What I learned about the Netherlands, Ireland, France and Sweden

Officially, the end of my first year of European Master in Food Studies was over. With tears and hugs, byes and kisses, sweet and sour memories. Friendships developed - sometimes temporarily broken for reasons I could never comprehend - and memories woven. It was almost always lively around me, and I felt that I had a new family in Europe.

Now, let's put aside the emotional moments (because I'll start crying, alone in Rotterdam) and talk about things that I learned from staying in different countries throughout this one year. Just as an overview, our masters program involved being enrolled in four different universities in four different European countries, with students from all over the continents. In my edition, we have people from the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Romania, Indonesia, Thailand, China, Hongkong/UK (dual citizenship), India, Ghana, Guatemala, Mexico, Argentina, and Colombia.

You may agree or disagree with some points that I mentioned, but keep in mind that whatever is written here is merely of my perspectives, and I don't mean any harm when I write this.

Well, let's start with the Netherlands :)

1st stop: Wageningen University, The Netherlands
- The Dutch are super punctual, with the exception of a few. Some professors may decide to lock you out if you come late to class.
- Appointments are crucial, even when you lost your phone and wanted to make a police report.
- Similarly, when you are sick, you need to make a doctor's appointment. If you're lucky, you can see the doctor on the next day.
- If you can't bike, you seem like a handicapped person in the Netherlands.
- Consider yourself comparable to a Dutch when you know how to bike while drinking beer, dragging a luggage behind you, or some crazy stunts.
- 'Gratis' is a nice word.
- They put sate sauce (Indonesian peanut sauce) on fried rice and even French fries (they call it the French fries warfare). And I really still find it weird up till this day.
- Ketjap manis in the Netherlands doesn't taste really good.
- Words borrowed from Indonesian language seemed to be written in what we call "ejaan lama / Van Ophuijsen" or "old spellings" in Indonesia (use Google's translation function to read the article about Van Ophuijsen spellings - it's in Indonesian). After all, Indonesia was colonized for 300 years by the V.O.C.
- When washing dishes, the Dutch people do it like how the street food carts wash dishes in Indonesia: the same water with some dishwashing liquid, reused over and over again to wash and to rinse the plates (they don't use clean water to rinse the plates).
- You hear so much "khrrr" sounds in Dutch sentences, and you'd probably be interested to try mimicking that sound for a while (if you're not so used to it).
- The Dutch people have a different sense of humour that might be a little bit hard to understand. Sometimes, you might think it's a cruel joke, but you'll get used to it. They don't mean harm.
- If you don't want to eat insipid, cold sandwich with only either one slice of cheese or one slice of ham, with no tomatoes, lettuce, or sauces of any kinds, or eat fresh cucumbers during lunch, then you have not adapted well to the Dutch culture.
- You will get familiar with the smell of weeds.
- If you have a somewhat fair skin and eyes that are not as big as the Europeans or the Latins, random Dutch students on campus may shout "nihao" to you regardless of where you come from. And I still don't get why they find this amusing.
- Most Dutch people pronounce "idea" as "ID". At specific occasions, it can be pretty confusing until you get used to it.
- Kroket is eaten with a toast or bread. McDonald's in the Netherlands even sells McKroket, which is basically a burger with kroket inside.

2nd stop: University College Cork, Ireland
- The houses are colourful because it is almost always cloudy and gloomy.
- There is no special bike lanes, unlike in the Netherlands.
- The Irish are unbelievably nice. They are almost like saints, and I'm not joking. I wonder how this kind of nice culture can be developed. A bus driver stopping the bus in the middle of the road to show you directions, and no cars behind the bus honking in anger? Uber coolness.
- If you open a door first and you see someone coming from another side, open the door and let that person pass first.
- Paddy Wagon is the best friend of students who like to travel around Ireland.
- The English Market is super awesome, and chicken and pork meat are insanely cheap.
- Bailey's cheesecake is a must to try, especially when Bailey's originated in Ireland. Anyways, there are a lot of Bailey's product in Ireland that you should try, including this Bailey's chocolate sticks.
- Guinness ice cream is nice, even if you don't like Guinness (I think it tasted like medicine).
- It's quite difficult to understand the English accents and expressions of the Irish, but after 2-3 weeks you'll get used to it.
- Girls wear 15cm heels and dresses with ultra short skirts at night to the pub / club / bar. Very sexy.

