Sunday, July 22, 2007

Things that don’t exist in Holland

This week I discovered two things, two totally different things, that just don’t exist in the Netherlands. They are:

Wedding anniversary cards to be sent within the married couple
It was my husband and my 1st wedding anniversary on Monday and I was devastated that I couldn’t buy him a “happy anniversary” card. In Holland you can only buy cards to send to the couple. To take this a few years into the future too, it seems that the Dutch don’t hold any significance for 5, 10, 20, 30 and 40 year anniversaries but choose to celebrate the all too metric 12.5 years (!), 25 year and 50 year anniversaries only!!

“Cat eyes” on roads
I hadn’t noticed this before Monday when we were driving to the airport to return a hire-car in the torrential rain and thunder-storm and we could not see any of the road markings. It was then I realised that Dutch roads are all the more smoother because they don’t have cat eyes here. Someone needs to add cat-eyes to the parts-list of model building company in charge of Dutch roads.

3 comments:

Bicyclemark said...

and on bike paths too please.

Paul said...

The complexity of Dutch Wedding Anniversaries continues... In my company not only do I get a day off for my own 12.5 year anniversary - I can also take a day off for my parents, grandparents or children's anniversary of 12.5 years aswell.

Sarah de Mul said...

Lucky you Paul! My Nan re-married in 2000, so maybe I'll have the chance of taking a day off to celebrate that in 2012...it might even co-incide with some time of to watch the Olympics!