Back on American soil (after a wondeful tenth-anniversary cruise to the Bahamas), this evening has been a celebration of Americana.

My friend Jim and I drove about four miles, in an air-conditioned car, to a Seven-Eleven, so I could buy a Super-BigGulp Dr. Pepper.  Then we drove the four miles back to Jim's house (again, covering roughly the distance from Amsterdam's Centraal Station to Schiphol airport in one little strip of Orlando suburbia!) and watched digitally-televised NBA (basketball) play-off games and even a precorded bit of a college football championship game from a couple of years ago.

Viva Americana! (Jim says "Hello," by the way). 

Day Six of our Great American Adventure. They say that for every time zone crossed in travel, it takes one day for a person's body to adjust -- thus, the six hours of time difference between Amsterdam and the Eastern United States should translate to six days of jet lag before our bodies feel normal again. And while this seems to be true for Marci, Elliot, and Cor -- I'm not so sure how the rule-of-thumb applies to me and Olivia.  Ah well.  One of these days we should all be back to normal (and let it be said that I am eagerly anticipating that day!).  Our laptop computer's screen was damaged during travel, so I haven't been able to blog as much as I would like (somehow, writing things down in this space helps me to process the events for myself). But borrowing some time on a friend's computer is allowing me to check in here and now -- and though I can't write for very long, I thought I would share some interesting (though rather random) observations of cultural adjustment

I'm finding it difficult to train myself to not use the word WC ("vay-say") to refer to the restroom facilities.  I constantly feel tempted to ask "Where is the WC?" or to excuse myself from a room with an explanation like "I need to go use the WC."  And though I'm sure no one really cares if I use the Dutch/English word for the toilet, I find it important for myself to make the cultural adaptation (still working on it)

Elliot has "forgotten" how to speak Dutch already, less than a week into our visit to the USA.  People will ask him, "What's the Dutch word for ______?" and he will invariably reply that he can't remember.  Even when I talk to him one-on-one (initiating in Dutch), he will say that he can't or won't speak Dutch -- "because the people here can't understand it."  I'm surprised that his cultural perception is so acute.  But then again, it makes sense.  I guess he just doesn't want to be the weird European kid or some kind of performing circus monkey.  And frankly, I can completely identify with him.  So we're still figuring our way out here in our "homeland."

I always used to hear European people complaining about Americans asking "How are you?" without expecting (or even being prepared for) a sincere reply -- but I never really understood it (at least not on the felt level) until this trip to America.  Especially in the Southeast part of the United States (where we've been visiting up to this point), "How're you?" is not really a question as much as a salutation.  In a post office in Virginia I heard one person answer the "question" of "How're you?" with a response of "How're you?"  Very odd indeed.

Perhaps I will be able to add more observations later.  But for now my blogging time is up.  I'm off to the next great experience in this Great American Adventure.

Have you ever heard that bit of trivia (or perhaps it's an urban legend) that the Eskimo language includes seven words for the one English word: "snow?"  The idea is that certain peoples and certain cultures contain a high degree of subtlety and nuance for items which are common in their particular setting -- though they may be more foreign to a different group of people and summarily categorized and titled with a single word (if indeed any word) in another cultural context.  Well, I wonder if I've discovered such a concept for people from northern Europe (and other people from  around the world who may also be of northern European descent).

Well, let me start by asking you this question:  What color hair would you say that I have?

You can scroll through some of the pictures in the (recently updated) Family Pictures section of the website, if you'd like a visual refresher... But I'll go ahead and tip my hand on this one.  You see, I always thought that I had "brown" hair.  At least that's what it says on my driver's license.  But recently, I've been given pause.  The other day, I was watching Elliot and Olivia as they busied themselves on the play-ground closest to our house when I overheard a conversation between Elliot and another girl on the playground.  I don't remember exactly what all they were talking about, but at one point the girl gestured toward me and asked Elliot (in Dutch):  "Is that your Dad over there?  The blond one?"

I thought it was a funny incident that was perhaps indicative of living in a neighborhood with a lot of people who are originally from the Middle East.  But I didn't think much of it until I was talking with some of the people from my writers' group the other night and sharing the playground anecdote with them.  I got to the end of the story, with the quote about my hair being blond -- delivering it with the intonation of a punch-line, expecting amused responses from the others.  But instead of amusement, one of the others said, matter-of-fact: "Well, Eric, your hair is blond.  Maybe kind of a dark-blond, but clearly blond."  I looked around at the others in the group, but they all nodded.  "Yup.  Yes.  Uh-huh.  Definitely blond.  No question about it."

