Before coming here, people told us, “Don’t worry, everyone there speaks English.”

We’ve found that to be pretty true. I’d guess more than 90% of people speak enough English that we can communicate with them, and 75% are fluent.

However, they normally speak Dutch. So, at church, school, the grocery store, etc., people are naturally speaking Dutch to each other. That makes it hard to be a part of a crowd.

A couple of examples:

• Kids in school – class is in Dutch. Occasionally the teacher will explain things to our kids in English, but most of the time they are lost.
• Parents’ meeting at the school – I sat with Google translate trying to live translate the meeting. I got maybe 50%. Never quite confident enough to raise my hand and participate.
• Church – they translate the first hour (sacrament meeting), but I am lost in the second hour (small classes). I follow enough to figure out where we are in the scriptures and read it myself, but not enough to understand people’s comments or to make my own.

It’s easier for me at work. There are several people who don’t speak Dutch there, and the school is officially in English, so people often (but not always) default to speaking English in the hall, meaning I can join in. However, it’s a lot harder elsewhere in the community where the default is Dutch.

I’m sure y’all have heard about the energy crisis in Europe. However, it’s often described in vague terms. What does it mean for families.

Well, here are some screenshots of our latest energy bill. Note that it’s doing estimated usage based on the prior tenants, so the amount used is a ballpark estimate. However, it’s the rates that matter.

Euros and dollars are 1:1 right now, so we’re basically paying $0.80 per kWh. In Massachusetts we were paying $0.23 per kWh.

September is a low electricity month, so the bill isn’t too bad, but January could be another matter. In Massachusetts our electricity bill was usually around $250, so I’m expecting close to $1000 here.

Now for gas.

Now, this one is a bit more complicated, since natural gas is sold by the cubic meter in the Netherlands but by the mmbtu in the US. So, some math.

1 mmbtu costs about $8.50. 1 mmbtu is 26.8 cubic meters of natural gas.

So, $8.50 / mmbtu X 1 mmbtu / 26.8 cubic meters converts to about $0.32 per cubic meter.

So, someone in the Netherlands currently pays 12X as much as someone in the US for natural gas, and over 3X as much as someone in the US for electricity.

In Massachusetts it was normal to spend around $2000 on heating oil for the season. Here, a similar heating bill could end up being closer to $20,000. No wonder countries are talking about trying to cap prices and subsidize people.

Wear your socks kids! Put on a sweater! Our thermostat is staying at 10 degrees (50 fahrenheit) for the next few months!

We just finished week 1 of the younger kids’ school.

In general, it seems like things are a bit more laid back here. For example:

1. All kids ages 4-6 strip down to their underwear for PE. Older kids change into gym clothes, but they so so in common changing areas (separated by gender, but no individual changing stalls).

2. Kids as young as 4 or 5 can walk home by themselves. We didn’t know that Henry gets out early on Fridays until he showed up at our door. Good thing we were home!

3. School is mandatory from an earlier age (age 4), but learning to read and write starts later (equivalent of our 1st grade).

4. No busses for field trips. They just ask for parent volunteers and ask the parents how many kids they can fit in their car.

5. No CORI form or background check to sit in class.

On the other hand one thing is more formal: parent donations. They are mandatory. In many US states there are limitations on how much schools can take in direct donations. Sometimes they will ask for donations of supplies for classrooms, or maybe cash for a field trip, but no generic school fees for public elementary schools. Here, every parent has a mandatory donation of a few hundred Euros per child.

In the US, kids are assigned to a public school based on where they live. Some choose to go to a different school, but that’s the minority. With very few exceptions, the school where you live needs to take you.

That’s not the case in the Netherlands.

Elementary school is sort of done geographically, although maybe 50% choose to go to a different school. Adelaide and Henry were accepted into the local school in town.

After 6th grade, kids go to “secondary school,” which is a combination of middle school and high school.

Which school you go to depends on your test scores and teacher recommendations at the end of elementary school. You can either go to VWO program, which prepares you for a research-oriented university, a HAVO program, which prepares you for regular university, or a VMBO program, which is sort of like a trade school. No college after VMBO, but maybe some practical education after that (e.g., mechanic, carpentry).

There are also bilingual programs where 80% of classes are in English. Usually these are at the VWO or HAVO level. All of these schools are public schools and are free (they ask for a couple hundred Euros of parent contribution, but it’s not bad).

We thought we could get JJ and Timmy into a bilingual program. I mean, wouldn’t schools love to have a native speaker in school with them?

Nope. By law, the national end of year exams are in Dutch, so schools are worried that our kids will fail and will make the school look bad.

So, we were turned down from four schools. One told us we could go there, but then acknowledged that all of their other students were refugees who were pretty far behind in their education, so our kids would struggle.

