rural areas; all included in your ticket price. There are highways that connect cities for cars, but cars are highly discouraged. It is impossible to find or afford parking in city centers and the infrastructure is always designed to favor pedestrians and bicyclists. More on this in another section...

Organization

The Dutch are highly organized people, more so than I have ever seen. There is a process and form for everything which is sometimes time consuming and annoying, but things seem to work pretty well. People's homes and businesses always seem to be very tidy with little clutter. It took me over a month to get a bank account simply because of all the bureaucracy and paperwork you have to go through. That was a bit annoying. You can walk in to a bank and get an account the day of with almost no questions asked in the states. Not having a bank account made things really difficult.

Cleanliness
The streets are really clean. There isn't much dirt or trash anywhere. All public places and businesses seem super tidy. My roommate commented that an ATM room was dirty. There were about two receipts lying in the floor. I wonder where they hide all the trash. I like a little bit of grime. San Francisco is appealing to me because it isn't clean. It doesn't even seem like people really live here some times. They have machines to remove the grass and stuff that is inbetween each and every cobblestone in the roads. And there are lots of cobblestone roads.

Fraternities (studentenverening)
TU Delft is famous for its fraternity/sorority groups. The biggest one is over 1500 people and is like 100 years old. They own lots of good housing in the city. They are quite exclusive and do a ton of hazing. Most every student seems to join these groups. You are somewhat of an outcast if you don't join the frats and are socially disconnected. You are even allowed into the frat parties unless you are in the frat or a guest. Frat members can only bring one guest to the parties. The frats seem similar to the ones in the states and I am not that impressed much. Although they do run these cafeteria things where you can get really cheap food. I think the students must cook and they have a big mess hall that you can get a big meal for under 4 euros.

Technical University of Delft
I've been quite impressed with the university. It is like the MIT of Europe or something. There are only technical subjects here (but architecture and industrial design with technical emphasis). A bachelor's degree takes 3 years and a master is another 2. There are no general ed requirements, no history, language, biology, social sciences, etc. So the students are a bit one sided. PhD's are not considered students and don't take classes. They earn a salary and are considered and employee of the university. I get a bunch of perks for being a PhD. I am treated more like an employee. The university seems to have a lot of money to spend. There is a lot of impressive facilities and equipment. I like walking through the buildings because none of the labs are close visually. They all have big windows so you can peek in and see the research that's going on. At Davis you have no idea what is going on behind the doors. Here it is like an open house whenever you walk around. The student machine shops and workspaces are big and full of tons of sweet tools. Delft seems to make sure the students get a lot of practical experience making things work and building things. Classes are different. You typically go to lecture for 6 weeks and then take one test at the end to pass. The test can even be an oral test.

Food (eten)

French fries with mayonnaise is the favorite street food and late night snack here. This comes as a side for all kinds of meals from pizza to steak. Lots of bread is eaten here. Bread for breakfast and bread for lunch are typical. No one eats warm meals except for dinner. The bread typically has meat, some kind of spread (maybe egg salad or something) and cheese. But plenty of people eat dry bread too. Croissants are a big favorite too. There are tons of coffee breaks. I think the Dutch drink more coffee per capita than most other countries. Potatoes, meat and veggies is a typical dinner and it is rather bland. The veggies in the supermarkets look cloned. They are all perfect looking and the same size and shape. It weirds me out a bit.

Bicycles (fietsen)
The bicycle infrastructure and amount of bicycles here is absolutely unbelievable. I wasn't as shocked as many people may be since Davis is so similar and I have been reading about things here for quite some time. Things that really impress me are that all the bike paths are separate from the car roads, but run alongside almost every single road. There are separate pedestrian facilities also. There are even like intercity bike ways that are well marked and it is so easy to go from city to city by bike. I rarely take a map, because it is so easy to get back on the right path. I love seeing all the different types of commuting bikes. They are made to carry all kinds of people and goods. I love the fact that so many old people ride bike too. It is such an integral part of life. The most amazing thing is just how normal a bicycle is. Everything is close here in the Netherlands and the land is flat so it is perfect for cycling in that sense, but the weather is not even close to ideal for bicycle riding. The wind is intense, it gets cold and it rains a lot. But people still choose the bicycle often. Hopefully I can bring back some insight to why this is.

