mainly because it's been very warm, well at least above 20 degrees. Everyone goes crazy when it's basically not raining so just loads of people all skimpily dressed with white limbs sticking out and really waaaayy too gung-ho about the weather. I also started learning to play chess this weekend. They have nice cafes where people just go to play chess and have drinks and well so far I'm pathetic at chess. I think Joris was very optimistic about my potential chess skills. I think he's under the illusion that I'm a fast learner.
Something else I learnt this weekend is that the Dutch really, really like Afrikaans. They have a real thing about it. I keep getting asked to say things in Afrikaans and then having to explain that I'm really no good at speaking it because I never, ever have to at home. I'm actually so bad at Afrikaans that I was once told that I sound like I'm Russian when I try and speak it. So yes I'm just letting Dutch people down all the time. I actually feel quite bad about only speaking one language properly. The other night i was at a bar talking to joris and two of his friends ( a dutch guy and a french girl ) and I realised that the three of them could all happily converse in dutch, french or english, but obviously they had to speak english because of me and this made me feel quite stupid. Then Joris and I went to get some food from an italian restaurant and joris was happily chatting away in Italian and i felt even more stupid. It would be nice to know loads of languages. I thought that by now I would kind of be speaking dutch in this weird broken but maybe charming way. Obviously I'm not. Everyone just speaks such good english and no one even bothers to try speak to me in dutch because i think i mostly look quite lost and confused and it's very clear that i'm not a dutch person.
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