Girl, Meet World
Professor Verbernelaan 54
It was my fucking toothbrush.
Every single time I leave my house, I forget my toothbrush. It’s turned into a ritual since I was very young — forget the toothbrush when going on holiday, buy a cheap one to last me the week until I get back home. Unfortunately this time, cheap isn’t going to cut it, not for six months. I need a proper toothbrush, a toothbrush that’ll last me more than a week. And with my realisation of my toothbrushless-ness, I have a second, horrifying realisation.
I need to brave the supermarket.
I don’t have the slightest clue where the supermarket is. I can barely find the kitchen in the maze that the housing association call a flat. I’ve already managed to walk past the toilet several times, trying to find a place to pee and only finding myself standing in amongst the shower stalls, completely clueless as to where the toilets actually are and almost ready to piss my pants. I even managed to walk into the laundry cupboard before I managed to find the toilet earlier. On the plus side, I now know where the ironing board is, not that I’ll be using it anytime soon. Wasting time on ironing clothes that’ll just get crumpled the second I wear them? Not my style. I’m fabulously grungy, and not in the fashionable sense of the word. Think of the unkempt kids at school who were always muddy and never kept their clothes good enough to be wearable for an entire school year, and you’ve got an accurate representation of the level of care I exhibit to my clothes.
In the kitchen, the conversation around the dinner table is — thankfully — being steered very quickly towards grocery shopping. We are all hungry, doubtless, and shopping in packs at this stage sounds like a good idea to me. We’re less likely to get lost that way. Not that I’m going to get lost in a supermarket, but you never do know. I did manage to forget my toothbrush.
So, armed with a rudimentary knowledge of the French language and a phone with Google Translate installed, I prepare myself mentally for my first authentic Dutch grocery shop.
The supermarket is tiny.
I find myself marvelling at how small the aisles are, and how quiet it is. At home, I’m used to the big supermarkets — ASDA, Tesco, Morrisons — where the low buzz of people can be heard throughout what is effectively a giant warehouse filled with groceries. This is much smaller, and less crowded. Being able to walk the aisles without having to sidestep three toddlers, an infuriating old lady and a businessman with his trolley parked across the walkway is a novel idea. I could get used to this.
I imagine we look a sight. We’re in a group of about seven or eight, and I doubt that we even look as if we’re remotely trying to assimilate. Rachael’s in the fruit aisle screeching about the price of bananas, Heidi is in the corner scoffing at the Dutch’s excuse for German deli meats, Emre is picking up what appears to be 90 loafs of bread and I’m standing in the middle of an aisle with my trolley blocking off the walkway, attempting to figure out what the Dutch word for vegetarian is.
Maybe it’s not a businessman thing as much as it’s a British thing. My bad.
We’ve spread out amongst the supermarket, so I can’t see a few of the others but I assume they’re faring better than I am. It marvels me just how foreign I look at this point in time. I’ve got my phone balanced on the edge of the trolley and a face like I’ve just been presented with a dead human carcass. Am I lost? Absolutely. I’ve only managed to pick up a bag of potatoes and a punnet of strawberries thus far. Those, I know, are safe. Clearly I’ll be living off of a diet of mashed potatoes for the next six months if I don’t get my shit together.
Almost as if on cue, one of the store workers appears. Naturally, I panic. I have learned roughly nothing in Dutch. I don’t even know how to say hello. This is a disaster. I’m going to look like a complete fucking idiot when she tries to talk to me. Every receptor in my brain is freaking out.
Not that they needed to, because she opens her mouth and the phrase “do you need help?” pops out, in perfect, accented English.
Breathing a silent sigh of relief — again, another person who speaks near-perfect English to help me with my plight — I explain my predicament and the potential for my diet to be based around nothing other than strawberries and potatoes if I don’t learn what I can and cannot eat. The young girl almost laughs at me, and points to her left.
“Green packaging over there. Anything that says vegetarisch, you can eat.”
By the time she manages to sidle away, I’ve probably thanked her in excess of around five hundred times. Grabbing thankfully at the packets — veggie burgers and veggie hotdogs, praise baby Jesus — I bustle my way to the checkouts to join the others, who in the time that it took me to find food have managed to get their way through and paid. Rushing my things through, I thank the operator hastily and speed-walk to catch up with the others, who are now leaving.
We’re halfway back to the flat before I realise that I still managed to forget to buy a toothbrush.
Professor Verbernelaan 54. Fifth-floor student residence. My new home. Hell on earth for people who aren’t athletically gifted. Heidi has already taken to the stairs, packed bags of groceries in either hand. She’s small, and German — they’re all athletic, right? — and she’s pretty much gotten halfway up the stairs in the minute that it’s taken me to steel my nerves for the climb ahead of me.
We counted the stairs on the way in — seventy-two in total to get to our flat. Luckily, the boys had volunteered to get our cases up the stairs this morning, but they’ve got their own shopping bags and we can’t exactly ask people we’ve just met to indulge our laziness. No, that will have to come much later when they realise how much of an asshole I am.
I’m six steps up before I begin to regret every decision I have ever made. I’ve got three bags, with items that include potatoes, a carton of milk, 2 bottles of wine — after all, who passes up wine at three euros a bottle? — and countless tins and pastas for the cupboard. The blood circulation is being cut off to my hands and I don’t think I’m quite going to make it to the end.
Rachael is huffing and puffing beside me, and I’m suddenly glad of her company. Andrea is bringing up the rear, and we’re all showing the UK up. I doubt any of us will be participating in the Olympics anytime soon, judging by how out of breath we are after only reaching the first floor. An elevator would be nice. Or a butler to take my things upstairs. I think I might be dying and to make matters worse, I realise that I’m going to have to make the commute up the stairs at least five times a week for university.
I can see this being a long six months.