Delft
Delft is a cute town. It is very old and has many ancient buildings, a leaning old church and a super tall new church. There are canals, boats and tons of draw bridges. The roads are all brick and cobblestone. Cars are really allowed much in the city center. it is very pleasant, but a potentially a bit boring. Students seem to leave the place on weekends and I haven't found a good music scene or anything yet. Delft has a population of about 100,000 and it isn't dominated by the university here. It has a pretty good mix of people, but primarily families with children and elderly live here. The youth scene is dominated by the students. I like seeing more older folks, you never see any in Davis. There is always something interesting going on in the city square. Since I've been here there has been something different each weekend, from a stolen bicycle display with like 1000 bikes, a Gypsy traveling show, a fair, the square was covered in sand to play some kind of ball game, etc. I've enjoyed them all.

Drugs (drugs)
Getting soft drugs is as simple as walking out your door and around the block into a coffeshop (cafe type place), looking through a menu of weed, hash and shrooms, then telling the barista what you would like. People can take it home or use it there. There is no shady business about it. There is no crime associated with it. Nobody really cares much about it. These drugs are technically illegal, but the law is such that there is tacit approval. And nobody is given a hard time about it. The prisons aren't full of people that were just possessing or selling dope, like the states is. Even, hard drug users are not considered as criminals but simply people that have an medical condition. The government provides rehabilitation for addicts and even provides these drugs to users who aren't easily rehabilitated. This also decreases the amount of crime associated with addicts trying to get money to keep their addiction fueled. It also makes it safe and hygienic to do the drugs.

Red Light District (walle0
Prostitution is legal and highly controlled. Each major town has a red light district and women are allowed to start their businesses there. There are strict laws on sanitation and hygiene. The government keeps and eye on things and the amount of pimps and women doing it unwillingly is minimized. Prostitution, just like drug use, is going to happen no matter how many laws are made and how bad the punishment is. The Dutch government takes the position that if you can't beat it, you can still regulate it.

Squatting (kraak)
If a building is empty for over a year then people can legally squat it. You move into the house, change the locks, set up a bed, get utilities and then call the police to come document that you have moved in. You then have the legal right to live in the house and potentially obtain ownership. This is to reduce the amount of empty wasted housing. The eviction laws are super nice here. You basically can't be evicted even if you don't own the place. It falls under some kind of keeping the peace accord. Some squats in Amsterdam have restaurants and bars in them and house tons of people. I've already found a sweet empty building in Delft. I am slowly learning more, so maybe I will own some property before I leave here.

Finding a room (vind een kamer)
This is a painful process in Delft. First of all there aren't enough rooms available in Delft for all the students. There are quite a few students that have to travel from their parents home the first 1 or 2 years at the University. The University does not have dormitories for first year students. Second of all, the fraternities seem to have a hold over most of the best housing. If you join a fraternity you will automatically get a room in the many frat houses. Thirdly, international masters students can have housing arranged before they come but it is quite expensive and not very good housing. I decided to just show up and see what happened. Couchsurfing.com was a good resource for the first places to stay. I then eventually met other people for temporary places to stay.I had an interesting experience when I friend of a friend gave me the key to an apartment that he was subletting a room in. I moved in and took the room that I thought was his. After a few days of staying there a guy came home to find me sleeping in his bed and using his room. I wasn't expecting to find some random person in his house. It was a bit awkward for a while. Turned out the guy that gave me the key didn't really have permission to do that and didn't really tell anyone. They were nice though and let me stay for a couple more days. Couchsurfing got old quick because I couldn't settle down. I was also attending these interview meetings which are the typical way that people choose new roommates. These meetings were very intense. First of all you have to email or call the people advertising the rooms and give them a little spill about yourself. They typically receive from 50 to 100 responses to the room advertisements. Then they narrow the group down to 15 to 40 people and invite them all to the house at one time. They then give each person a few minutes to tell about themselves. It is such a weird environment because you have to try to sound cool and interesting but not over do it. The funniest one that I went to was at the big 18 person student house. The asked two questions to eliminate people: What music to you listen to? and What sports do you play? It is highly competitive and it is very stressful and taxing. The meetings last up to 4 hours sometimes. After everyone tells their tale then the eliminate most of the group. Usually 4 or so remain. Then you really have to make sure you are on your toes. You have to make sure you personally meet each roommate and make some kind of connection. Sometimes beer is provided so people will be a bit more open, but that is expensive. Most of the time only coffee is provided. After you go to about 5 of these it really burns you out, especially if you make it to the end selection and you feel like you are so close to getting the room. I ended up giving up in some sense because I was tired of couch surfing and couldn't get selected for a cool room. I took a room with a Dutch guy who is quite different from me and he is obsessive about cleanliness and organization. Hopefully this will be ok, but I am still checking other options.

