The first year

It's the whole year since I moved abroad! Exactly 366 days since I packed my life into a big backpack and a suitcase and brought it all to Nijmegen to make the first steps in our Neverland. It was a busy year and I learned a lot. Here are some of my discoveries:

10 THINGS I DIDN'T KNOW A YEAR AGO:

1. The Netherlands opened my eyes for all delicious kinds of food. I always knew I'd love asian food, but in Poland didn't have many opportunities to really try it. Here I can choose as much as I want: thai, chinese, indonesian, japanese, indian, surinamese (I know it's not Asia, but South America ;P) Even more, the surprising mixes of different tastes that may seem weird in a first place, happen to be delicious! Who would ever expect that fries with mayonese and peanut butter can be so good and that indian lime pickles are gonna steal my heart and soul. 





Sinfully yummy India Burger with cheese, limp pickles and yoghurt-koliander sauce 

2. Anything can be used to make a sandwich... even fresh strawberries on bread, though it sounds weird indeed. And chocolate sprinkles are great not only for cake and dessert decoration. It can be an interesting choice for a sweet breakfast ;)
3. The weather in Holland is not so great, so to protect yourself from the rain, wind and cold, any methods are welcome. One morning somewhere in June you're suddenly discovering that leather boots are good to wear all-year-around. Not only in winter. And the cool thing is, nobody is gonna look weird at you, 'cause here it's completly normal.





4. You can often see happy, smiling people in DIY store's commercials. In these commercials it seems like renovating your house is such a joy, like you're on your second honeymoon. The worst thing is: I believed in that stuff! Untill I did it myself. There's no such a thing as happy painting/renovating. If you think the other way it means you have never tried it yourself or your a weirdo ;P
5. Santa Claus does not live on a North Pole, nor in Lapland. He's not travelling with a sleigh and flying reindeers and there are no elfs working in his toys factory. It's the little black boys working there! And nowhere else than in Spain, where they come from with Santa on the 5th of December on a steamship. But the fact that the Spanish Santa has the black "helpers" does not mean he's a racist! God forbid! 





Source

6. Speaking of winter... You would think, that if I come from Poland, where the winter is colder and longer I wouldn't have any problems with the dutch one, right? Wrong! I'm not really used to the neverending wind and a higher humidity and the last winter in Holland was a real humiliation, since I had to wear way more layers than the average Dutchman. My super-warm-always-working wool handgloves did not go well with the dutch conditions. Why? Because when I was cycling the cold wind went through them.
7. I grew up in a village, so no goat, sheep or chicken should be an extraordinary thing for me. However in my village you wouldn't find many farm animals. Barely any to be honest. Now, thanks to the popular childrens farms, though I'm living in quite a big city I'm seeing goats way more often than during my whole childhood in the countryside. Where's the logic...
8. Do you like commercial breaks during watching a movie in TV? I don't. That's why I like going to the cinema. But surprise: in dutch cinemas that have a break in the middle of the movie! Why? To go for a smoke or pee. Or preferably to buy some more sweet popcorn.  
9. A bicycle is a great invention. Multifunctional. I haven't learned so much about all the possibilities and ways to use this vehicle in my entire life, as I did during last year. Soon I'm gonna share this knowledge with you in a post titled "5 secrets of the cyclist".





10. At the end a cheering fact: if you're an emigrant, it doesn't matter where do you come from or where do you live... You're not alone with you fears, worries and doubts. Everytime we talk about this in a group and someone shares her fears, the rest is always agreeing with her "I was going to say the exactly same thing!"