I'm Basically Dutch.

Well it finally happened. Five weeks and one day before I leave the country I received my official residence permit card. This card cost me several trips out to the far flung industrial park where the foreign police are located and 430 euros in September.* But it's pretty cool to have an official identity card from another country. It says that my nationality is Amerikaans Burger which sounds vaguely like a menu item at Bartley's to me. I am still fascinated by all of the forgery proofing on this tiny object. The fancy holograms and barcodes and invisible inks on identification cards practically make up for the frightening loss of privacy they represent. Um, I mean, it makes me feel safer from terrorism. No terrorist could possibly get by the gold colored face silhouette on the back (and it ought to be real gold for the price I paid).
On a related side note, did you know that the Montana driver's license has bears on the hologram? And not like complicated roaring bears that appear to swallow the photo when moved in the light. Just tiny, simple bears. It's about as complicated as the key design that was on the fake ID I paid too much for when I was nineteen. But even the fake was more complicated. At least when you turned it you saw "guaranteed authentic."
Contributing to my Dutchness is the fact that I attended a "football match" between the national team and England last night. It was sort of slow (I was trying to root hard for my temporary home team but they just didn't have any hustle at the front). But in the end they tied it up and it was exhilarating good soccer for five minutes. The fans were almost certainly more interesting than the game. Especially those wearing "Lyonhosen," bright orange liederhosen-style short pants with a lion's tail coming out of the bum. The lion is the national symbol of the Netherlands and orange is the national color. As some of you might know I have an abiding fascination with people with lion's tails. I suppose I read The Borrowers too often as a kid. Whatever the reason, it was marvelous.


*exorbitant cost of photo copies not included.