“After three months in Rotterdam, my husband only wanted to speak Dutch. That’s how I overcame my fear of the unknown and learned Dutch,” says Ingrid from Norway. It was in Israel, where she worked in the kitchen of a guest house, that she met her current husband. “He was passing through with friends. Apparently, he saw me first. Later, he sent me a letter. That’s how we got in touch. After that, we visited each other in Norway and in Rotterdam, where he lived.”
The couple married in 1994. “Then we discussed where we could best live. We chose Rotterdam because my husband had a good job there.” The first time she came to Rotterdam to live here permanently, it was summer. “I loved being outside then. We lived a little outside the center, near Bergweg. There is a canal and other green spaces there, so I enjoyed that. I was really impressed by the smells, colors, and people. I liked all the different types of people and cultures. We have that a bit in Norway, too. Vietnamese boat refugees came to our country, and people from Pakistan came mainly for work, but that was about it. And, just like in Rotterdam, they often lived in specific parts of the city, which wasn’t where I lived, so I didn’t see them that often. In Rotterdam, you see them as part of the street scene, you also see the Surinamese shops and Turkish bakeries. That’s more than I was used to. When I moved to Beukelsweg, I suddenly had two mosques as neighbors. And there were many Surinamese people living in the neighborhood. Now there is also a ship with refugees near our house. I like that. In Israel, I also saw many people from different countries, but there they all had the same religion. That’s not the case here. People come here to study or because they’ve been sent by their company or for some other reason. I have neighbors of all colors. Everyone greets each other.”
Feeling at home
And that’s why she feels at home in Rotterdam. “When you know your neighborhood and some of the faces, it starts to feel like home. I find it easy to move around. It’s more important to me to have people in the neighborhood that I know and can talk to and who become friends, than to live in a specific place. I do like it when there are a few trees in the neighborhood.
What also helps is the market on Saturdays. “We also have a small market in Bergen on Saturdays, but there you only had extremely expensive fish and mushrooms. It was also more for tourists than for ordinary people. Here I saw different kinds of vegetables and cheese for relatively little money. So we always went to the market together on Saturdays.”
Cold feet
Although she quickly felt at home, she didn’t learn the language very quickly. “I had taken a few courses in Norway, but they were actually too advanced for me, so I mostly just listened. In Israel, I also had some Dutch acquaintances who sometimes spoke Dutch among themselves, so I could listen to that too. But once in Rotterdam, I put off learning and speaking Dutch better, even though I knew I had to. After three months, my husband said I had to learn to speak Dutch, so from then on he only wanted to speak Dutch. Ingrid was shocked for a moment. “Dutch has so many sounds that I didn’t know yet… those months after that, I really felt like I was in a cage. I wanted to say so much, but I couldn’t say it because I didn’t have the vocabulary. But I overcame my fear of the unknown. So I started a conversation in Dutch and discovered that I could also get a lot done with my hands. Gradually, I spoke more and more Dutch. Even with a colleague from Finland, even though our company was English-speaking. Neither of us was very good at it, so you dare to do more than when you only speak to Dutch people. That really helped.”
Candles for Christmas and a table for visitorf
Fortunately, many things in the Netherlands and Norway are more similar than the language. “They are very close. It’s in the details. For example, public holidays are a bit different. In Norway, we light a candle on the four Sundays before Christmas. In Norway, we don’t have Sinterklaas, which means children can get more excited. So with those candles, they can count down the days. Also, people here often don’t take their shoes off at home. And when people invite you for coffee, they only serve coffee and a cookie. In Norway, I always set the whole table. She has adopted many customs. It’s a gradual process. So now I don’t set such an elaborate table very often anymore. And I think I’m a bit more direct than I would have been if I had still been living in Norway.