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In Europe by Geert Mak (Amazon)
- ISBN-10: 0307280578
- ISBN-13: 978-0307280572
It is written as a trip trough Europe in which he tells the story of Europe through small personal stories of people he meets along the way.
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It is not exactly what you are looking for but it is still one of the best books on the history of Europe.
Fluent for me means without Dutch accent. Plus I probably use a ton of "undutchables" - Dutch expressions directly translated to English. But I can say most of what I want to say.
I'll share what my friends who moved there (and eventually left) told us.
- You'll always be an foreigner there and you'll feel it. It's not racism exactly, just a sense of coolness and mild outsiderism.
- Outside of Amsterdam culture gets pretty prim and conservative. Inside Amsterdam culture is liberal, but weird. Read Amsterdam: A History of the World's Most Liberal City.
- The Dutch are not rude, but they are more direct than many cultures. That directness can feel abrasive and, like abrasion, wear you down over time.
https://www.amazon.com/Political-Pilgrims-Western-Intellectuals-Society/dp/1560009543
i'd recommend you pick up this book.
The US economy? The iPhone ur using to write that message? Where do you think the material to make these technologies comes from? They don't just appear out of thin air
Start with this. This is how it all started
It certainly is convenient that you guys get to retroactively redefine socialist experiments based upon their outcomes.
No, all of these socialist experiments just happened to become totalitarian regimes by chance. It couldn't have anything to do with the economic system involved.
It's even funnier that if you were to travel back in time, the biggest critics of these statements would be basically all the western intellectual socialists at the time
Gonna be honest with you OP, I have lived all my live (27) in the Netherlands and in Amsterdam (bijlmer area) as a native Dutch from Dutch descent.
There will always be dumb and ignorant people, sadly they got a racist representative in politics (Geert Wilders), whom I have strong opinions on.
But luckily for you Amsterdam, Rotterdam, the Hague, and Utrecht (a combined area known as the Randstad) is super multi cultural, and more open minded on a whole.
As long as you try to integrate into dutch society and respect everyone's culture, roots, etc you will absolutely love it here.
May I recommend you the book "The Undutchables: An Observation of the Netherlands, Its Culture and Its Inhabitants" it is a great read, funny, and very insightful into our weird and quirky cultural norms, values, and habits.
Link: https://www.amazon.com/Undutchables-Observation-Netherlands-Culture-Inhabitants/dp/188858047X
Ps: always happy to make new friends, so pm me if you want to know some of the best restaurants in town. ☺️
One thing no one has said yet; ENJOY IT!
It's a small, flat city with cycle paths; it's SO easy to cycle here. It's a country built to cycle! So have fun! You'll only be yelled for making a mistake in the first few, or by idiots going too fast, so don't worry about that.
In the city of bikes is a great history of cycling in Amsterdam. Not useful, but interesting.
OK, so it's only because you haven't yet read them. Thanks so much for responding.
It may be a year or two before I read them. I have something like 20 books ahead of them. But I've printed out your request and stuck it on the final page of the second book.
Possibly related: I'm reading a book by a different author with a similar anecdotal approach to history that I find completely engrossing (aside from the occasional translation error): In Europe by Geert Mak.
Markowski's Farmhouse Ales is an exceptional source for Saison. He describes the Wallonian water thus: > > > The water in most Wallonian farmhouse breweries comes from wells and, as is the case in the surrounding region, is moderately high in temporary hardness (bicarbonate). Minerals such as carbonate and sulfates have the net effect of emphasizing hop character and perceived dryness in elevated quantities. A water profile such as that shown on table 8* would yield enough residual alkalinity to warrant pH buffering with an acidifying agent. > > > Table 8: Typical Saison Brewery #1 > > Component | Value (mg/L) > ---|--- > pH | 7.2 > Bicarbonate | 350 > Calcium | 52 > Chloride | 20 > Magnesium | 17 > Sodium | 35 > Sulfates | 107 > Total Hardness | 454 >
>
As for my personal preferences, I always put at least .5lb (0.23kg) of flaked wheat in my saisons, for body and head retention.
This Saison is the first recipe I designed from scratch, I read Farmhouse Ales and used those rough guidelines to design it.
Extract with steeped grain. 5 gal batch that I split into two 3 gal glass carboys and pitched the two different yeasts listed below, no starters. So far I've liked Saisons fermented at lower temperatures, I listed some temperature details at the bottom if you're curious.
22 IBU, OG 1.049, FG 1.002 (6.2%)
>5.4 lbs Pils DME >1.2 lbs Wheat DME >0.5 lbs Vienna malt >0.5 lbs Torrified wheat
>0.75 oz East Kent goldings @ 60 min >0.5 oz Hallertau @ 15 min >0.5 oz East Kent Goldings @ 2 min
>WLP564 Leeuwenhoek Saison Blend (White Labs) >INIS-291 Saison: Farmhouse (Inland Island)
I didn't do a great job at keeping this batch's temperature consistent in my carboy coozy, manually switching out ice packs. Time after pitch: >12h - 75F >24h - 70F >36h to 72h - 66F >72h+ - let rise steadily to 75 over the next 3 days
Criticisms? Be mean, I'm trying to learn.
Ah, good for you! Where/What are you studying?
Few things:
- You should be able to pick up the language fairly quick, probably in 3-4 months you can get pretty good. When Im there, I start to hear Dutch better after about 3-4 weks.
- I find Dutch children's shows to be handy in learning Dutch as I need the audio/visual aspect. Search YouTube for Nijntje, Jip en Janneke, Kikker en Vriendjes, and Kabouter Plop.
- The Dutch like to show off their knowledge of English, and will probably switch to English automatically. It is difficult when you want to learn. So I suggest to try and keep going in Dutch if you can, rather the letting them switch, especially when shopping or so.
- If you have no visited NL before, you may want to look for the book, The UnDutchables. It is a parody book, but does give you a bit of culture as well.
- I pirated Rosetta Stone and found that super helpful as well. So, maybe go for that as well.
EDIT: Added #5
What style are you going for? There aren't a lot of belgian styles that should have a musty character.
Really only Biere de Darde and maybe Oud Bruin (thought not described in the style), or a specialty. Mostly, I'm guessing that flavor will come from a barrel, so you'll likely have to use some wood.
I'd start with Brew Like a Monk and see what you can find about those.
The Scramble for Africa by Thomas Pakenham
Fantastic book on the colonization of Africa. Impartial, well written and thorough.
I'm currently reading In Europe by Geert Mak, a history of Europe's 20th century. By no means exhaustive, but very interesting, many eyewitness accounts, a lot of stress on ties and influences between the events (as you asked) and it reads like a novel! I'm learning a lot of things reading it and quite often I'm asking myself 'why didn't they tell me that in school???'
By the way, they made a - really interesting - television series about it as well. Only 6 episodes with English subtitles though (so far?): In Europe - TV Series
to understand modern africa, you must understand colonial africa, and for that i suggest this book
That's really only enough time to walk around town, possibly get a beer at Bierbrasserie Cambrinus or the Half Moon Brewery, and fondle the blood of Christ at the Basilica of the Holy Blood.
I highly recommend:
I planned my weekend in Bruges 4 days in advance. Rick Steves' book was very helpful.