The most colorful language I like to try to read is Dutch. I say try to because I am not fluent enough to not have to look up the things I don't know, but I truly love the whimsical spellings. So many double ee's and oo's. It's adorable. And so many z's and v's. :-) The fun thing is that so many little bits of English come from these Saxon roots that you can sorta understand a little, even if you aren't linguistically oriented.
The idea of living in the Netherlands or in Denmark is very appealing. Canals, seasonal changes, bicyles everywhere, tulips, hormone free meat/dairy, ah. Oh, and Belgian beer!! Just a stone's throw away!
And I like the very aesthetic of tall, narrow buildings dating back to before the Reformation. I like it very much.
It would be so different from living in Busan, South Korea, which is my 'realistic ex-pat plan'. I say realistic because I expect to get work teaching there. Korean is so different from English, and there is such a huge demand for teachers, that the pay is actually quite good! It's def more money than I would spend in a couple of years.
In contrast, the best bet I can even fathom in Holland would be student employment as a bike courrier or working at the university; awesome, but not quite the same in terms of coming back to the US with much of anything in my pocket. I doubt that any Dutch children need English tutors, what with the languages being so similar and all.
I like to think that my children need this in the same way I do; that it will nourish their senses, mold their inner-selves, that they unconsciously yearn for new latitudes and longitudes.
2 comments:
One of the bloggers I read, Lilac Specs, lives in Belgium, and has been trying to learn Dutch, and is miserable. :(
ohh? :-\
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