what kind of sick joke is this and who is responsible

Hello! Saw these boats from the Port of Amsterdam while crossing with the ferry. Why are they throwing water into the air? (Lol might be doing something else but that was my feeling). Never seen this before! Thanks :)

Hi everyone

Like the title says I just had a baby 2 weeks ago. I live in Amsterdam and works in Aalsmeer. I’ve been working for my company for almost 4 years. There is around ~50 employees.

Last week I received an email from my HR saying how excited she was about the birth and asking when will it be a good time for her to come to visit me and the baby. I am very surprised by this and find this very intrusive. We are not friends and I thought it was many part of “we are a family”-business culture (which I hate).

When I express my vision she said it is part of the Dutch culture she did this for many years every time a baby was born within the company. Is this true? And do I own her a visit ?

As not a Dutch person, saw the news and saw that in the Netherlands , trash bins are used for voting ballots. Is that some sort of Dutch sarcastic humor?

To set some context, I am 30 year old woman from India. Moved to Netherlands around a year ago for work. Its been my first ever country outside India.

The colleagues and in general people have been helpful most of the times. However the most important thing I have learnt is to be direct. Put your point without keeping things in the mind.

In my earlier work experience, I was used to hierarchy and lot of convoluted and indirect talks to get your point across.

Here, I learnt to be more direct and couldn’t be more happy about it.

“No, I cannot”. Is a complete sentence. The first time I made my point across with my manager without fearing anything can be considered as one of the happiest moment in my life. Haha. 😅

So, thank you Netherlands.

Since moving to the Netherlands, I’ve noticed a lot of people put their feet on seats in public transport. Where I’m from, this is seen as disgusting behaviour. Prior to living in the Netherlands, I lived in France where it was heavily frowned upon behaviour. I saw parents telling kids off for doing it, and even saw a ticket inspector fine someone. Here, young people do it all the time in front of their parents, who don’t say anything. Even on my regular route on the Eurostar from London to Amsterdam, I notice that ONLY Dutch people do this, and multiple people each trip. It really bothers me, but should I just accept that this is normal in Dutch culture and embrace it too?

First time I’ve ever seen this happen