Language (taal)
I've been taking Dutch classes. It is nice to start to understand what is going on around you and what signs mean and what the newspaper says. The method that the class uses is without grammar lessons. We simply listen to cds and try to repeat what is said with only definitions of words in English available (or your mother tongue). We speak to the teacher and each other in class and take listening tests. You are supposed to just pick up the grammar, we don't really learn any explicit rules. It is interesting and seems to be effective, although I feel like I could communicate more in Spanish after a couple of months study in a traditional grammar based learning than I have here. This may be because I had to speak Spanish much more. Almost everyone in the Netherlands speaks very good English so this makes things hard. Only 25 million people in the world speak Dutch, so I don't know how useful it will be afterwards, but it never hurts to learn a new language.

Homeless
The government provides minimal housing and food to everyone. I haven't seen any homeless people in any city the entire time I've been here. I think the only homeless are sometimes mentally disabled and have a difficult time staying in the free housing.

Dumpsters (containeren)
I began trying to figure out the trash system as soon as a got here. At first I couldn't find many things. The Dutch are also extremely organized and tidy at trash disposal. Most trash is locked up at businesses and impossible to get to. Much of the household trash and even business trash in the center of the city is deposited into these special containers. The containers are just openings to underground dumpsters that you can't access without a key or something. I did begin to find furniture though. Sometimes people throw out entire apartments out in the street when people move. The is nice. I've found most of the furniture for my room like this. It doesn't happen very often and you have to keep your eye out for things. I haven't seen any body digging in the trash anywhere and was unsure what people make of it or what cops might say. I finally met a guy through couchsurfing that heard that I liked diving. Turns out him and his friends have just recently be enlightened by an Australian girl about skipping (the Aussie word). They were excited to here that I did it in the states. They took me out and showed me a few sweet dumpsters for food. One was an international supermarket dumpster where we found loads of good vegetables.

Thrift stores (Kringloopwinkels) and Flea markets
Thrift stores are rather expensive. They sell the same type of crap we do in the states but and a much higher relative price. I have been a bit disappointed. There are some flea markets that have some cheaper prices, but you can't really bargain, which is unfortunate. The flea markets have some used clothing booths were everything is about 2 to 3 euros.

Farmer's markets (de markt)
There are three farmer's markets in Delft each week. Lot's of veggies, meat, cheese, clothes, flowers and other random things.

Weather (weer)
We had a few weeks of pretty good weather when I arrived, but now is getting colder, windier, wetter and darker. I have a hard time getting up in the morning and it is only going to get worse. It will be dark from 5pm to 9 am fairly soon.

Greenhouses
The Netherlands is one of the worlds top producers of agriculture and only like 5% of the population works in agriculture. Things are highly industrialized and mechanized and a ton of the food and flowers are grown in greenhouses. Click here for some perspective. Each of the white squares is a greenhouse. There are tons of these really nice indoor growing facilities and they even light them at night. The skies around my city look orange all through the night because of the greenhouse lights. How can you make any money on ag by building temperature controlled lit greenhouses?

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