WELCOME

So here I am. I've been living in Amsterdam, The Netherlands for almost a month now. Things are going rather well. So far I have experienced only positive things from the Dutch and as an example of this... all of the neighbours in my building came to introduce themselves to me! Strange.

The weirdest thing that I've seen here is the Dutch version of Santa Claus. It's Sinter Klaas - which is no big stretch. He's a white guy who dresses in red and he is old and has a beard. But things start to go strange when it comes to the elves. He doesn't have the short, pointy ear variety. His helpers are called Zwarte Piet or Black Peter. And as you might have guessed already, Black Peter is actually a white guy with black make-up on. Here's what I'm talking about: