The Weather/Het weer

Every day I discover something new or interesting here and yesterday it was this reiger (heron), as I looked out the window, sitting on the houses across the street. I was able to get this decent picture of him before he flew away. This was a rare sight.

Since I have learned that more people reading this know some Nederlands and know a few others want to learn some, I decided I do need to include some Dutch in my blog. It also helps me in remembering and spelling the words. So, I will put Nederlands, the official name of the language, words in italics.

It has been very nice because I've pretty much been able to stay home the past two days. I was supposed to go on a visit today but I changed it to do with another visit tomorrow because it was so nasty out. "Nasty" is what my freshman year roommate used to call the weather at Houghton, in the middle of nowhere in southwestern New York, when the weather was not pleasant, which could be often. She was from Maryland so thought a lot of the weather was "nasty". I sure think of that and remember her here! Here they call yesterday saai (boring/dull) and dull it was, just various grayer clouds all day. Today, on the other hand, we had weather. Rain, snow, more rain, sleet, hail...and on my walk today the sun peaked through the clouds. We had it all today. This brings me to the title for today's post.

Nederlanders love to complain (klachten) and their favorite topic is the weather. Not only did I learn this in the inburgerings cursus but you only have to talk to a few Netherlanders or over hear their conversations and you'll hear the complaining about the weather. After a couple days like today I well understand it but, the secret I have is that the weather is no where near as slecht (bad) as most think it is or I was led to believe by those San Diego Nederlanders who didn't want me to move here! Folks...come forward to 2009, it was even in the news recently how Nederlands has 30% more sun than it did 10 years ago, I think it was. It really isn't that bad most of the time and I am very happy to say that I can usually find the sun peaking through at some point during the day, if only for a brief moment. That's another reminder of San Diego because I think there were only 2 days I didn't see the sun at some point in the day in the over 21 years I lived there.

I close with the sun coming through on my walk this afternoon.


De zon gaat door. The sun comes (goes) through.



The road into Katendrecht looking towards Maas Haven, for those who know Rotterdam.