⛵️holly 🇺🇸➡️🇯🇵 @holly@v.st

Our house is in one of these shots from around the Netherlands they keep cutting to. Saw it the other night.

I'm not feeling Portugal at all. #eurovision

@ehashman .. and I'm going to take it to whatever that place with the globe houses they just showed is. Wonder if you can rent one.

@ehashman I MISS THE TRAINS. I haven't been on a proper train since .. March before last at least. It's the first thing I'm going to do after I get vaccinated.

@ehashman YESSS.. and it doesn't sound like every other Eurovision song :D

@ehashman I keep thinking she's singing Pokerface, but then there's a slight change :/

@moiety @emmy Politically, there are over 20 parties, with 90% of them being more "socialist" than either party in the US and most being more socially liberal. As for the far-right facist-leaning parties, bring your popcorn because they're an incompentent mess.

@moiety @emmy Politically, core Dutch values are tolerance, equality, and cooperation. Historically they were merchants (they didn't care about your religion, etc., just does your money spend) and a large proportion of their landmass was built by working together and sharing rights to the resulting land (so there was a lack of land-owning noble families). But just like the US isn't always a melting pot, not all Dutch live up to their values.

@moiety @emmy Healthcare is a right here. They use an insurance model but it's heavily regulated and subsidized. Here's a good website targeted at internationals: https://h4i.nl/ I don't have a desire to medically transition so I haven't interfaced with that side of things, personally, just heard annecdotes from friends. Seems there can be hiccups and waits, but ultimately your transition is covered financially so that part isn't a problem.

@moiety @emmy Regarding LGBTQ issues -- NL is a land of contrasts. It was the first country to legalize gay marriage. A few years ago they changed the official train station announcements from "Ladies and gentlemen..." to "Dear travellers..", which, being on the genderqueer spectrum I loved. And I've heard that they will be doing away with gender signifiers on official documents, but it hasn't happened yet. But.. there's also a bible belt here.

@moiety @emmy Which surprised me -- both in the level of trust of the patient, and the GP being up-front about her limits of scope and knowledge. She referred me to a center when I ultimately couldn't figure out the right dose, and the care there was really amazing. It was a 2 month wait for an appointment at the center.

@moiety @emmy With my ADHD (I take amphetamine, which is a controlled substance here) there was no pause. There was a few months wait for my official residency (required for insurance) but there was no problem registering before that with a GP and doing a walk-in consult (~€35?). My particular formulation of amphetamine isn't available here, so the GP prescribed what she thought was the closest, and let me adjust the dosage myself.

One of my Airtags tried to get lost in the couch cushions and, look at that. They’re magnetic! Who needs a stitch marker holder? Not me!

#knitting

Somehow this is where I ended up on the internet today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxbNy9xbJu4&t=6610s