Real Conversation #15 - Travel (Gabriel & Brian)
GABRIEL: And you said you went to the Netherlands also. How did you like the Netherlands?
BRIAN: That was awesome. We went to Amsterdam. I'm surprised you can actually walk through downtown pretty quickly.
GABRIEL: Yeah, it's relatively small. That's true. The funny thing is that those streets now they're just always so packed with people. Amsterdam is such an incredibly busy city and essentially close to the "Amsterdam Centraal" (Dutch pronunciation) our train station there's, basically it's close to the red light district and so on. Those streets and even though I have been there multiple times but every time I'm there I see even more people than the time before. And I'm a bit claustrophobic, but you know but if it's like an open air I don't mind but, wow, it's just such a popular destination and they're just so many people. And I read briefly I saw an article online, I didn't actually read it though but I saw the title that apparently the city of Amsterdam or the Dutch government is just trying to change that a bit and actually ask people, even tourists to try to stay out of the of downtown Amsterdam. Just like, and stay in areas around... Just to make that downtown part a little bit less busy.
BRIAN: Right yeah.
GABRIEL: It's insane essentially but it is such an amazing place.
BRIAN: It is.
GABRIEL: You know, You've experienced it as well.
BRIAN: You know what I noticed about there is that everyone can speak English.
GABRIEL: Oh yes, yes.
BRIAN: And well!
They have no choice that's thing though. At least like in my eyes, I spoke with many Dutch people about it. I think that, I may be wrong but between 10 and 20 million people speak Dutch in the world, which is relatively a pretty small number. Also because of their great education system, the schools basically have, at least in my understanding, right... a Dutch person could correct me here. But my Dutch friends have told me that they really learn English in school, they also have usually shows in English. So meanwhile, in France they will have everything dubbed. There will be dubbed in French, you know they can watch films; they can watch American shows in French basically. But in the Netherlands they will have it in English with the subtitles which will basically enable a lot of people to learn. And you're right; most people speak English there, almost without an accent. They speak at a really high level and often they will also speak another two or three languages. They will also know French and German perhaps and Spanish. And a closer friend of mine who was Dutch she said “Well what choice do we have?” You know, if we only know Dutch and we travel around the world to have some place. Also I think it's also due to the relative proximity of the English language to the Dutch language. There's a lot of similar vocabulary and so on. And in the most interesting thing too is that I learned Dutch and it's funny to see the reaction of the Dutch whenever I was speaking Dutch. They were like “Why? Why would you learn Dutch?” (Laughs) So many times that I had that reaction to answer them…
BRIAN: Wow, that's crazy!
GABRIEL: Dutch people were saying, “That's awesome that you speak Dutch and it sounds that you speak well.” One time there was an answer them right on its rusty but after a couple days I can answer them all, I can get good again. Basically the first question “Why? Why did you learn Dutch you can speak English here. And I just did it because I like the Netherlands so much and I loved Amsterdam and I think that the culture is really cool and the Dutch mentality. I really wanted to experience a little bit like a deeper level. So, knowing German and English makes it easy. Yeah, I will mention this Brian speaks German because he is German. He says he is a little bit rusty but I think it's just been humble. So I think that for you Brian you would actually not be that hard to learn Dutch as well. So yeah, probably on the street signs or so and you probably recognize a lot of similar word to German.
BRIAN: Yeah, well even like movies. When I see it either dubbed in Dutch, like you're watching a movie or sees it in the bottom written, you'll see complete German or English words.
GABRIEL: Yeah, in the subtitles. It's true. I can actually remember watching, I can't remember the name of the movie but it was a silly movie, a comedy movie. But actually it was “The Three Stooges” but the recent one; they did a remake like a few years ago. And I watched it in the airplane coming back actually from Amsterdam to Vancouver and there were subtitles in Dutch. And the funny thing is that back then I spoke just basic Dutch but I could actually understand a fair amount of the subtitles. Just because of my knowledge of German or English, or even there was the odd French word there that I could recognize as well which was kind of cool. So yeah, but Amsterdam is pretty awesome place especially because it's so unique as well and it is just the nice and clean and the canals are so interesting.
BRIAN: Wanted to mention that yeah. Walking over the canals; we went to the Heineken brewery on either side of the road. It was pretty cool.
GABRIEL: Is it maybe like a bit outside or in the center?
BRIAN: It's a little bit… It's part of the downtown by things like on the outer edge. It was cool to learn about it because the guy that started didn't know anything about brewing beer because it started so… I mean I really respect that they like to learn along the way.
GABRIEL: The entrepreneurial spirit.
BRIAN: Yeah, exactly.
GABRIEL: Business minded spirit. That's really cool. Interesting, and nice. You mentioned you went to France as well.
BRIAN: Yep. We were only there for a couple of days; because we went to Paris. And actually when we were in Paris I tried really hard to use French but a lot of times I just asked if they could speak English. And they were usually pretty nice about it. I never really came across a French person who's like …
GABRIEL: That's cool. Nice. I think it may have changed. It may have only been with my experience 20 years ago. My gut feeling that it was because of the fact that maybe we didn't seem like we tried. Maybe that was it as well. And that's something that I have witnessed in Paris, a lot of annoying tourists not even trying to speak French not even putting the slightest effort. You're a polite guy and you were putting an effort and I think that they appreciate that.
