Week 38 That Smells Good

Walking

Still keeping up the walking and easily managing my 10,000 steps a day. My weight remains steadfastly on 92kgs.....

The days I seem to underachieve are the bookkeeping or boating days.

Around the farm

Smells Good

I have to stop telling our Syrian family that their food smells good! They keep bringing us complete meals of delicious food. They took us to a couple of Arabic food shops in Drachten - so we could buy some of "their" stuff for ourselves. We also had to buy them some insect repellent against our mosquitos. (The mozzies haven't been bad this year, but the Syrians have been leaving their doors open and the lights on.......)

Ari told me they "escaped" through Turkey, then on to Greece and through a couple more countries before they got to the Netherlands..... and already they have moved house three times since they have been here. Ari says he will  go "home" when the war has finished - not that there looks like much to go home to.

A visitor from Australia

From the Northern Territory Fire Service days (circa 1990)

Robin has been "riding his motor bike around the world".... his latest episode is finishing off the trip from East to West across Russia, Mongolia, etc., etc., and a long day today through Germany to get to our place by about 1830 hrs - 800 plus kms in an 11 hour day. Now for some rest on the boat - I have a leave pass for a few days.

Very much looking the part....

Building fences

Not to keep the Mexicans out..... nor to keep the Oldies' in

But for Janny's parents, a demarcation of "private":.

Helpers, Hendrik and work experience Jelmer

More on Ben

He found this near his University

Note the shop keepers

"Just popping over to Taiwan for the weekend"

For €75, why not? (I do keep asking him about his studies, however).

He also went to a music festival in Hong Kong, featuring a "famous" Dutch DJ, and wrote an article for one of his (paid) Journalist gigs.

http://www.partyscene.nl/reports/251/road-to-ultra-hong-kong

It's in Dutch

"some of the other students......."

..... seem to have funny habits. There is one group who stay awake all night making things, usually from paper, and then fall asleep during lectures!

Some of it isn't too bad. This "welcome" fish has Bert and Ben on it (Bert is Ben's roommate - from Groningen).

Ben says it is only 30 minutes by train to the beach or to the mountains.

From the newspaper

There's a General Election in 2017

"The Dutch way of life is under pressure" according to some Political Parties.

All the Parties are wrestling with the notion of how The Netherlands can remain...."The Netherlands".

    As expected, Geert Wilders flew straight in with naming Islam as the source of all unrest. He is also quoted as saying "the borders must be closed" and "no more Turks".

The other Parties are not so strident, but do acknowledge that the Netherlands' "way of life" is under pressure.

Not everyone came through the economic crisis in good shape and many migrants have not "integrated" into the community. The arrival of many more migrants has only created more tension.

Edit: I think I would be hard pressed to describe "the Netherlands Way of Life".  From my "interested observer" position, I would say that it is a very tolerant society, here and there very religious and sometimes a bit too accepting of "the way things are", particularly with the shrug of the shoulders about high taxes, for example. Very homogenised from the north to the south and yet some very marked differences from one Local Govt area to the next. Friesland has it's own language and other areas have their own, almost unintelligible dialect.

The surprising thing about this is that it might be only 30 kms away but until comparatively recently they were a closed community without much outside influence, but the language differences linger on.

At one of my early language classes a woman from Brazil described the Netherlands as very much Old World, compared with the New World (of Australia and Brazil). True or not, I have never forgotten that discussion.

(My views are obviously lop-sided as living in Friesland is "different" and I don't get around much or talk to many people - but they remain "my views").

....related, and also from the newspaper.

Nexit

A survey has shown that 60% of Netherlanders would vote against leaving the EU.

Edit: I don't hear any of the fear-mongering and finger-pointing (or outright lying, for that matter) like in the Brexit campaign. (except for Wilders, of course). However, there must be something happening that gives the extremists (I was going to say whacko's) an audience. My perhaps over-simplified view is that people always look to blame someone (anyone?) else, be it Poles, Turks, Jews or Mexicans. I like to think of the one finger pointing which leaves three fingers pointing back......
In a light-hearted look at Brexit, the BBC referred to a survey which revealed the "leavers'" reasons ranging from "too much bureaucracy emanating from Brussels" to "I live next door to a Polish man and I don't like him".