Cultural Learnings Of… Everything About The Nederlands

Hup Holland! This week I am in Amsterdam and what better time to be here! With the UEFA Euro 2008 competition on right now, every is out for a party and last night Nederlands beat Italy 3-0 and they went APE SHIT. Fuck it, I WENT APE SHIT. Take that you bunch of actresses! Its little comfort for our, still stinging loss to Italy 2 years ago but it helps. Beside, that have a player called "Buffon". Buffoon more like it. yeah thats right, take my razor sharp gibes as you run back to mumma.

So Amsterdam is going off right now, its a sea of Orankje and the vibe is good. Its fun to walk around and watch all the kiddies getting stoned in the coffee shops, walking around with red faces looking for the closest pizza shop. I think the Dutch are mega smart, they got all the countries riff raff, put them right in the center of town, leaglised some good shit and then turned it all into a huge money spinning tourist attraction. Thats some freaky deaky dutch thinking alright. Speaking of freaky deaky, im the only douche who after a long day, gets off  the train at Amsterdam Centraal and thinks to myself "wow, what a strange smell, it kind of smells like pot….. OH RIGHT I REMEMBER WHERE I AM NOW". Right.

Since I am here, enjoying all the Euro 2008 games, i felt it no better time to go through why Nederlands is cool. They strike me as an "aloof" people, which in my book means relaxed with a kind of cool quirkiness to them. They are friggin tall too, i thought all those ones had migrated north years ago.

So whats cool about the dutch? STEREOTYPES! Oh man, this country is full of them, lets break them down because pop culture, LOVES the dutch.

Some easy ones

* They love tulips, lots of flowers everywhere

* They wear wooden shoes around the place. Its common place in the center of Amsterdam. You will see business guys in suits, wearing wooden shoes. i swear to god. while riding a bike too..

* They ride bikes everywhere. They is one person for about every 10 bikes in the city. the Dutch hate to walk, its gotta be two wheels or nothing (or indeed "fly", see points made below about coffee shops)

* Windmills. Every dutch person lives in a windmill although since they are all connected to broadband and everyone has a job as an internet millionaire, they have forgotten exactly what the windmills were used for.

hmmm boring, lets get better

* They smoke drugs all day long. High as kites. I tell ya.  You can sit around smoking in cafes all day

* They are kinky and cant get enough sex. Did someone say VANDERSEXXX? You can buy sex in the street, big, small, any color, its yours.

* They have a weird floobidy doobidy language, heres a typical dutch word written down

* They put mayonnaise on their fries and they fucken drown em in that shit. Actually i can get behind that in a big way.

* You can buy a beer at mcdonalds. thats right, a BEER AT MCDONALDS. ( i have no idea if this is still true)

* Gay marriage is legal and they run around the streets going wild.

I am staying at a small guesthouse right in the center of town. Its kind of nice inside, has a good window which is great at 3pm to catch the afternoon sun however not so good at 1am when the trams keep on rumbling past

Thats Centraal station right there. Top location. The place is run by a lovely lady call Monique whos family comes from Suriname, which is the former Dutch Guiana so they all got EU passports before independance. Dammit, how come they can get them and I cant. Anyway, its a cool place and I am sure Monquie would like me to mention that if you find yourself in Amsterdam, do be sure to pop into the Popeye Coffeeshop on Haarlemmerstraat because her uncle owns the place. How many of you can say your relos do that eh?

By Louis Zezeran

Louis Zezeran is an Australian Stand Up comedian and comedy promoter based in Tallinn, Estonia. He was the co-founder of Comedy Estonia, Comedy Finland and Comedy Latvia. Louis writes, does gigs and performs at private events through the Baltics and Finland

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