365 Days in the Garden

Teaching An Old Dog New Tricks

Learning Dutch at nearly 70 years old is moelijk (hard)

Learning how to hold on to things I already know while learning new things is even harder.

I thought getting used to riding a bicycle would be my biggest challenge when I moved to the Netherlands. However, I bought a three wheeler that has electric assistance and it is the opposite of moelijk, which, since my Dutch is niet goed, I don’t know how to say it is easy.

Tonight I started a Dutch class. I am still at the beginner’s level, but having been here for three years now, I am not at the very beginning, I am in the middle of the beginning.

Learning Dutch was not the hard part.

I struggled through some of the exercises, but in the end, that was the easy part of the night. When class was over, I also struggled to get home because I had taken an Uber instead of my bike. I took the Uber due to the rain and the fact that I wasn’t familiar with the route.

It was a mistake.

When I left class, a man who identified himself as homeless asked me for money and when I said I didn't have any with me, he began to follow me and get uncomfortably close to me while I tried to get a taxi. He kept walking behind me muttering things like “are you worried?”

Spoiler alert, I was.

Forgetting American was the problem.

This was the first time I’ve ever felt unsafe in Amsterdam. I’ve become very used to the idea that this is a safe city, but I seem to have forgotten that it’s very different to feel safe in the daylight or among many people compared to being alone in the rain, in the dark, in an isolated area. If I had brought my bike I would have gotten on it when everyone else got on theirs and been out of there before I ended up alone and vulnerable.

Eventually the Uber showed up. He didn’t make me feel any better by telling me the last time he picked a woman up where I was, she was being harassed by two guys.

I’m not going to give up.

I am determined to learn how to speak Dutch, so I will be back there again next week and every week until December.

Next time I will take my bike because I am becoming Dutch.