About a week ago, I moved. Very very far from home. I moved from Virginia, USA to this little town in Holland. So, yeah, its been a crazy week, but I'm trying to adjust to this completely different culture, language, etc. I dont speak Dutch yet, but I am working on it and luckily, about 90% of the Dutch population speaks English. Anyway, after sitting at home, scared to go out alone for the first 4 days, I decided to venture to the local supermarket while BF was at work the other day.
So I walk.. and walk... (damn, I miss Americans and their need to drive everywhere :P) and finally get to the store, where I realize that while I was smart enough to make a shopping list... I was NOT smart enough to make the list in DUTCH. So I have a list that say "bacon".. and nothing in sight that says "bacon". So, it takes me about an hour to find the 6 items I need, the store is crowded as hell, people are bumping into me, glaring that I'm wandering around, reading every item on the shelf (While the people around here not RUDE, they def arent as friendly as southerners :S) I finally get everything I need and get up to a cashier.
At this point, I'm pretty darn proud of myself. I get everything on the belt, smile at the cashier and say "hallo". She's a young girl, prolly slightly younger than me, maybe 18-21. As soon as I say "hallo", she starts speaking very quickly and angrily in Dutch while glaring at me. I stutter out "sorry, nein nedarlands. Engles Alstublieft" (No dutch, english please.) She just shakes her head and continues ranting at me in dutch, at this point shaking the lemon that I had selected earlier and put into a bag. At this point, I just keep saying "sorry", not knowing why. Finally, she turns to a coworker, tosses him the lemon and starts scanning the rest of my stuff. At this point, I have NO idea whats going on or if I'm going to be getting my lemon back. :P As she's finishing scanning the rest of my stuff, the co-worker comes back with my lemon. Ahhhh! There was a scale somewhere, I was supposed to weigh it myself and get this little sticker thingy on the bag. We dont do that back home :S. Anyway, fine, crisis averted, I'm embarassed and little upset that she yelled at me, but none the worse of wear. I mean, its not her fault she doesnt speak English, right? .... yeah. right.
So there I am, stuffing my groceries into my bookbag for the walk back and I see another cashier come up to the yelling girl. She asks her what she wants for dinner.... in english. And my cashier replies.... in english. Extremely fluent English, I might add. So here we are, the 3 of us, me loading and the 2 of them having a coversation in English. She knew I was still there.. not a bit of shame on her face for having lied to me like that.
A bit of fun at the expense of the foreigner I'm guessing? Who knows, maybe she wasnt talking about the lemon at all when she was yelling at me. :P
So I walk.. and walk... (damn, I miss Americans and their need to drive everywhere :P) and finally get to the store, where I realize that while I was smart enough to make a shopping list... I was NOT smart enough to make the list in DUTCH. So I have a list that say "bacon".. and nothing in sight that says "bacon". So, it takes me about an hour to find the 6 items I need, the store is crowded as hell, people are bumping into me, glaring that I'm wandering around, reading every item on the shelf (While the people around here not RUDE, they def arent as friendly as southerners :S) I finally get everything I need and get up to a cashier.
At this point, I'm pretty darn proud of myself. I get everything on the belt, smile at the cashier and say "hallo". She's a young girl, prolly slightly younger than me, maybe 18-21. As soon as I say "hallo", she starts speaking very quickly and angrily in Dutch while glaring at me. I stutter out "sorry, nein nedarlands. Engles Alstublieft" (No dutch, english please.) She just shakes her head and continues ranting at me in dutch, at this point shaking the lemon that I had selected earlier and put into a bag. At this point, I just keep saying "sorry", not knowing why. Finally, she turns to a coworker, tosses him the lemon and starts scanning the rest of my stuff. At this point, I have NO idea whats going on or if I'm going to be getting my lemon back. :P As she's finishing scanning the rest of my stuff, the co-worker comes back with my lemon. Ahhhh! There was a scale somewhere, I was supposed to weigh it myself and get this little sticker thingy on the bag. We dont do that back home :S. Anyway, fine, crisis averted, I'm embarassed and little upset that she yelled at me, but none the worse of wear. I mean, its not her fault she doesnt speak English, right? .... yeah. right.
So there I am, stuffing my groceries into my bookbag for the walk back and I see another cashier come up to the yelling girl. She asks her what she wants for dinner.... in english. And my cashier replies.... in english. Extremely fluent English, I might add. So here we are, the 3 of us, me loading and the 2 of them having a coversation in English. She knew I was still there.. not a bit of shame on her face for having lied to me like that.
A bit of fun at the expense of the foreigner I'm guessing? Who knows, maybe she wasnt talking about the lemon at all when she was yelling at me. :P
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