See, I never made that announcement, I didn’t walk around the city with a megaphone, I didn’t take out an ad in the paper, I didn’t spam people with that message, I didn’t put it on my website, I have never uttered those words ever. Yet it seems that the world is under the impression that I did. Several times everyday people are talking Dutch at me. In just under three weeks in this country, people have asked me for directions on three separate occasions. Sometimes even after I start a conversation in English, a person will attempt to continue it in Dutch. At times the opening statement is so long that I have to interrupt it to interject "sorry, I don’t speak Dutch". It happened to me in the computer lab the other day, some poor sap couldn’t figure out how to ssh to a linux box (prolly a bachelor student), so he launched this tirade of Dutch words at me. I ended up helping him do it.

Thus it seems clear that as people look at me, they think "this guy is obviously Dutch". It may be because people in NL are so assimilated that there is no stereotype for how Dutchmen look. Or it may be that there is a stereotype and I somehow qualify for it. In any event, it’s obvious that I fit in here without making the slightest effort. If I happen to learn Dutch some day, I could actually keep it up all the way through. I don’t suppose I could pull that off in say Italy, somehow Italians always know that I’m not one. Not that it bothers me, I’m Dutch afterall.