20 Signs You’re Almost Ingeburgerd in the Netherlands

How do you know when you are ingeburgerd? When you have lived long enough in the land of the Dutch, some Dutch habits become a normal part of your life. You no longer give them a second thought. Here are 20 signs you’re almost ingeburgerd (yes, of course that’s a real word).

1. You have orange clothes tucked away in your wardrobe especially for King’s Day and those major international football tournaments. Oranjegekte is something you can really get behind.
2. You own a pair of ice skates and there’s a good chance you’ve used them on natuurijs and not just at a skating ring.
3. You own a gourmet set and are hellbent on using it at Easter and Christmastime, and probably any other celebratory occasion you care to dream up.
4. These day you don’t even flinch when you see hoards of Zwarte Pieten descending on your home town in November.
5. You don’t even blink when you see a child pour half a box of coloured sprinkles on their heavily buttered bread. And you have even been known to partake in a little hagelslag fun yourself.
6. You serioulsy contemplate whether you could actually spell arbeidsongeschiktheidsverzekering using the letters you have on your Scrabble rack.
7. Now you don’t gasp in shock when someone utters “Jij kunt” to you.
8. Sausage floating in your thick dark green soup doesn’t scare you.
9. You and your bicycle have become one. It’s like a Siamese twin with wheels.
10. You search out three for two offers in the supermarket, cramming your trolley full of said items in multiples of three. Even though you don’t even need one of the said products. You know, just like every other Dutchman around you, that gratis is gratis.
11. HAVO, MAVO, MBO and VBO actually mean something to you.
12. It feels like you have scored a bargain when a toilet visit is only 25 cents.
13. You own both a kaasschaaf and a potato masher and you are not afraid to use them.
14. It’s Calve pindakaas, or no pindakaas.
15. You’ve started watching the Winter Olympics. For the first time in your life you actually have some kind of association with those winning the gold medals. (This may actually only be applicable to Brits here.)
16. You no longer fear the contents of UFOs (Unidentified Fried Objects) you see lying in the coolers of every snack bar you walk into.
17. You leave your curtains undrawn (or don’t bother putting any up at all) and actually wave at passers-by.
18. You’ve accepted that oven gloves turned into oven glove. And you just take everything out of your small oven with one hand now.
19. The farmer wants a wife is more than a song to you, it’s damn good TV.
20. You are ingeburgerd when your throat growls and regurgitates the ‘g’ sound so well that your non-Dutch relatives look somewhere between scared and concerned every time you say “Goed zo!” to a passing native.