3rd stop: AgroParis Tech, France
- The French are, in general, not so friendly to those who don't speak French. Of course there are exceptions.
- Speaking English is definitely not a plus point when you're in France.
- If you try your best to speak French, people are in general more willing to help you.
- Pickpockets are everywhere on the train and train stations. Always be alert.
- The trains in Paris smell bad. Most of the time.
- Paris is the heaven for food. Almost always you will find good food, although your wallet may hurt.
- Baguette is a student's best friend. It's cheap (80 cents each), it's long, and the best is the one that just came out of the oven. It's crunchy on the outside, and soft on the inside. In Indonesia, a baguette can be used to hit a house burglar, just like a baseball bat.
- McDonald's in Paris sells baguette, too.
- Eating too much baguette may cause horizontal expansion of your body. Not kidding.
- 3 course meal for 3.10 euros from school cafetaria is awesome. But again, horizontal expansion of your body is inevitable.
- Lunch time is 1.5 hours.
- When you're under 25 and you're a student, go to as many museums as you can because they're free.
- Never go to Notre Dame du Paris during Easter if you want to pray properly. The tourists and their cameras will distract you, and prevent you from getting a seat.
- International mass at church means having the first reading in English, and the rest of the mass is a mix of Italian, Spanish and Latin.
- Macarons are everywhere. And Laduree is a little bit overrated.
- If you walk along Champs-Élysées, you will find Asians (especially from China and Indonesia) crowding expensive stores like Louis Vuitton and Long Champ.
- Arab Markets are great places to buy cheap, fresh fruits and veggies. And even your undies.

4th stop: Lund University, Sweden
- Fika (a break) is an essential part of the Swedish culture. No matter what, they always have fika every day without fail.
- Lagom is also an important word, which means "not too much, not too little".
- Once again, you will need a bike.
- Going to IKEA is always awesome, even though now it is owned by the Dutch.
- Swedish meatballs should be accompanied with lingonberry, and not cranberry. It's different.
- H&M is a Swedish brand, but the prices are not any cheaper. Still, they have good collections, especially when you go to Stockholm. There are at least 5 H&Ms around the city centre, one of those being called H&M Home (the 'headquarter' of H&M).
- Herrings, herrings and herrings of all types.
- Pickles in Sweden contain mostly sugar.
- Cheesecake in Sweden can be savoury, filled with seafood.
- Sweden is a safe country, but it doesn't mean that you can lower your guard down. 3 people, including me, had their phones stolen.
- Skåne is a region in south of Sweden.
- Everyone in Sweden is always ready for summer. Weekend + sunny weather = picnic.
- Good weather = barbecue time.
- Sometimes, when it says 10:00 on a schedule, it means 10:15.
- Travelling with Jojo card saves you 10% of travel cost.
- Buying duo-family ticket (works for 2 adults) saves you additional 20% of travel cost. Sadly, you have to travel in even numbers.
- You can pay tickets from the ticketing office with a combination of jojo card, cash or card.
- Getting a bike in early May is difficult because everyone graduates in late May.


And aside from this, I'm sure I have some learning points missing. This one year has been filled with a lot of learnings: in class and outside the class. The differences in cultures and perspectives can be somewhat a challenge, but this one year is the perfect time to not only notice the differences, but also to understand the differences and to learn to compromise. I have never been immersed in a group so rich in cultural differences, and I have to thank this masters program for it.

This one year has been very awesome, and even though it comes with a price of having to move almost every two months with all belongings, worrying about overweight luggages and shipments, with internship, where to stay next, an ongoing team project, classes and exams, financial spending... it's not as breezy as people think about this program. But it's definitely worth all the effort :)

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Ireland - Blarney Castle

One fine Saturday, we decided to visit Blarney Castle, which is located about 20 minutes away by bus from where we live in Cork.

Rather than just the castle, I personally think the landscape around the castle is much more interesting.

