reading a book about 'the dutchwoman'

on my last trip to holland, i went as usual into a bookstore, and found just the book i wanted....a book i did not know existed! 'het poldermodel - de nederlandse vrouw', 'the poldermodel - the dutchwoman' by female writer santje kramer. the writer interviewed men and women from foreign countries who live in holland for this book( i am always on the look out for books about holland and its inhabitants. it helps me to get rid off or to stimulate my homesickness, whatever the day asks for). foreigners see the dutchwoman as one drressed in jeans, with crocs or uggs on their feet or any kind of flat shoe like boots(big favorite), equal to a man as in having a strong caracter, not working a lot, keeping hair short, talks like a construction worker and is not capable of flirting. i wrote the next email to the writer as a response to her work.

dear santje,
i can tell you something, come and have a look in ticino! the women there are not dressed to their best. you would think the swiss would have the money to buy nice things and the italian influence in ticino would make the fashion sence come up.... but no! crocs are a big thing here, the whole family walks around on them. most women are color blind. and if you drop by at someone's house after working hours they are lying around in sportwear which has known better days. during the weekend the whole family, grandparents, kids, everyone, walk around in 'think pink' matching sets. when i am in  holland, i would not even think to dress in that way and walk around in the streets. it is not done! you will be gapped at. me, a girl from the hague, and one of my 'big city' girlfriend here from geneva, have talked about this. we started down dressing:( . we will be stared at when we go around in a short skirt, nice tights, highheeled boots, scarf, sunglasses. women might be staring out of jealousy and men will be licking their lips. and then all those women who walk around like hippies: black potatoe sack, hennaed hair, one short and one long earring. gross! the only woman i know where you can ring the bell at 7 in the morning and she will be dressed up to the nines, is a dutch friend living just down the road. and what i missed in the book was the jeanjacket. that catches more my eye than the jeans.

looking forward to all your responses, or thru this page or by email to dutchwomanabroad@gmail.com

see you soon!

what do you want in a wife or girlfriend

talking to my nephew gained by pairing up with his uncle, we came to talk about life as a couple. this nephew is very worldwise. his english is poor, but he gets around by using hands and feet comunicating with everyone. he is still living in ticino, but his view is very opened up. he has traveled around the world. we got into a personal discussion about being part of a couple. he is a smart looking guy. watches the way he dresses, and keeps in shape. the right guy if i would have a daughter and this daughter would not be his niece:). he is end twenties and i asked if he had a girlfriend, his answer was 'no'. all the girls from ticino he has gone out with, have been very disturbing about him meeting up with his friends. always badgering and being jealous. i told him get a dutch girlfriend! well, maybe it is only me between dutch girls, but i am am quite cool about laws between lovers. not that i would appreciate it if my big love would get himself a girl on the side, but i see that he has his needs to be in male company. last saturday we had an invitation for diner of one of his friends. and when i found i found out it was only male company, i just let him go by himself. ofcourse he could abuse the situation, but i believe he will not. my big love bought a big house up on top of a mountain more or less and there is lots to do. so most weekends he will be away and have some friends join him for work and play. i see that he needs male company as i need female company, and we have to let the other one go sometimes. this is not very customary in the relationships i see around me. there is often a payback requested. is this habitual in other countries? i think in holland people are more open to let the other one do what he/she needs, but maybe i am wrong.

getting back on track writing while being by myself

i left my dutch blogsite, does not function very well anymore. so i am back here. have do get back to writing about my life. eventhough maybe no one is interested:)

on my own at home. it has been ages, if i do not count the night hubby was in the mountain house and the boys were camping out on the mountain behind our house. i am on my own, with all the animals, for 10 days. it is so strange. the men went out on an all male vacation, sailing in croatia with friends. i feel a bit lost.

it has been almost 2 years that i haven't been writing my blog and i can tell you in those two years i have been getting better with being stuck in the necks of the woods, a small village in ticino. eventhough my ties to holland are still very good, i am more laid back and feel much more at home in this part of the world. must be aging;)

getting back to talk about being home alone. how many times are there that i think, i wish i would be just living on my own again, having no one to worry about but myself. but now, 10 whole days just on my own. how will i fill up those days? walk the dog, doing some housework, getting my adminstration done and then there is lots of time left. reading a book, that gets boring also after a couple of hours. this summer has not been that good, so i think going to river and have a swim must be out of the question. but maybe i will go. and then i will have loads of time to rethink my blog and see in what direction it will go.

take care, bye

being back on my turf

i have been one week in the netherlands at this moment, i enjoy being back. had some time with my family and friends, and it was just like in the old days. not being about the whole year doesn't really make a difference, we just pick up where we have left off. for me it is so relaxing being on my turf in some kind of way. i had a very nice encounter yesterday. i was doing some shopping therapy and there was this girl(okay, lady) getting on the mobile staircase and i just had to call her "l.......". she turned around and she just said"hi, l......"(meeting someone in a city of 117.000 isn't very obvious and she lives elsewhere). i have been seeing this old friend on photos of my rowing career in the haque whenever i open my album. i had been thinking of her once in a while. and there she was. exchanging a few words and we were so familiar again. and for sure we'll meet up on my next trip to holland, in october. yes, i am already planning and just a weekend won't be enough. i feel i do not see my mother often enough and i think for me it's important to keep up friendships for when i am older and do not have any close family left. tomorrow we go up north to my cousins house for a couple of days and then we will head back south. and that'll be fine also. then i will spend many evenings talking and thinking about what i did in my home country. and probably someone dutch will drop by on their vacation. i feel whole again.

