What I've Learnt So Far (Part 1)

I think that I'll make this part of a series, though if I'm right, the number of parts will be in the hundreds before I'm through here.

After the brunt of my jet lag had passed, I took a day to do some exploring. I needed some raw materials for some Grandma Soup, an needed to get my bearings in the city, especially with the transit system. In my day out, here's a list of what I learnt:

• Language:
  • klanten-service == customer service
  • Hele kip == whole chicken
  • trekken == pull and duwen == push (of course, I learnt these the hard way
• The area of town referred to as Niewmarkt is an actual farmer's market where they sell all kinds of fresh fruits & veggies. I bought what I thought was a parsnip, and though it was tasty, I'm not convinced that it was one.
• The transit system here is multi-tiered, managed by multiple companies, but unified under one payment system by way of the OV-Chipkart I mentioned in a previous post:
  • Busses serve routes from the outskirts of the city into the core and around the suburbs.
  • Trams run throughout the downtown and into the suburbs.
  • The Metro is mostly above ground and serves much of the suburban space.
  • There are also inter-urban trains that run from metro hub stations into the more independent suburbs like Naarden (where I start tomorrow).
• Google Transit is available here, which is awesome, but the directions appear to be broken when it comes to the Metro lines. While it maps the correct route, it gives you the wrong terminus station, so navigation can be tricky.
• Dutch Pepsi tastes like Canadian Coca Cola, and the grade of aluminum used is higher than back home.
• They have carbonated iced tea here. It tastes like Canadian iced tea (not like American, ew)... it's alright.
• I'm passively learning basic numbers in Dutch. When people ask me for €5, I don't have to translate it.
  • The language-learning process is strange to behold. Like an outsider, I can feel my brain learning a word, and consciously working to translate it into English, even though, I've already comprehended the meaning. As an example, in the push/pull case above, I figured out that "trekken" meant "pull" when I saw it above the handle and I couldn't push the door open. At that point I understood what it meant, but still made the mental note "ah, trekken == pull". It's very odd.