Well, we had a little bit of fun near the water ;)

The castle itself was like a labyrinth: you have to go through tunnels to reach the rooms, and not all rooms are connected to each other. The stairs are fairly scary to climb because the steps are not that wide and you can only hang onto the rope. Oh, and the height of each step is pretty high too.

We climbed all the way to the highest part of the castle where the Blarney Stone is located. According to the story, the owner of the castle, Blarney, became eloquent  after being told by a witch to kiss that stone.

Since I was there, I tried to kiss the Blarney Stone. It was a little scary because you have to bend downwards. You can hold on to the bars, and there's a guy who would assist you so you don't fall when you kiss it. Still, the part where I bent myself backwards made my heart raced a little bit. Ah, and I had to take off my glasses. What a pity.

There are a lot of things to explore around the Blarney Castle. The fern garden was rather interesting; my friends and I agreed that our first impression of the garden was "Jurassic Park". The poison garden was kind of barren when we visited it (mid-Feb), so I was a little disappointed. There are also areas with mystic backgrounds around, such as the Wishing Steps, the Witches Kitchen, the Druids Cave, the witches Stone, the Druids Circle, the Sacrificial Altar (this really sounds scary) and the Fairy Glade.

Nope, I didn't see a fairy.

I still have more pictures on my camera. I had no time to transfer them to my computer. I'll do that... maybe next week. Yeah. We are leaving Ireland soon, so we are currently pretty busy with packing and shipping some of our belongings to Paris.

I'm really going to miss Ireland!

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Ireland - Celebrating Chinese New Year

I just realized that this post was left unpublished 2 weeks after Chinese New Year. Anyways, Happy Chinese New Year to those who celebrate!

I had this wonderful plan to go to Dublin to join my friend for New Year Eve's dinner with the Singaporean students association, but there were some unexpected agenda that cannot be dismissed, so I ended up canceling the trip. And I don't want to join the dinner looking like a person who's about to collapse from consecutive days of sleepless nights and 6-hour meeting just before riding a 3-hour bus ride.

Everyone was tired and no one was in the mood for cooking. We ordered fast food (I ordered fish and chips - at least the fish part is still an ingredient you find in Chinese new year food), which turned out to be very unappetizing and most of us ended up not being able to finish the meal. 

Even with all these things going on, I'm glad that I had a pre-Chinese New Year Eve celebration with my former high school classmate and her Malaysian friends!

Steamed seabass with soy sauce, ginger and fish sauce

Lotus root

5-spice chicken

Stir-fried vegetable

Barley jelly dessert

Gong Xi Fa Cai! ^^

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Ireland - Bright Colored Houses

If you don't take a time to really think about it, you probably just think "oh, what a nice color" when you look at the buildings in Ireland. Or you might not even bother noticing that these buildings are of different colors because you are dying to reach your target destination when you walk in the rain. Or when you're rushing to school.

Why are the buildings colored brightly? It's because everything around those buildings are grey. I'm not sure if these make any differences to colorblind people, but they do make a difference in my mood.

By the way, I didn't photoshop this picture. The surroundings of those buildings are naturally grey.

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Ireland - Polish food

It's funny how I started eating Polish food when I'm in Ireland. Well, it just happened that there was a groceries shop exclusively selling Polish food. The only Polish food I know was pierogi (which my American friend used to correct me because I said it wrong; she said it should be "puh-ro-gi" but later on Google Translate I proved myself pronouncing it correctly back then).

I looked around the shop and found so many things I don't recognize, and not all of them have English translation on the packaging. The funny thing I noticed about the names of Polish food is the abundance of the letter 'z'.

Koreczki sledziowe - marinated fillet of herring according to Google Translate

The herring fillets are submerged in chili oil and onion cuts. I asked the lady at the counter how they eat this, and she said just eat it as it is, and for each bite of the herring, drink 1 shot of vodka. Later on, my Polish friend reconfirmed this truth for me. 

Pyzy z miesem - dumplings with meat according to Google Translate
My Polish friend said there is no direct translation for these, so I guess dumplings would be of somewhat accurate translation although I'd prefer to call it dumpling balls because my perception of a dumpling is a pillow-looking dough with something inside. These are definitely ball-shaped.

