I am a member of an English Club now. That is, it's a group of women all of whom speak English as their native language. And in fact, nearly all of them are Brit, though with at least one Scot I suppose I had better not say they are all English. I am the token American, I think. I came across it quite unexpectedly -- the child of one of the members is in the same class as Douwe, and she told me about it.
It meets every other Friday, which I expect means every fortnight, though even I am not pretentious enough to try to say that out loud. And it meets again tomorrow. We mostly go to a local restaurant and have coffee. The meeting starts right after the kids go to school and breaks up just before they have to be picked up for lunch.
I quite enjoy it. It is nice to talk without eternally internally translating. And I admit, I can't be clever in Dutch. I can't be subtle in Dutch, and I am never sure that I am actually communicating exactly what I want to say. I certainly cannot pun in Dutch. I am generally certain that what I meant to say got across in English (though whether that is a good idea is sometimes a different question). And this is very nice.
At their Christmas Dinner I found myself the astonished recipient of a large number of Christmas cards from people I had met all of twice at that point. I thought I was going to weep, really. It was a very small thing. But it was just so nice to, you know, get some Christmas cards like a regular person.
It is interesting being expatriated. I haven't really decided if I like it -- though I suppose I had better make up my mind to like it, as here I am. But it is a lovely thing to be able to share it a bit. It is also interesting, if the most important thing you share is a language, you find yourself talking about all kinds of things you otherwise would not with a lot of people you would never in a million years have spoken to -- because you would never have encountered them -- in any other context.
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Daan goes two half-days a week to a play, um, school. It isn't really a school, more like a roving band of toddlers. It all seemed very "Lord of the Flies" to me, as the teachers sort of flutter around and intervene mostly when there is blood on the floor.
But Daan seems to like it very much. And it has served its primary purpose, which is to convince him that the sun does not in fact rise and set on his brother and that there are other children in the world.
We are certainly coming this Spring; and I expect we will also come in the Summer -- though I have no idea what it costs to fly in that direction in the Summer, which will matter a bit of course.
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