What I learned this past week #expatlife #MondayBlogs

I’m a HUGE believer (like capital letters worthy) in learning something new everyday. Sometimes you only learn a bit of a seemingly useless trivia (like who first sang One of Us and it wasn’t who you thought it was). On a good day, though, you’ll actually learn stuff you can re-use. Without further ado, the things I learned one day last week:

Trams stop at midnight. Of course, I learned this little tidbit at five minutes past midnight when I was clear across town. Luckily, I discovered the night bus, which leads me to my next point.

Night busses don’t use the standard travel card. The driver looked at me as if I had two heads when I tried to scan my travel card. I’m sure he gets a lot of drunk people staring at the machine in wonder, but I was sober, darn it! (And obviously not happy about it – damn diet!) With a little flirting, he loosened up and I was able to pay him the extortionate fee of € 5 for a bus ride. I was super disappointed in the night bus. It was not a bumpy ride and I didn’t see one wizard sleeping in a floating bed.

Slam poetry can be combined with rock music. The Dutch have a good saying for dealing with this situation: Je moet ervan houden. It basically means you have to like it to enjoy it, but it doesn’t sound bitchy in Dutch. Just in case, bring your aspirin if you decide to try it.

MTV actually plays music after 2 a.m. According to Google (which is NEVER wrong), MTV started airing in 1981, which means I am of the MTV generation. We didn’t have cable growing up and my parents were anti-television for the kids. So I never watched it when I was growing up but everyone assures me that MTV started out by airing video clips. By the time I got to a point in my life where I had a television with cable and more than five minutes to watch it, MTV was all about reality tv. If you’re hankering for some good old-fashioned music videos, it turns out that MTV does play music videos between 2 and 4 a.m. Now you know.

I can write anywhere. Example? Apparently I can compose an entire silly blog article in my head while walking home. The only hiccup was when a man tucking his you-know-what back into his pants nearly ran into me. I’m pretty sure he hadn’t washed his hands either. I quickly scampered out of his way while giving him my most I’m so disappointed in you look.

How about you? What have you learned lately? Feel free to not be serious. I never am.