Every single time I leave my house, I forget my toothbrush. It’s turned into a ritual since I was very young — forget the toothbrush when going on holiday, buy a cheap one to last me the week until I get back home. Unfortunately this time, cheap isn’t going to cut it, not for six months. I need a proper toothbrush, a toothbrush that’ll last me more than a week. And with my realisation of my toothbrushless-ness, I have a second, horrifying realisation.
I need to brave the supermarket.
I don’t have the slightest clue where the supermarket is. I can barely find the kitchen in the maze that the housing association call a flat. I’ve already managed to walk past the toilet several times, trying to find a place to pee and only finding myself standing in amongst the shower stalls, completely clueless as to where the toilets actually are and almost ready to piss my pants. I even managed to walk into the laundry cupboard before I managed to find the toilet earlier. On the plus side, I now know where the ironing board is, not that I’ll be using it anytime soon. Wasting time on ironing clothes that’ll just get crumpled the second I wear them? Not my style. I’m fabulously grungy, and not in the fashionable sense of the word. Think of the unkempt kids at school who were always muddy and never kept their clothes good enough to be wearable for an entire school year, and you’ve got an accurate representation of the level of care I exhibit to my clothes.
In the kitchen, the conversation around the dinner table is — thankfully — being steered very quickly towards grocery shopping. We are all hungry, doubtless, and shopping in packs at this stage sounds like a good idea to me. We’re less likely to get lost that way. Not that I’m going to get lost in a supermarket, but you never do know. I did manage to forget my toothbrush.
So, armed with a rudimentary knowledge of the French language and a phone with Google Translate installed, I prepare myself mentally for my first authentic Dutch grocery shop.
The supermarket is tiny.
I find myself marvelling at how small the aisles are, and how quiet it is. At home, I’m used to the big supermarkets — ASDA, Tesco, Morrisons — where the low buzz of people can be heard throughout what is effectively a giant warehouse filled with groceries. This is much smaller, and less crowded. Being able to walk the aisles without having to sidestep three toddlers, an infuriating old lady and a businessman with his trolley parked across the walkway is a novel idea. I could get used to this.
I imagine we look a sight. We’re in a group of about seven or eight, and I doubt that we even look as if we’re remotely trying to assimilate. Rachael’s in the fruit aisle screeching about the price of bananas, Heidi is in the corner scoffing at the Dutch’s excuse for German deli meats, Emre is picking up what appears to be 90 loafs of bread and I’m standing in the middle of an aisle with my trolley blocking off the walkway, attempting to figure out what the Dutch word for vegetarian is.
Maybe it’s not a businessman thing as much as it’s a British thing. My bad.
We’ve spread out amongst the supermarket, so I can’t see a few of the others but I assume they’re faring better than I am. It marvels me just how foreign I look at this point in time. I’ve got my phone balanced on the edge of the trolley and a face like I’ve just been presented with a dead human carcass. Am I lost? Absolutely. I’ve only managed to pick up a bag of potatoes and a punnet of strawberries thus far. Those, I know, are safe. Clearly I’ll be living off of a diet of mashed potatoes for the next six months if I don’t get my shit together.
Almost as if on cue, one of the store workers appears. Naturally, I panic. I have learned roughly nothing in Dutch. I don’t even know how to say hello. This is a disaster. I’m going to look like a complete fucking idiot when she tries to talk to me. Every receptor in my brain is freaking out.
Not that they needed to, because she opens her mouth and the phrase “do you need help?” pops out, in perfect, accented English.
Breathing a silent sigh of relief — again, another person who speaks near-perfect English to help me with my plight — I explain my predicament and the potential for my diet to be based around nothing other than strawberries and potatoes if I don’t learn what I can and cannot eat. The young girl almost laughs at me, and points to her left.
“Green packaging over there. Anything that says vegetarisch, you can eat.”
By the time she manages to sidle away, I’ve probably thanked her in excess of around five hundred times. Grabbing thankfully at the packets — veggie burgers and veggie hotdogs, praise baby Jesus — I bustle my way to the checkouts to join the others, who in the time that it took me to find food have managed to get their way through and paid. Rushing my things through, I thank the operator hastily and speed-walk to catch up with the others, who are now leaving.
We’re halfway back to the flat before I realise that I still managed to forget to buy a toothbrush.
Professor Verbernelaan 54. Fifth-floor student residence. My new home. Hell on earth for people who aren’t athletically gifted. Heidi has already taken to the stairs, packed bags of groceries in either hand. She’s small, and German — they’re all athletic, right? — and she’s pretty much gotten halfway up the stairs in the minute that it’s taken me to steel my nerves for the climb ahead of me.
We counted the stairs on the way in — seventy-two in total to get to our flat. Luckily, the boys had volunteered to get our cases up the stairs this morning, but they’ve got their own shopping bags and we can’t exactly ask people we’ve just met to indulge our laziness. No, that will have to come much later when they realise how much of an asshole I am.
I’m six steps up before I begin to regret every decision I have ever made. I’ve got three bags, with items that include potatoes, a carton of milk, 2 bottles of wine — after all, who passes up wine at three euros a bottle? — and countless tins and pastas for the cupboard. The blood circulation is being cut off to my hands and I don’t think I’m quite going to make it to the end.
Rachael is huffing and puffing beside me, and I’m suddenly glad of her company. Andrea is bringing up the rear, and we’re all showing the UK up. I doubt any of us will be participating in the Olympics anytime soon, judging by how out of breath we are after only reaching the first floor. An elevator would be nice. Or a butler to take my things upstairs. I think I might be dying and to make matters worse, I realise that I’m going to have to make the commute up the stairs at least five times a week for university.
I can see this being a long six months.
♠ ♠ ♠
I still have nightmares about the stairs to this day.