Ah The Dutch

Now I thought the French were rude well, the Dutch – they  make the French look extra friendly, helpful  and tolerant. The Rotterdam’s passengers are mainly Dutch (80%), with some Americans, some Canadians, a smattering of people from a few other countries  as well as 23 Australians. Now there are the nice Dutch and  the other Dutch. Lets call them the “ugly Dutch ” for want of a better word.  The nice Dutch people are the quietly spoken ones, the ones who will converse with you , are happy to share a table with you at lunch and don’t have orthopaedic shoes and hammer toes. On the other hand, the extra large, loud, overbearing ones, who can speak English but won’t, who just have to be first wherever they go  (the ugly Dutch) are an entirely different story.

Each night we dine at the same table with the same people at 8pm. The doors to the dining room are opened at precisely 8pm. The stampede begins. Preparation for the stampede has occurred in the 10 minutes prior. Pete and I enjoy the comedy aspect of this preparation.

The lift doors open, people step out and realise they are not first in the queue. The barging starts. The queue gets bigger and blocks the lift door exits. The lift doors open, no room for anyone to get out. No-one moves. The lift doors close. The people stay in the lift. Repeat twice.  Now after 12 nights there is no change. If you stand back and watch, you get to know who’s who and what will happen when they arrive.

The glass doors at the entry to the dining room are cleaned each night after the earlier sitting and before we enter. The dining room attendant made the mistake one night of opening the door to clean our side of the doors before 8pm. Cue – the doors are open – lets go in. One night, we saw a man knock the poor dining room attendant (who was trying to tell him the restaurant wasn’t open yet ) aside and barge in, dragging his poor embarrassed wife with him.

 

Nothing changes at the lunch buffet. A 20 metre line of food offering dishes from roast to stir fries, to pasta, salad, sushi indeed whatever you want, spreads on both sides of the boat. You could be the only one waiting to be served from the carvery and within seconds you could find yourself last in a line of 6. It”s not like the food would run out or that they are busy executives on their way to a very important meeting. They’re probably hurrying to get the deck chairs for beached whales closest to the pool where ice cream and tacos and Dutch fried foods are always available.

 

Usually Pete gets a table at the buffet whilst I get my meal, then he goes and gets his, as once you leave a table anyone can sit there. One woman even reached over from her table and took the cutlery that was on our table right in front of Pete! 

 

Yesterday we were invited (as returning Holland America clients) to the Captains dinner. Here the dining room attendants usher you to a table and generally you don’t have a choice where you sit . We were ushered to a table but the Dutch people there wouldn’t let us sit there so we were ushered to another table where 6 Dutch people were already seated. Unfortunately the attendant told us to sit there and soon we realised these people were also saving the two seats for their friends (who arrived a little later and were seated  at a table for two nearby.) The nice Dutch lady beside me spoke to me in Dutch so I said I didn’t speak Dutch only English. She seemed very surprised that I hadn’t picked up the language in the last two weeks. All of them could speak English but with the exception of the lady beside me, they spoke the entire meal in Dutch. She translated occasionally for us. When the Captain spoke, he spoke in both English and Dutch but said he would say a poem in English only as it didn’t rhyme in Dutch. One woman at our table said in a big loud voice “No Thanks” 

 

Even the nice Dutch are complaining about them!  And complaining to us about them.

Ah – The  “Ugly” Dutch.