Archive for November, 2015
Dag van de Mantelzorg on 10 November Posted by Sten on Nov 9, 2015
Tuesday, November 10 is the Dag van de Mantelzorg (Day of Caregiving). Before going further into what happens on this day: who are these caregivers? In the Netherlands, mantelzorgers are familieleden (relatives), vrienden (friends), kennissen (acquaintances) and buren (neighbors), who take care of family members, a friend or neighbor that is in need of chronic help. Basically, these are people helping others with whom they have already…
Het Straatnieuws uit Utrecht – Interviewing the Pope! Posted by Sten on Nov 8, 2015
The pope. There is no doubt about it, he is an influential and important person, not just in the Netherlands, but in the entire world. He has now become Onze Vriend in Rome (our friend in Rome). On Tuesday, October 27th at 11 AM, the Straatnieuws journalists arrived to interview Paus Franciscus (Pope Francis). After months of geheimhouding (confidentiality), since nobody was allowed…
Why is integrating such a problem? Posted by Karoly Molina on Nov 4, 2015
Earlier this year, I wrote about the requirement most immigrants in the Netherlands must go through: inburgering. In summary, those wishing to obtain a Dutch passport must take an integration exam within 3 years of their arrival to the Netherlands which covers topics such as language, history and the work force. An alternative to this is…
Fries – a language for itself! Posted by Sten on Nov 2, 2015
Fryslân – it will probably not tell you a lot. It is a word not from the Dutch, but the Frysian language, het Fries. Fryslân is the name of the Dutch province in which Fries is spoken: Friesland. Now, yes, there are many different dialects, and versions of Fries. But in this post, I mean Westerlauers Fries, or Standaardfries when I mention Fries. This is the…
Dutch Halloween! Posted by Sten on Nov 1, 2015
Halloween has been widely around in the Netherlands since the 1990s. The celebration has been imported from the United States, and thus has more of a commercial character, instead of a deeply rooted cultural one. Shops specialized in costumes and dressing up love it, since Halloween allegedly fills up the niche between the summer and Christmas. Halloween…