Flessenpost 4: Dutchies in Sydney

Well, I guess it’s official, I am not a Dutch resident anymore… It actually felt like a bit of an anticlimax that the moment I clicked ‘moved abroad’ and got downgraded from ‘Basisregistratie Personen’ (Personal Records Database) to ‘Registratie Niet-Ingezetenen’ (Non-residents Record Database), the only thing I got was a lousy email from the Delft municipality thanking me for my notification and announcing that they will process my request soon, someday, maybe.. No big farewells, no ‘we will miss you, please come back’, no goodbyes, no free cheese or hagelslag to convince me to stay. Nope, one men just clicked the button ‘not our problem anymore’ and that was it, I got kicked out. In my head I see it old school how that same guy got up from his chair in his tiny office, surrounded and overflowing by piles and piles of paper, took my paper file from the residents pile and put it in the paper shredder. The pieces of paper containing my details and records, flying around the room, covering the spars bits and pieces of visible floor area left.

Maybe it was that little over dramatic anticlimax moment that made me decide to get in touch with other Dutch people or actually I don’t know what it was. Because normally when I am abroad (for a holiday, exchange or internship), I try to stay away from other Dutch people as far as possible. I mean I didn’t go abroad for more of the same, but to explore a new country, get involved in the local culture etc. However, since this time is a little different and I will be abroad for multiple years, I decided that perhaps my approach should also be a bit different and I might as well keep practising my Dutch and make a couple of Dutch friends.

Truth be told, I felt pretty Dutch those first weeks in Sydney. I got way too excited when I figured out Coles was selling my only Dutch food addiction ‘hagelslag’, I take my home made cheese sandwich to uni, I am missing my bike every time I am walking home, I get offended by the idea that not wearing a helmet when cycling gets you a fine, I wrote a rhyme for Sinterklaas and the fact of suddenly being just that little bit taller than the other girls. Or well, at uni: which girls, I am pretty much the only girl at the office. Which brings me to the other PhD guys always teasing me when I say or do something random or weird with ‘That’s so Dutch’, ‘That’s the most Dutch thing I have ever heard’ or ‘Is that a typical Dutch thing?’. (No sometimes I am just weird, it’s not Dutch, it’s just me, okay..)

Afin, zo gezegd zo gedaan and before I knew it, I ended up becoming part of a couple of Dutchies in Australia/Sydney Facebook groups and found myself at Bondi beach for a picnic with a group of strangers and a friend I knew from my old hostel, where the only thing we all had in common was being in Sydney and being Dutch. So we orange geekies, hagelslag eating, bicycle riding, beer and cheese loving, Sinterklaas celebrating, freakily tall people met up and bonded over a couple bottles of wine/beer and pepernoten. Afterwards we decided with a couple to crash a garden party where there were even more Dutchies.
And though I was really sceptic in the beginning, it was actually a really nice change compared to being surrounded by Aussies and internachos all day. (Finally) good music, good vibes and I had no clue I could get that excited by hearing the words ‘adten’ and ‘escalatie’ in one sentence. I guess I am way more Dutch than I thought and can appreciate that bit of Dutch culture and vibe every now and then. Or actually I am not so sure if it was Dutch culture, or a particular student subculture and chilled vibe I know from Delft. Definitely not all Dutch people are that laid-back, open-minded and travel spirited. I would still avoid the unworldly Dutch people at all cost, but on the other hand those won’t end up working/travelling in Sydney anyways.

I actually made some good friends that day and in the next weeks, although I missed the second Bondi meet up, we went to a nice local restaurant, on an adventurous day to the Royal National Park and have more events coming up, but more on that later.
And thanks to that Dutch group and vibe, I know what I will be doing January 1st: the classic Dutch New Year’s dive including Unox hat, but then replace Scheveningen with Bondi and freezing cold with sunny weather. So if you are in the neigbourhood and see hundreds of people with orange hats running to the sea, I will be part of that crazy mass and bloody proud of it!

But to come back to my residency status, not sure if I got one. The Dutch kicked me out, the Australians don’t want me yet and are happy to leave my residency status for at least the next 4 years at ‘temporarily visiting’. Which is actually slightly annoying, I mean I want to be part of it, I didn’t move here just for the PhD, I want to be part of the culture. Guess I will keep feeling pretty Dutch while I am in Australia, hanging out with the Dutch.. But something tells me that the next time I will actually be in the Netherlands, I will start feeling Australian and the odd one out.