In Massachusetts, if you want to volunteer at your kids’ school, you need to fill out paperwork and have a CORI check (criminal background check). Even then, there are limits to what you can do. For example, you can’t drive other people’s kids to and from school field trips.
Things are a lot more laid back here.
On Friday I volunteered at school. I set up Sinterklaas decorations while kids were still in school. No background check. In fact, the doors to the school weren’t locked. I just walked in and started decorating.
A couple of weeks ago Adelaide’s class went to see a play. The school didn’t want to get a bus, so they emailed asking if any parents could drive. Linda was available, so she drove Adelaide and a few other kids. No commercial driver’s license. No other adults with her. No professional driver insurance. No CORI. Most parents didn’t even know Linda. No big deal.
Kids can also go to and from school by themselves (even our 5-year-old). No parents signing them in or out. Older kids (11+) bike 5+ miles by themselves to and from school. No big deal.
In most of the world, if you have a driver’s license from the US you are allowed to drive in that other country. Since being here, I have started to doubt the wisdom of that policy.
In particular, I’ve realized that I don’t understand what a lot of road signs mean. See if you can guess what the following signs mean.
Are you done guessing? Ready for the answers?
No peaking until you have guessed.
Ready?
Yield (I knew this one). Crossroads with a road joining from the left but you have priority. End of speed 50kph speed limit. No clue what the new speed limit is. It’s whatever it was before the 50kph limit, so you need to remember at least 3 signs ago. Road closed. No entry. One way road. No entry from this direction. No parking or stopping. No bicycles allowed on this road (I originally thought this sign meant “watch out for bicycles”). Route for hazardous materials (I would have assumed this was a detour sign or something like “proceed this way with caution”, not a “hazardous materials ahead!” sign). You have priority over oncoming traffic. Oncoming traffic has priority over you. Yield to oncoming traffic.
I like to think that I’m a pretty good driver. For example, I’ve never gotten a speeding ticket in the US.
Here things are a bit different.
For one thing, tickets are all by camera, not cops. For another, they are very strict about speed limits.
For example, we were in France a couple of weeks ago. Apparently I was speeding because we just got a ticket in the mail. The ticket says I was driving 96kph in a 90kph zone. Translation: I was driving 3.7 miles per hour over the speed limit. Fee: 45 euros.
I’m a pretty conservative driver when I’m on unknown roads, so I don’t think I was passing anyone at the time. I just go with the flow of traffic. That means the government likely sent tickets to a lot of people who were driving at the same time.
I also got a ticket for driving on a road that was closed in the Netherlands. Again, just by camera, no police officers. More about that in another post.
Christmas is a little bit different here. In particular, Sinterklaas is pretty different than Santa Claus.
Santa (USA):
Comes on a sleigh pulled by reindeer
Comes once, on December 25th
Lives at the North Pole
Has elves for helpers
Not officially celebrated in school.
The “holidays” are a sensitive cultural/religious/political topic.
Red and green colors for decorations.
Visit completely overlaps with the religious holiday of Christmas.
Sinterklaas (Netherlands):
Comes by steam boat from Spain.
Arrives in the Netherlands in a very large, public ceremony on the first Saturday after November 11th. The event is broadcast on TV and is sort of like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. News reporters, crowds, etc.
Visits small towns in very public events over the next couple of days/weeks. Ours is today at 2:30pm.
Has “Pieten” as helpers. I’m not sure why they are called Pieten, but they are humans. They go up and down Chimneys, not Santa, so they have ash on them. They used to be called “black Pieten” because of the dust on them, but that became political so now they are just Pieten. Several Pieten came to our door and gave the kids some cookies and candy.
Delivers small gifts (candy, small toys, notes) a few times a week to kids who leave a shoe by the fireplace.
Delivers large gifts on Dec. 6, after which he goes home.
Lots of Sinterklaas decorations at school. The kids watch videos in school about his trip to the Netherlands (there is a disaster every year that almost stops him from making it; this year his ship sunk, but they got on a backup ship and arrived safely).
Likes all colors. Wears a red robe, but decorations are all sorts of bright colors.
Wears a tall hat with a cross on it.
After Sinterklaas leaves, we take down Sinterklaas decorations and put up lights and a tree to celebrate Christmas. Sinterklaas is just helping us get ready for Christmas, but he leaves in time to not be in the way.
I think people give each other presents on Christmas, but Sinterklaas does not come back.
Unfortunately, I only just found out about the December 6th thing. I had previously seen that the kids had the day off of school, but I assumed it was just a teacher prep day. I say it is unfortunate, because I booked a flight at 9am that day to go present a paper in Switzerland. Who knew that I would be gone when Sinterklaas came? I guess we’ll have to figure out a creative solution (maybe he’ll leave a note saying that since we are Americans he will come on Dec. 25).
UPDATE: apparently Sinterklaas comes on the afternoon/evening of December 5th and leaves presents somewhere in the house or at the door or something. Then he heads home on the 6th. So, The evening of the 5th is the big night where everyone opens presents. The kids have the 6th off to recover and to play with their toys. So,
Some places celebrate Halloween here. Not a lot, but a few.
Adelaide, Henry, and I went trick or treating with some friends. It was fun, but a little different than the US.
One big difference was that people are more laid back. For example, Adelaide (age 8) ran off with the friends. They trick or treated away from us most of the night. I immediately panicked. She can’t be alone for Halloween, let alone in a foreign country! My friend was completely unconcerned. “They know where the car is parked.”
As another example, a lot of people gave out home made cookies or punch. Others gave out cookies from a package that weren’t individually wrapped. No one was bothered by this. In the US, parents would be throwing a fit!
On Tuesday and Wednesday I had the opportunity to visit Maastricht for a workshop at Maastricht University.