As we got to talking about it, I learned that people from northern Europe (or northern European descent) are basically all "blond" in the eyes of the rest of the world.  We northern-Europeans make distinctions between platinum-blond, dirty-blond, dark-blond, strawberry-blond, red, reddish-brown, brown, brunette... But from what I gather, it seems like most of the world looks at us and says: "blond."  I don't know why this comes as such a surprise to me, but it does.

I guess I must be one of those northern Europeans.

Did you know that today is Ascension Day -- the recognition of the day that Jesus rose to heaven in view of his disciples?

I realize that readership of my blog is pretty evenly split between Europeans and North-Americans (with a few other international readers on the side) -- thus often one person's "Oh really?!?" is another person's "No duh!!" -- but I think it's ironic and interesting to notice which group is likely to know the religious significance of this particular date on the calendar.

By and large, I would absolutely say that North America (and especially the United States of America) is considerably more "religious" and more "Christian" than Europe (well, at least the Netherlands).  Considering everything from church attendance figures to popular music to political debate to bumper stickers and T-shirts seen on the street -- I think it's pretty clear to see God, Jesus, the Church, and Faith in general are much more public and prevalent on the west side of the Atlantic.

And yet, when it comes to celebrating holidays, Europeans are much more "Christian" than Americans.  Eight out of ten national holidays in the Netherlands are Christian holidays:  Good Friday, First and Second Easter, Ascension Day, First and Second Pentecost, and First and Second Christmas.  The only "secular" holidays are New Year's Day and Queen's Day (with an official recognition of Memorial Day thrown in every fifth year)... Oddly enough, when looking at the list of American holidays, the percentage of religious observances is almost exactly the opposite (depending on how you count, i.e. depending upon whose list of holidays you might be looking at).  Employees of the U.S. Federal government get eight secular holidays (New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Junior Day, Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, and Veterans Day) and only two religious holdays (Christmas Day and Thanksgiving -- the second of which is only implicitly/historically religious).  Some employers in the United States give extra time off for Good Friday or Christmas Eve or the day after Thanksgiving -- but even so, the point remains that the observance of holidays represents an unusual flip-flop of cultural priorities, when it comes to the subject of religion and Christianity.

I'm sure there are rational explanations for why the holidays have developed as such in Europe and North America... But I don't understand it.  And in any event, I find it ironic.  I'm not saying that one culture's take on things is more or less correct than another's -- but it's definitely interesting to notice.

We initiated Cor to what's become a bit of an annual tradition with our family -- riding out to Holland's Flower Region, to take a look at the colorful fields stretching out miles and miles in every direction.  For some reason, Dutch people do not seem to get too excited about all the tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths.  It's considered a silly tourist activity.  Very few make a point to visit the fields at this time of the year.  Surprisingly few have ever witnessed the flower fields of their homeland first-hand.  It's almost to the point that even an extended glance out of the train window is considered shameful gawking.

But our family is not Dutch. :-)

So each year, for the last four years, we've gone out with all the other tourists to take pictures in the flower fields.  It's one of the most unique and beautiful experiences in the Netherlands, if you ask me.

Prior to this year, however, we had always gone out in the late morning / early afternoon time frame, enjoying a picnic lunch somewhere and all that good stuff.  But this year, we decided to travel out in the evening hours -- partly to take advantage of the softer, more golden sunlight that falls across the landscapes at this time of day, and partly to adapt to Cor's nap schedule and the general logisitical challenges of now being a family of five.

Unfortunately, we got stuck in a massive traffic jam, as dozens and dozens (if not hundreds) of tour buses and other vehicles poured out of the Keukenhof -- apparently at its closing time.  Keukenhof is like the Disneyworld of flowers -- highly hyped, highly visited (by people from all corners of the globe), and highly priced.  We've been there before, and enjoyed it... until we discovered that simply driving through the open fields is actually nicer (and a heck of a lot cheaper).  But I had forgotten how much hassle the traffic there can be -- especially if you go during the "rush hour" (which we haven't in the last three years, but unintentionally did this evening).  It was ridiculous.  The situation actually made me start to understand the Dutch perspective on the flower/tourist industry in that part of the country at that time of the year.

We weren't able to get nearly as many photos as we have in previous years -- mostly due to the traffic thing, but also due to the family-of-five logistics thing.  But still, out of the pictures that we did get to take, there were a few keepers (as you can see from this post).  And all in all, we had a good time together.

Next time, we'll just have to remember to pack our tourist repellent.