The Irish

Photo taken a few weeks ago

When driving a bus, you get to meet so many people. People who seem to have trouble to answer the simple 'hi' I greet everybody with (she managed on my third try). People who say they are children and so clearly aren't (the one person I checked today: was a child). People who just put money on the pay table and expect me to read their minds (I failed that class at witch school). People who chat and expect me to answer. 

Today I had a man on the bus. He seemed to be nice. He carried some bags and sat in the front of the bus. And he chatted to me. About how Kristiansand (in the South of the country) was very racist. How Haugesund is very friendly and family-like. He asked me if I was from Haugesund. Which I am not. The minute I told him I was from the Netherlands he started raving about Ajax. About it being the best team in the world. How they were going to beat Manchester United. Or Juventus. 

He went on about ice-skating. How the Dutch are the best. Like Sven Kramer, who always seems to win. And then he went on to say that Irish food was so much like Dutch food. Well, either he has never been to Ireland, or he thinks we eat the way the Irish eat (he had been to Schiphol: he was raving about the cheap souvenirs). Cauliflower, broccoli and carrots with nearly every meal. After I told him that the Dutch don't eat the same type of food in general, he told me our tastes in music were the same!

Anyway, he got off, wished me a good night and I realised there isn't that much difference between the Dutch and the Norwegians. Both nations have some people who are a bullet short of a fully loaded biathlon gun. Just so you know!