Worse, he is wearing a helmet and will be teased mercilessly by his peer
October 10, 2013 12:56 PM   Subscribe

Greg Shapiro presents Planet Nederland, not a BBC nature show, showing the Dutch in their native habitat. posted by MartinWisse (17 comments total) 27 users marked this as a favorite
 
This is amazing!

So once when I was crossing the border into Canada with a bunch of already high undergrads excited about VC bud and getting drunk under the table by some of the professors in our textbooks at a conference we were going to, something amazing happened. The border cop who walked up to our van to check us out offered to let us all simply place our passports on the windows of the van so we wouldn't all have to pile out and then back in again and yet still see that we had them before sending us on our merry way. Marveling at the unreasonable reasonableness of Canadians, we all at least attempted to comply when one student apparently just opened her passport to one of the useless middle pages. When our jolly border guard saw this he jogged back over to the drivers side window to explain this to the hapless student when, in a moment of instant recognition, she exclaimed: HOLY SHIT I'M SUCH AN IDIOT, HERE LET ME FLIP IT TO THE RIGHT PAGE. The border guard, without missing a beat, calmly looked her in the eye and mentioned that: "Its easier when you say it" before briefly checking our passports and waving us on our way.

I guess what I'm trying to say, Martin, is its easier when you post this.
posted by Blasdelb at 1:24 PM on October 10, 2013 [1 favorite]


Oh FEBO: the inspiration behind the law Never buy meat with coins
posted by The Whelk at 1:24 PM on October 10, 2013 [4 favorites]


I always thought this was the nederlandse feeding habit.
posted by Dumsnill at 1:33 PM on October 10, 2013 [1 favorite]


wy duz he keep sayin there going by feets when there on bikes
posted by George_Spiggott at 1:34 PM on October 10, 2013 [2 favorites]


"Vague Asians"
posted by gucci mane at 1:35 PM on October 10, 2013 [1 favorite]


FEBO is fantastic. I always take my out-of-town friends there to eat, there's one in the red light district in Amsterdam, so you get to two tourist sites for the price of one
posted by JiffyQ at 1:41 PM on October 10, 2013 [1 favorite]


I'm sure a similar movie can be made for every single country on this planet. Still, because this is about the country I grew up in, well, it makes it precious.

Dank je, Martin.
posted by DreamerFi at 1:47 PM on October 10, 2013 [2 favorites]


Having watched the John Fealey video on koninginnedag, I still don't know what koninginnedag is. (I mean, beyond being a holiday where they close the shops.)
posted by ocherdraco at 1:49 PM on October 10, 2013


Theoretically koninginnedag was about celebrating the birthday of the reigning monarch on April 30th, back when that was the birthday of Juliana. All that was going pretty well with Queen Juliana, who was loved by all, when her daughter Beatrix surprised the government when, on abdication of Juliana with her announcement that from that moment on, it would continue to be celebrated on April 30. Since her own birthday was January 31, people figured it was a better deal all around, when thinking about the weather and such, to go along and keep koninginnedag right were it was. Now that Beatrix has abdicated, and given that her son, the new King, celebrates his birth on April 27, the old habit of using the actual birthday of the reigning monarch is re-instituted.

But other than that, yes, it's a national holiday with lots and lots of weird old habits.
posted by DreamerFi at 1:59 PM on October 10, 2013


... alone in a shwarma shop with no recollection of the evening at all ...

Yeah, that's pretty much my time in Amsterdam in a nutshell.
posted by Amanojaku at 2:53 PM on October 10, 2013


This seems as good a place as any to post "the Inburgeringscurse" (a corruption of inburgeringskursus, Dutch for "assimilation/citizenship class" for immigrants), a series of three videos by Dutch comedian Philip Walkate. It doesn't make much sense unless you know both Dutch and English, but if you do, it's absolutely hilarious.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

Besides the linguistic hilarity, it also points out some of the peccadilloes of Dutch culture.
posted by dhens at 2:54 PM on October 10, 2013 [4 favorites]


This could be about Japan, except substitute mayonnaise with a bukkake bowl.
posted by KokuRyu at 3:37 PM on October 10, 2013


Would love to see his take on "Zwarte Piet".
posted by monospace at 3:38 PM on October 10, 2013


So - the first link had me thinking this post was just a generic spoof on anthropology reports of culture, and so I had to link Dark, Mysterious Austria...

Then I saw this was about the Netherlands with all the other content, but I still think that the above link is good so I am sharing it, even if it is only tangentially related to the content via the first link of the OP.
posted by symbioid at 8:43 PM on October 10, 2013 [1 favorite]


monospace: "Would love to see his take on "Zwarte Piet"."

You mean the Six to eight black men who might come to your house to beat you up? Winter is coming.
posted by Blasdelb at 11:48 PM on October 10, 2013 [2 favorites]


Oh FEBO: the inspiration behind the law Never buy meat with coins

Isn't FEBO just a small scale Horn and Hardart
posted by PeterMcDermott at 3:58 AM on October 11, 2013


Goed zo! Bedankt.
posted by humboldt32 at 10:59 AM on October 11, 2013


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