German Hospitality

One thing that I keep learning as I travel, is how you can have preconceived notions about people or cultures that you have to re-evaluate. When we were in Germany, we were met by really friendly and open people. The harbormasters and staff have all been very helpful, we had four different employees of a grocery store try to help us find the steel cut oats we wanted, and when I went to an optician to ask for help replacing a screw that had fallen out of my new polarized sunglasses, he did it at no charge. Also, in Germany, everywhere we have stayed has had signs and information in at least English and German, as well as one or two other languages. The harbormaster at Norderney went to great lengths to help us get settled our first night, because we had to tie against a permanently fixed pier instead of floating piers, and didn’t know for sure how to secure the boat for the 3-4 meter change in height – there are no such tidal changes in Sweden.

We are now in the Netherlands, and people are wonderfully friendly as well. Everyone greets us when we meet on the street, they wave at us from their boats, and if you ask they all speak excellent English. So it has been a bit surprising that everything has been only in Dutch. No English or German or even French. The Dutch are the most multilingual people that I know of, it seems everyone is fluent in at least four or five languages (Dutch, English, German, French, and Flemish). But on the canals where a group of tourist boats from other countries are clearing into the locks, they only give instruction in Dutch. We had to ask them to please repeat in English, and several times they haven’t answered. All the information in the first harbor Delfzijl was only in Dutch, and the harbormaster was gone for the evening when we arrived. We had to fill out a form in Dutch and leave a cash payment, without being able to get change back or a receipt.

This isn’t a hardship, between my German and Magnus French and our Swedish and English, we can read most of the Dutch information – at least enough to figure out what is required. But strange that the waitress at the restaurant last night asked us if we spoke English or Dutch, then gave us a Dutch language menu. We figured it out, but based upon my preconceived notions, I would have said that the Germans would have had everything in German and the Dutch in many languages.