Any links to be made between Dutch things and Québec ones are just me thinking that some things could be Dutch even if they aren’t. There’s nothing Dutch about the Keurig coffee maker, it comes from the US. However, ‘keurig’ in Dutch means ‘proper’, ‘neat’ and ‘trim’. I just have this feeling there could be a connection.

A Dutch oven is not an oven but a pan (duh), although the one I use, called a braadpan is apparently the same thing. These pots are made to fry things in as well, and then let them simmer. I had to get used to that as I always fry things in a frying pan first.

As for other Dutch things that people either know is Dutch or at least know they are European, Heineken beer is always one of them, as is TomTom navigation systems. TomTom apparently doesn’t have the best customer service in Canada, and charge extra for a bunch of things that Garmin (US) provides for free. I use my smartphone for navigation, while nobody does that here because a) no smartphone b) no mobile Internet (it’s like 45 CAD a month as compared to 5-10 euro a month in the Netherlands).

I also heard that the city of Montréal wants to move its prostitutes from the usual downtown spot to an industrial area like the Dutch do, called the ‘tippelzone’ (roughly, ‘hook up zone’). A ‘tippelzone’ is a municipally controlled area of town where prostitution is tolerated. The problem is, the Netherlands has tons of problems with theirs, and in Montréal, industrial businesses don’t want to be associated with prostitution — it’s bad for business. Hookers are very scared of working where the police wouldn’t normally come to help them if something went wrong.

I’m keeping my eyes open for any other connections.