Maastricht is in the very southeast corner of the Netherlands, nestled in-between Germany and Belgium. It’s about 2.5 hours from my house by train, but it’s a pretty easy ride: just a single transfer with regular trains.
Maastricht is arguably the oldest city in the Netherlands (in competition with Nijmegen). So, I took a train in early to give me time to explore the city. Luckily, the weather was ideal for walking around the city.
The dinner, office visits, and workshop were great. In particular, I got some feedback on a paper that really helped clarify in my mind the best way to run a follow-up experiment. I was previously thinking I needed to run an experiment with 10 conditions (a very expensive and time-consuming experiment), but the workshop participants helped me realize that we really only need 4 conditions, which is much more manageable.
So, great workshop. Now for pictures of the city!
View from campus!Steeple at St. Janskerk. Amazing that they could build things this tall and sturdy hundreds of years ago. Beautiful stain-glass windows inside the basilica of Saint Servatius. Interestingly, you can only see the colors if you are inside the basilica. From outside, they look like gray windows. Courtyard of the Basilica of Saint ServatiusPeter holding the keys of the priesthood. An old church that has been converted into a bookstore.
While at Monet’s Gardens I saw the perfect fall tree.
The brilliant yellows, oranges, and reds were breathtaking. After taking a few shots, I decided I should go get some close-up shots.
I thought that surely this perfect tree would have some perfect leaves. However, to my surprise, I couldn’t find a single “perfect” leaf. Every single one had some flaw.
Originally I thought I would cover our Paris trip in just two posts, but Monet’s Gardens ended up needing their own post so I had room for all the pictures.
I was blown away.
One thing I learned about Monet was that he cultured his gardens and then painted what he has grown. I thought that was beautiful: creating the nature that he then depicted in his art.
While we enjoyed seeing some of the paintings, I fell in love with the gardens more than anything else. I can’t paint, but I love photography, so here are some shots I took (or my kids helped take) of the gardens.
On Wednesday we took the Subway back to downtown Paris. We let JJ navigate us using his phone (we bought the boys phones when we moved here). He was pretty excited to be in charge of that.
We then explored the Eiffel Tower! It was great!
We didn’t buy lift tickets in advance, so we had to wait in line for about 40 minutes to get them. They intentionally save tickets for people at the door, but if we ever go again, we’ll buy them in advance.
The views, both from below and from the top were spectacular!
The kids had the week off of school, so we drove to Paris for holiday (i.e. vacation). We left right after lunch on Saturday and came home late Friday.
Below I’ll talk about our trip in detail, but here’s the summary of what we liked most (the whole family voted):
Favorite places: LDS Temple and Monet’s Gardens
Runner-up: Eiffel Tower
Contenders: Toot Bus tour of Paris and Palace of Versailles
Overrated (and wouldn’t go back to): The Louvre
Day 1: Sunday
We took the day slow. We walked to church in the morning and then watched some church shows from the hotel in the afternoon. Linda packed some food so that we didn’t have to go to a restaurant that day (other than the free hotel breakfast in the morning).
Church in French was fun. We didn’t understand much, but we felt the spirit!
Day 2: Bus Tour and the Louvre
We took the subway to downtown Paris. It was (1) fast, (2) easy to navigate, and (3) inexpensive! Much better than the Dutch train system on all 3 dimensions (sorry Netherlands).
Linda bought tickets for the Toot Bus tour (like Hop On, Hop Off, but different brand). It was great! I know it’s super touristy, but it was great to see a lot of the city at once and get a feel for everything. They gave out headphones when we got on, so it was pretty easy to understand. Plus, they had a separate audiotrack for kids that kept Henry engaged.
Toot Bus Tour
We got off at the Louvre. We had to wait a long time before we could get in. Tickets were free for kids and it wasn’t very expensive for adults.
However, it was crowded and unorganized. We got the audiotour, which was awful. It was on a Nintendo 3DS, which was cool in theory, but in practice it meant a very high learning curve. We got two audiotours, but we ended up each taking a turn trying to figure out how to use it and eventually just giving up.
We wandered for a while, eventually made it to the Mona Lisa (which had a separate line), and then wandered our way out of the building.
We saw the Mona Lisa!
Linda and Adelaide stayed inside for a bit longer while the boys and I went outside. Honestly, the best part about the Louvre was that time outside. There was a lady making tons of bubbles for kids to play with and pop. Henry loved it. When we ended up voting on everyone’s favorite place in Paris, Henry was the only person who voted the Louvre in his top 3 places, and that was only because of the bubbles.
Bubbles!
Day 3: Temple and Versailles
We drove to the LDS temple today. JJ and I did baptisms for the dead while the rest of the family looked at the visitors center. We returned in the late afternoon so Linda could do initiatories.
Visiting the Paris Temple
After baptisms we went to Versailles. We first walked down a local street looking for somewhere to eat lunch. We tried several restaurants but they turned us away because our party of 6 was too big for them. Apparently Paris is made for couples, not families.
Eventually we found a little bakery that sold us stuff to go. We then went to Versailles and ate by the gardens.
Linda had bought tickets for the palace in advance, which was good because apparently they sold out. Overall, the palace was nice. I overheard a random stranger sum it up nicely, “We get it already, they were really rich.”
Adelaide hanging out in “Chamber de Madame Adelaide”
Linda and I would have liked to spend longer exploring the palace and gardens, but the kids got worn out pretty quickly. We took Linda back to the temple and then I took the kids to McDonald’s for dinner (side note, McDonald’s Paris has a McBaguette, which is a baguette with two hamburger patties on it. Pretty good!). Henry volunteered to carry the diaper bag, which turned out to be a mistake, because he got tired and just set it down somewhere. Luckily we were able to find it before we went back to pick up Linda.
Dutch Bentleys 