I spent a week in the Netherlands at the end of March/early April. One of the most interesting things I learned was that there is a tradition there of not closing the blinds on your windows (or not having any blinds at all). I went for a jog along a canal one afternoon and enjoyed peering into the living rooms of just about every little house I ran by. Most of them were very neat and no one was home. Apparently this is a vestige of the days when the Dutch were quite concerned with proving their religious rectitude by means of having a simple, tidy home.
I also learned that the Dutch have a tradition of discussing everything to death, which can often lead to political paralysis (see the recent interesting NYT Magazine article, “Going Dutch,” which touches a bit on this history). Not something I had heard about before.
Finally, I learned that the Dutch are a much more attractive people than their German neighbors! One legacy of the Dutch Empire is a population that is much more diverse (especially common are people of Inonesian and Surinamese heritage). Although Germany has its immigrant populations, the Dutch seem to have intermarried a lot more, leading to a lot of very beautiful people. Will the Germans ever learn?
