2 sheep, a cow and a tractor!

After last Friday’s quick update, I think it’s time to give a better account of the events of last week.




Last Tuesday brought an invasion of Dutch to the d’Artagnan. It turns out that the Dutch love the Scottish and hate the “British” (just like everyone else then) especially my accent. But they all think I am utterly mad for hating beer – though who can blame me, it’s weak, bitter and disgusting. Tvon tells me that the Dutch will dink pretty much anything – particularly if it is free or cheap. Even piss. They wouldn’t last 5 minutes in Scotland.

Tvon is about 6”5, sounds like Dylan Moran, and is about as cynical. Spending more than 30 seconds in his company without laughing is near enough impossible. On the first night I asked him where in Holland he was from:



“Basically, imagine a dot on a map in Holland. Then imagine three other tiny dots in the middle of the dot. One of those dots is where we live, in the middle of fucking nowhere, where pretty much everyone is expected to be a farmer. Do you want to know what the flag is? The regional Flag? 2 sheep! 2 sheep, a cow and a tractor! WHAT MORE DO YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS IS A FUCKING FARM VILLAGE?”



He gave me his sunglasses to keep, and I’m quite gutted that I lost them because apparently he was pretty attached to them. On the other hand, I know they only cost about 4 Euros.



Meanwhile, Lars was continually offering me beer. The conversation would go something like this:



“Have some beer”

“Nah, I’m good”

“No.Have some beer!”

“I don’t like beer.”

“I don’t like beer! Just have some!”

“Fiiiine” (Has beer) “…Eugh…”

(Five minutes later)

“Have some beer”

“Awww ffs…”

(And so on, until)



“Have some beer”

“I told you, I don’t like beer!”

“I don’t like beer”

“You don’t like beer! You choose to drink it! I don’t like beer. I choose NOT to drink it! Simple!”



(I was late told by the Yanks (Who I’ll talk about later) that this was Lars trying to come on to me. Apparently the three of them held a (relatively short) moments silence in commemoration of my obliviousness. Sorry Lars, I'm a bit slow lol)



Tvon then completely owned my ass at pool “Prepare to win. Seriously.” Although I’m told I actually owned myself because I potter the black ball about 3 minutes in. Tvon’s friends told me that his nickname is FanFan. FanFan is a female clothes brand in Holland, and Tvon once turned up in PE wearing a FanFan shirt. Apparently it was his sisters…



Other fine Dutch offerings who I remember include Montags (Monday, as I call him) Tom (“like Tom out of Rage Against the Machine!”), Taz (“Guy with hair like the guy out of Rage Against the Machine”) Saunder (“French ‘n’ Saunders!”) Reen (“Rrrrrreen”) Lia (who was so pissed and loved me because I taught her how to say “Advertisement) and a few others, including Tvon’s best friend whose name I’ve forgotten but who was great banter. I was very gutted to see the Dutch leave on Friday morning and would love to see them all again :D