a dutch woman in the ticino summer

this is my 17th summer in ticino. when i first came here i was so overwhelmed by the great weather. those july nights sitting at a bar in the piazza until very late without freezing like i was used to in holland(or maybe it was just the fuel i poored down that kept me warm?). without opening the curtains in the morning one would know the weather would be perfect, one could smell the sun in the air. it was very easy to get used to the temperature and not having to bring an umbrella where ever i would go in case of a little summer shower. then in august there would be a change in the weather. still warm but thunderstorms almost every night with rain pooring down like it would be the last day of the earth. and then the next day it would be hot again. ofcourse every year would be a bit different. when the boys were very small, i can recall that some days we just couldn't get out of the house because of the rain, which wasn't bad at times. but the summer would be nice and warm. then we had the hot summers like 2004, everyday over 35 degrees. those are the only ones people around here recall, and they will tell you it was always like that, in the old days(which isn't correct, i checked with a meteoman i know!). last year's summer was 5 days of sun and two days of rain. my sons and their friends didn't mind, doing a day inside with lego, computers, and doing whatever wasn't bad. being inside with rain felt like relaxing to them(those were their words!). and now the summer of 2009. yesterday i started to prepare my suitcase for going to the netherlands. and all my nice summer tops were still in a box waiting for the good weather to arrive. i have loads of sundresses and skirts which are hanging in my closet and would surely like to be worn. BUT WHEN??????? my legs are a little tanned thanks to tennis and a selftanning lotion. but i keep having to cover them up because of cloudy weather. and if it is finally a day with sun there is a hurricane wind. luckily i didn't come and stay here for the nice weather like many foreigners, because the way it is now i could just as well live in holland.

finally going home!

it has been decided a couple of days ago: i am going home with the boys(as in sons)! we are leaving in 10 days. i am so happy(i am sitting here, clapping my hands like a small child). it was august last year that i was walking on dutch soil! in my mind i am already in the car motoring along the 'route du soleil' in france, like between metz and thionville, going up and over the rolling hills. i am getting more and more hyper. making lists of what to buy, and that's why we go by car. on the aeroplane i always have trouble with being 'overweighed' a kilo or 20. i have to buy 'drop'(licorice as you can nowhere buy it), hagelslag(chocolate sprinkles to put on bread), tomatosoup, rookworst(smoked sausage), tea, tulip bulbs, etc., etc. i have to go to the gardencenter intratuin to buy stuff, a.k.a. things that will be cute, gather dust and are not very necessary for my hubby, but oh so nice for making my home and garden 'gezellig'(meaning cozy, but even better!). i have to buy clothes that are my style. i change books with my bookfriend(there are always 2 bags each filled with exactly ten books going back and forth). i am looking in the internet to decide with the boys where we will go and what we will see. we have our ceremonies, our things that we do there. like riding our bikes after diner about the city or walking and looking into peoples lives thru their windows(we dutch don't do curtains). we go to the different playgrounds, inside and outside. we are going to visit two cousins and their families. i am sooooo haaaaapy!!!!!! i will sit with my cousins for hours, sipping tea and talking loads, that'll be sooooo nice! talking about the past and whatever is going on now. i really miss my people and my country. i wish i could go there every weekend, but that would be to expensive. i like living where i live, but i miss 'my things' from back home!

tennis and thighs

i just started, after a thousand years, to play tennis again. i found my racket which i must have been bought over 15 years ago and it still does the job. there are some nice ladies with whom i try to get the ball across the net. i love doing sports, and this is a nice way for me to be in touch with women from 'le terre di pedemonte', the spot i live in. i don't like playing inside. for me the surrounding of the small tennisclub is a big plus: trees, mountains, a relaxing area. one of my friends is already calling our threesome 'the desperate housewives of pedemonte'. i think that's cute, since we're all doing the housewive stuff as a second job. the thing where i wanted to get to is the next: when you have a good look around the tenniscourts, there is one thing very strange if you think about it. isn't it that all women are very anxious about the way they look. at christmas lots of us have been totally pigging out. so then comes new year and we make a resolution: from january first we are going on a diet. how many get thru the first month? then comes easter with loads of goodies. we eat and eat. and when the first warm weather is hitting us, we get very aware of what there is still to do before fitting into a bikini. so we worry, we pinch our cellulite, we cry, we scream, we go to fitness centers. where would women show themselves in 'that' shape? not near a swimmingpool or on the beach, no way! but strangely at the tenniscourt they do. it seems that there is absolutely no shame. every woman wears a short skirt, and i don't mean a skirt above the knee. no, i mean a skirt where you can see the underwear without the woman having to bend over! and nobody is ashamed or selfconscious. you see your skinnyminnie-dried out-overtanned legs, the cottagecheese-jello-wobbly thighs, the spidervain legs, the milk white thighs, the rhino butt, the hairy extremities, and whatever else there is. and nobody gives a damn, it's like a turned around world. but at least there is one place where we can be ourselves without being tough on us that we are not good enough(even the perfect ones usually moan). hear, hear for the tenniscourts and the freedom of womens thighs!
by the way, i, DWA, wear shorts. i don't want to bother looking for perfect undies to wear. (when i was small i had the tennisundies with lace frills on the backside!) the shorts aren't for estetic reasons. they have great pockets to stuff 3 balls each. i don't like balls in my underwear, i'd rather have something else there:)