Apparently, according to the same friend again, I did a bold and daring thing to combine the marinated herring and the dumpling balls into one dish. This is actually an interesting observation. As a person who knows nothing of how these food should be prepared, and as a person with some knowledge in cooking and a hobby in eating, I find nothing wrong with combining these two items.

This just showed how much culture affects our trajectories and and perhaps limits one's creativity. To me, it is logical to eat something as bland as these dumplings (the dough outside is made of potatoes and the meat doesn't have that much flavor) with something with strong flavor as the marinated herrings.

My friend then added a comment that I should try pan-frying the dumpling balls after boiling them, as suggested by the packaging instruction. I was about to pour vegetable oil into the pan, but I stopped after noticing that all the oil used in the marinated herring will be thrown away without being used at all.

I did an even crazier thing by frying the dumpling balls using the chili oil from the herring marinade. And on top of that, included some Indonesian sweet soy sauce on the plate and then sprinkled some fried garlic on top of the dumplings.

To be honest, at first my intention was to use the soy sauce and the fried garlic to decorate the plate. But after trying to combine the sour, kind of astringent and spicy and somewhat tender herring with the rather bland and chewy dumpling, perfectly caramelized sweet soy sauce and crunchy fried garlic, I found out that this combination is actually pleasantly surprising. And I bet if I serve this kind of dish and say "this is a recipe from a famous fine dining chef Mr. XYZ", people will say that this is a genius invention. Okay, I overdid it. I wouldn't call it a genius invention, but rather, a play on texture, flavor and cultural mash-ups of a crazy college student with no background in culinary arts.

A simple experimental dish done by a neophilic food consumer who likes to go beyond the average limit :)

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Ireland - Titanic Tea

I will admit that for 23 years I did not bother knowing that the famous Titanic ship was built in Belfast, Ireland. All I ever remember from the movie was Jack, Rose, and the iceberg. I think that is rather understandable considering that I watched Titanic when I was in 3rd grade and the Internet was still a sci-fi concept that has yet to realize. Well, at least in Indonesia. Years have gone by and I did not have a sligth interest looking at the history of Titanic until I came to Ireland.

I was on the way back from school, exploring different routes that I can take. Taking the usual route is sure comfortable and assuring, but I'm sure I'll find something interesting along the new routes. I ended up stopping by at Dunnes Store. It's funny how that store is just right across the river from where I am living right now, and I didn't really bother to check it out after 2 weeks of life here.

The supermarket in Dunnes sell uncommon brands that I don't see in TESCO, including this Titanic Tea.

As a person studying food science and technology, and as a student who is currently studying about marketing, it should be easy for me to realize that this product is just a play on marketing.

 

The packaging is more fancy than other typical tea brands like Lipton or Barry's paper box. With high quality, smooth and shiny aluminum packaging and of course the name 'Titanic', it is very easy to catch one's attention. I tried to look at the ingredients list, or any hints on the packaging that describes the flavor of the tea, but I couldn't find it. Most likely, if the flavor is not something highlighted on the package, this is comparable to any ordinary tea out there.

 

But the problem is, I don't know what kind of tea it is comparable to. So I bought this package for 2.89 euros. It is slightly more expensive than other tea brands, but 50 cents won't hurt to satisfy my curiosity. Afterall, this is going to be my first and my last time buying it because I don't think I can even finish 80 teabags in 2 months.



 

So, what's the flavor? I'm currently having a serious issue with blocked nose so it's a little bit hard to tell. My first perception of the aroma was 'woody', but when I asked my housemate to smell it, she said it has the same smell as Lipton Yellow Label black tea. That being said, I also can't accurately tell what kind of flavor the tea has, but my guess is that this tea is equivalent to a typical English breakfast tea.

 

I'm not entirely disappointed because although it's not a really good tea, it's also not a bad tea. Plus, now I know how it tastes and smells like :)

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Ireland - Pubs and the City

For 3 years, I lived in a town surrounded by corn fields, and my biggest entertainment was Walmart. The next six months after graduation was spent in the neighborhood of the town with the highest criminal rate in the United States. The first four months of graduate school was spent in a very natural area. Now, I'm back to what I call a city life in Cork.

