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“Hey pretty bird, do you know it’s not actually pronounced ‘Goo-dah’?
“Yup. It’s pronounced ‘How-duh’.” You add a little roughness from the back of your throat over the H.
“How did you know that?” The truth is, Din is hardly ever surprised by the things you know – you’re generally a fountain of information; what he can't usually guess is how you come to know the things you know.
“The Dutch pronounce their hard Gs with an H-like sound.”
The two of you have very tentatively been talking about taking a trip to Europe, and a lazy Sunday with no definitive plans but to stay in seems as good a time as any to do some casual trip research. You’re on opposite ends of your couch, you lazing on one end, one knee propped up against which you balance your sudoku book - twirling your pencil as you study the numbers in the grids. Din’s extended his long legs on the L-shape end of the sectional, with his laptop open on his lap. Alfredo the dog stretches out in between the two of you, his furry snoot and one of his paws curling over your calf. Din was just reading an article entitled “10 Things You Didn’t Know About The Netherlands,” but apparently the proper pronunciation of Gouda, the Netherland’s most popular cheese, was something you knew. Hmmm, he realizes that you didn’t exactly answer his question.
“Do you… speak Dutch?”
“Ik doe niet. (I do not)” you grin playfully, still not looking up from your puzzle. You don’t actually speak Dutch, but like a lot of other languages, you know a random phrase or two.
Din scrolls slowly through the listicle and picks a few that he thinks are the harder ones:
“Do you know what the iconic windmills are used for?”
“To pump water from the land. A quarter of the Netherlands is below sea level.”
“Why is the national Dutch colour orange?”
“The Dutch royal family is from the House of Orange.”
Din smiles - looks like his smart, pretty bird knows all of these. He’s now super curious just how familiar you are with Holland, and he knows the exact question to ask to get some additional insight. Pulling up a new web search, he asks, “What would you say are some common Dutch foods?”
“Stroopwafels, bitterballen… and kapsalon?” You look wistful at the memory of these dishes, clearly having actually tried them.
Clickity click click tap tap tap. After a few seconds, Din’s eyes widen at his screen, “Oh wow, that does look delicious.”
Ok, this is fun, thinks Din – he’s not trying to stump you, he’s happy learning new things about this country and you. And even though you haven’t actually looked up, he can tell by the way the corners of your mouth are curving and the shine of your eyes, though they remain focused on your puzzle, that you’re having fun too.
Click clack clickedy clack. Din’s quiet for a few minutes while he reads. Apparently not satisfied, he enters another search and reads through the new results before throwing out, “Do you know what they call peanut butter in the Netherlands?”
“Pindakaas,” you grin, “it translates to Peanut Cheese.”
“Do you know why?”
You do, “They can’t call it Pindaboter because only things that are actually butter can be called butter.”
Din scrolls, thoughtfully, “Do you know that the Dutch are the tallest people on Earth?”
“I think it has something to do with all the dairy in their diet? The Netherlands has the 3rd highest per capita milk consumption in the world.” The truth is your knowledge of random Dutch facts is super limited, but by some hilarious coincidence Din is asking you the exact few things you know. You can’t help but continue to tease him – he’s looking at you with a mixture of wonder and suspicion.
“Did you used to date a Dutch hockey player or something?”
“Don’t be silly, everyone knows that the Dutch winter sport of choice is speed skating.”
Again, it didn’t actually answer his question; Din’s sure that by now you’re just playing around, but he can’t help but picture you with some impossibly tall blonde with thick tree trunk thighs named Jan or Piet or whatever. Involuntarily, he makes a face as he looks back down at his laptop, typing stoically.
You giggle - you’re out of facts and you want to give you big, pouting boyfriend a hug. You and Din don’t have any secrets about your respective past relationships, and moreover, Din isn’t prone to jealousy or insecurity, but you feel the strong urge to reassure him nonetheless. Putting your sudoku down, you hold out your arms, “Come here, baby.”
Din closes his laptop and wedges it against the back cushions before crawling over to your side of the couch; careful not to disturb Al, he comes to a rest between your legs, laying his head against your chest as you run your fingers through his soft curls, lightly scratching your nails against his scalp, “My firm sponsors an MBA program at Erasmus in Rotterdam, and I visited one year with my boss to give a talk.”
“Oh cool,” Din mumbles against your chest, “did you have fun?”
“I did! We were given a lot of tours and did a few orientations with the students – that’s where I picked up a few Dutch facts and a little bit of nederlands. It’s really such a lovely place - we should go together, Din.”
“We should, pretty girl,” and after a pause, “so, no 6’8” blonde speed skating paramours?”
“No, baby, I find that these days I only have a thing for brown haired boxers,” your eyes full of love when they meet the soft brown pair that peer up at you. Then suddenly, those same eyes crinkle in mischief,
“What you’re saying is you’re my gouda girl?”
It takes you a beat before you get the good girl pun and you groan, but Din’s not done yet,
“And that I’m the only one who gets to schtup your waffle?”
You roll your eyes hard and attempt to push Din off, “Omigod, stahhhp.” You giggle as he settles more of his weight on you.
“Hang on, I almost had a good one for ‘bitterballen’ – it was right there. Boter give me a minute.”
You shriek in laughter as Din lifts up and peppers your neck and face with a flurry of butterfly kisses before he gets off the couch. Once he’s rounded to the other side, he leans over the back and peers down at you, still with a shit-eating grin on his face, “I’m going to get dinner started. You gouda with that, pretty bird?”
Din narrowly dodges the swat of your book before chuckling all the way to the kitchen. He’s ducked into the fridge, pulling out ingredients when you remember something, “Oh! Can we do something new with the potatoes tonight? I saw this recipe that I think you might like – and we can use up that dill we have.”
You phone is just out of reach on the coffee table and Al’s snoozing head has your lower half pinned down; you reach over by your feet to grab Din’s laptop so you can find the recipe you were looking at earlier.
Opening up the search engine, you click into the search bar and snicker at all the most recent searches:
Netherlands hockey team
hard little known facts about the Netherlands
Random facts about the Netherlands
How to spell capsulon Dutch food
common dutch foods
travelling to the Netherlands
2 week trip Europe best places to go
But when you get to the oldest recent search, you let out a little gasp that you hope Din doesn’t hear from the kitchen and your eyes widen to the size of saucers:
romantic European proposals