In the end we were forced to go to the international school. It is privately funded. Most people going there are children of diplomats or executives of major companies on rotation. Their parents’ work pays for the kids’ school as part of the employment contract.

That’s not the case for us. Instead, we get to come up with the 7,500 Euros per kid to pay for school. Luckily it’s just for the two of them.

They will hopefully start school later this week.

I took Henry and Adelaide to their first day of school. Their reactions to school are worlds apart.

Adelaide is super excited. She has a couple of friends, and during the class lineup to walk in, several kids were gathered around her. She’s cool, confident, and the life of the party. She’s also very good at communicating, even though she doesn’t speak much Dutch.

On the other hand, Henry is terrified. He hid behind me in lineup and refused to look at or talk to his teacher. The principal told me I could walk him into his class. I did, but then he tears started welling up in his eyes every time I said I had to go.

Henry’s main teacher speaks a little bit of English, but her pronunciation is so bad I had to translate for Henry. The assistant teacher doesn’t speak any English, and the TA knows the basics but doesn’t know vocab for things like “toys” or “blocks.”

I stayed with Henry for about an hour and then snuck out while he was playing blocks. I give it about a 65% chance that we get a phone call saying he is crying uncontrollably and we need to go get him.

So, pray for Henry.

JJ and Timmy will start at the international school in English in a few days. More on that in my next post.

UPDATE: Henry did great! No phone call. When Linda picked him up he said it was a little boring, but otherwise fine.

Is it breaking the Sabbath day if we watch BYU beat Baylor on Sunday if it is still Saturday where they are playing?

Asking for a friend …

Wednesday Linda dropped me off at the bike shop where Timmy’s bike was being repaired. It is right by Tilburg.

I road his bike to work (he’s only a little bit shorter than me at this point, so his bike fit me okay).

After work, I road his bike home.

Friday I road my bike both to and from Tilburg. That’s a 26km roundtrip, and it means I have biked 80km in the past week. Definitely more than I had biked in the prior 25 years.

Last week I felt like I was Dutch, since I had just bought a bike.

Well, it turns out you also need to know a thing or two about bikes to really be Dutch.

My ignorance became apparent when Timmy and I tried biking to church. Timmy got a flat tire about half-way there. I did not have a tire repair kit with me. I also don’t know how to patch a tire. As a quick reminder, the last time I owned my own bike was circa 1994 …

So, we walked our bikes until Linda came and picked us up after dropping the other kids off at church.

Actually, Linda only picked up Timmy. I knew we wouldn’t be able to fit both bikes in the car, so I finished biking to church. I also knew that we had 3 kids at church by themselves, mostly unsupervised, so I took off right when Linda got there. I figured she and Timmy could get the bike in the car and I needed to get to church ASAP. I got there a solid 20 minutes before Linda and Timmy. I was actually starting to get worried.

It turns out they couldn’t fit Timmy’s bike into the rental car. So, they had to find a place to lock the bike up and deal with it after church.

After church Linda dropped some kids off at home while Timmy and I waited at church. Then she brought a toolkit back and picked up Timmy. I biked to where they left Timmy’s bike and met them there. We used tools to get the front tire off, breaking the light in the process.

The next day we took the bike back to the shop where we bought it to get it repaired.

The day after that we bought a car.

Every Dutch person owns a bike, or two or three. Yesterday a colleague at work told me they have a nice one that they keep at home for pleasure rides, a cheap one that that they use to commute to the train station (a 3 minute ride), and another cheap one that they use to commute from the train station to the office (also a 3 minute ride). Bikes can’t go on trains during rush hour, and nice bikes are often stolen.

Anyway, you’re not really Dutch unless you own at least one bike. Well, check that box off! We bought bikes today!

The bikes didn’t fit in the car, so Linda drove home while Timmy and I biked the 18km (11.2 miles). I believe that is the farthest I have ever biked in one sitting, and possubly farther than I have biked in total since I was a teenager.

Luckily, it’s the Netherlands, so it was perfectly flat the entire way and we had dedicated bike lanes almost the entire way. Most of the way the bike lanes even had a median separating them from the main road.

My son, Timmy, was an avid bike rider back in Massachusetts, so about a half mile into the ride he gently remarked “We can speed up if you want dad.” Luckily he’s a pretty observant kid and quickly observed that we were already going at about my maximum speed.

I’m pretty sure there are more bikes than cars in the Netherlands, probably in the neighborhood of 5:1.

There are also a lot more kinds of bikes than cars.

And shopping for bikes is about as hard as shopping for a car. Prices range from $200 to $2000, and I don’t know enough about bikes to know the difference.

A friend told us to buy used bikes since we’ll only be here for a year, but we haven’t had much luck finding places that sell used bikes.

Wish us luck!