The Courthouse

I like the convenience of having shops open on Sunday, groceries open until 10 pm and an open market available every day. I have not visited the open market yet because I had no idea that it is called the English Market here. My housemate came back from their exploration today and told me that the English Market is frigging awesome and I should definitely check it out. And I will.

There are so many pubs around the city center, and most of them feature live music, ranging from jazz to country. There are also pubs with dance floors and DJs if you like to dance.

The first drink I had was actually Bulmers, an Irish cider. Ireland is famous for its stout beer but I hate stouts. In the first place, I'm not a fervent drinker. I do like to occasionally drink for social purposes, but I don't like the sensation of being drunk because my face gets really hot and I just feel like sleeping after half a pint of beer.

Bulmers is a little to sweet for me, but it's better than the Chinese herbal medicine taste of Guiness. I like wheat or lambic beers better.

While walking from one of the pubs at the city centre, I saw these... cycle rickshaw / bicycle taxi (?) on the way back to my apartment. One of my friends asked and it cost about 20 euros to travel around the area (and this is considered expensive, according to another bicycle taxi driver just across the road.

I will explore the city center again in the next couple of days. It's very close to my current housing and before my workload gets crazy I'd better spend my time well with the exploration. There are at least the English Market, as I mentioned before, and the Cathedral to explore before I leave Cork.

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Ireland - Irish Breakfast

Two days ago was my first day in Ireland. I've never been to Ireland, and I didn't have much expectations other than hearing British accent and drinking ales. We took a bus ride from the airport to the city center, where our housing is located (costed us 5 euros). For the first time in 4 years I will be studying in a city center brimmed with shopping centers and, most importantly, restaurants.

To my surprise, Cork is actually a big city. When I mentioned "Cork" to anyone who asked me where my school in Ireland is going to be, nobody seemed to recognize it. Even my Dutch friend said that many Europeans don't know about Cork as well. Well, Cork is the second biggest city in Ireland. There are no skyscrapers on sight but I no longer see large green pastures, corn fields or anything like that anymore.

What's really striking about Ireland, from my 2-day observation, is the friendliness of its people. On the bus, we were talking to each other on how we should call the housing management to pick up the key because we arrived on Saturday and the main office is closed. The bus driver overheard us, and he spontaneously offered to call the housing for us. Later on, I heard from my other friends that their bus driver stopped the whole traffic just to explain the directions to them.

I did a dumb decision shipping my blanket and my bedsheet using postal service and they are not here by the time I arrived, so I had to deal with makeshift blankets for at least a week. And unfortunately, couple of my housemates did the same. Lesson learnt: always bring the essentials. 

We visited a TESCO, an American brand supermarket. Since we live in the city center, everything is within walking distances. Perhaps it's a little dangerous to live here if you like to shop, but fortunately I'm the type of person who always go shopping only when I need something, so money management should not be a really big issue unless social interaction forces me to go window shopping.

Across TESCO we found a good all-day breakfast restaurant which serves typical Irish breakfast. The restaurant, Puccino's, serve a variety of breakfast foods but what caught my attention was a menu called "A little bit of everything". 

I figured that it would be too much lunch for me because I had a huge breakfast, but the black and white pudding caught my attention. Black pudding (wiki) is actually a blood sausage, and white pudding is made of pork meat, fat oatmeal and other stuffs (wiki).

I neither like nor dislike the black and white pudding. I will eat it if it's on my plate but I will not seek it.

The cafe's theme was rather unique. Other than random quotes framed and hung on the walls, the plates, cups, sugar packaging and even the biscuit to accompany my coffee has random, eye-catching quotes: brown sugar is "for snobs", white sugar is "for commoners", and they call the biscuit "stupid little biscuit".

I used two packs of white sugar and 1 pack of brown sugar because the cup of coffee is quite a large one. That makes me two-thirds commoner and one-third snob. LOL.

I'm loving Ireland. If only the light rain would stop more frequently, that would be super awesome :)

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