Starting the Dutch journey

I recently moved to the country of windmills and tulips, home of milk & sandwich lovers, also known as the Netherlands or Holland, where I will be living for the next one and a half years - gezellig (that's Dutch for "cool", to keep it short)! I am looking forward to get emerged into this new culture which has never ceased to surprise me in the month I've spent here until now -- will get back on this topic ;)

I must confess I had some help which made my journey start easier (and also made me seem really savvy about Dutch habits in front of my truly Dutch work colleagues): this amazing blog http://stuffdutchpeoplelike.com/ telling (almost?) everthing about interesting (euphemism for sometimes strange :)) habits that are common in this (small) part of the world. I sure hope its not telling everything about Dutch people, leaving some things to discover myself :)

I am living in Breda (just realised I am starting each paragraph with "I...". Damn, blogging is difficult :) So, starting again: Breda, my current home, is a cute, cozy city in the South of the NL (9th biggest city in Holland, to be more exact, with a population of 170 thousand inhabitants). Probably not many of you have heard of it, unless you are living in Netherlands or you are a friend of mine or you are a true football fan and you know the almost anonymus (to me at least) football team NAC Breda. Although at first being not that happy about coming to this never heard of small city (from Bucharest, capital of Romania, with more than 2 million inhabitants), I began to love the nice cobbled streets, the popular Grote Markt with its cafes and pubs, and the beautiful impressive church (which I can see from my apartment's window and who my friends say I'm obsessed about as I keep sending them pictures with it). Moreover, Breda is (ladies, pay attention to this) the city with the highest density of shoe shops in the Nethelands :) Although I must confess I was dissapointed when discovering this funny fact, as I was sure it was just my plain luck for having one of these shops in the building I live and several others on my street :), I know am just grateful for lining in Happy Feet City.

Some of these pics were taken end of November, so that's why you will see green grass and autumny leaves in some of them - and although the winter has been mild until now, the scenery has changed a bit.

As this first post is becoming quite long (I'm sure there must be a rule saying that you don't have to write long posts which I am breaking), I'll live those of you ever wanting to visit the it to a short movie about its main attractions.

Doey! (I love this very funny Dutch way of saying goodbye,so be prepared to see it quite often around here)