Hallo up there

I'm now in the Netherlands, reading for orals met koffie while Jo attends a conference. Things here are almost too serene - the only places I associate with schoolwork are Hyde Park, Chicago and lower Manhattan, so sitting with a book by a canal just seemed bizarre, but in a good way. Although tomorrow I may have to turn the two-mile (each way) walk to the center into a jog, to up the reading-to-sightseeing ratio. It is truly lovely here (and not just because of the giant HEMA, to which I will no doubt return...), so it should be a good week.

You knew this was coming: I keep looking for clues in the food here as to why people here are ridiculously tall, even, it seems, compared to Belgians. Last night, upon arrival, Jo and I had some truly awful hamburgers that many Dutch people seemed to be enjoying (an acquired taste?) at a fast food place that specializes in sustainability, and has pictures of cows on the walls. There were so many cows staring at us that between those pictures, the (real-) cow-filled pasture next to the conference hotel, and the horribleness of the aforementioned hamburgers, I'm considering vegetarianism. Then again, the muesli cereal I bought to compensate: also verging on inedible.

The lunch I assembled for myself via the supermarket - gouda on a couple of wheat rolls - tasted very... nutritious. Not the gouda - that just tasted like gouda in the States, only fresher - but the roll. It had this vitamin-y aftertaste that prevented me from finishing the second roll. (No tragedy - I'd prepared for the possible failure of the sandwich with additional purchases of fruit and chocolate). But perhaps the aftertaste comes from the mysterious height-inducing substance? I did eat most of the two rolls, so we shall see.

Linguistically, the Dutch-Flemish thing is confusing me to no end. When Jo speaks his native language here, even at length, people reply in English. Is it that they've heard us speaking English? Sometimes, but not always. That Jo has brown rather than blond hair, and is 6'2" rather than 7'2", as is usual here? Perhaps. Other possibilities include the tendency for store and café signs, even in places I can't imagine cater to tourists or other international types, to be in English - perhaps all formal interaction with people who even might not be Dutch takes place in English? Or is Flemish really that different from Dutch? The sound of the two languages (two accents?) is noticeably different to me, someone who at this point understands some Flemish, just about no Dutch, and can only express coffee-related concerns in either, while despite knowing French, I'm still not convinced I'd hear any difference between the French in Paris and in Brussels.

That's enough of that. Now, back to 1870 Paris, where no doubt people were closer to my size.