A Gnome Abroad - The Netherlands 

As a Canadian working at NATO HQ in Brussels, I discovered that the reason Canadians and the Dutch get along so well is mostly down to the Dutch sense of humour. NATO lore holds that three of the most feared Christmas gifts are Metaxa from the Greeks, Gammel Dansk from the Danes, and maple syrup from the Canadians. Our ambassador lashed out tall, thin, fancy-boxed bottles of maple syrup to his counterparts one year, and I happened to be in the meeting a month later with the Dutch 3-star milrep when our ambo asked how he'd liked the gift. Without so much as cracking a smile, the Dutch general replied that he and his wife had enjoyed it a great deal, and that they'd finished the whole bottle despite finding it a little sweet; but that was possibly because they'd never had Canadian ice-wine before. Our ambo had no idea what to say. And the Dutch guy didn't let it go, either; he kept the joke going, completely deadpan, until the rest of us cracked up and lost it. Had the time of my life over there with my Dutch counterparts.

Dear Jingles, you just make up for yesterday, you are granted for the rest of your live to call us the swamp germans, you placed so manny feathers in our asses we can not sit down anymore. Thnx for so manny kind words on our behalf, and for your personel memories. You make me laugh everyday, Thnx

As you were talking about the things a sailor can get up to in Amsterdam reminded me of what passed for "the talk" from my Dad (career US Navy). As he was seeing me off at the airport for my first Midshipmen cruise (early 1980's). My assignment was classified, but he knew that since I was shipping out of San Francisco, I was probably headed to Asia. Dad shook my hand and said "Have fun, but don't catch anything we can't cure." Then he turned around and left. Best advice I ever followed.

"I had the best time in the Netherlands of any country I've ever visited.... I don't know what it was" followed by "My first experience of the Netherlands was Amsterdamn where you sit down and order a coffee and a brownie that's made with hash".... No Jingles no idea why you had such a good time in the Netherlands :-)! Rotterdamn is an amazing port.

My music teacher is dutch and one year she organised a concert with us in her hometown and of course we visited Amsterdam as she lived there for a while. She must have some incredible navigation skills as she managed to show us around Amsterdam all day, never walking past a brothel and avoiding all but one coffee shops (that we could tell).

Looking forward to the Arnhem video, one of my grandfathers "dropped" by to pay a visit in '44.

Being Dutch myself, I can tell you the difference in mentality is nothing short of staggering as soon as you cross that border with Germany. There is no mistaking a Dutchy for a German, swamp or otherwise 😂

Next episode: "A Gnome Too Far"

Technically cannabis isn't "legal" in the Netherlands, it's tolerated. However for practical purposes it makes no difference. But there are laws on the books against it, they're just not enforced

Jingles flying over my house, or close enough. Anyway it just made this Swamp Germans' day. Cheers!

Small correction on the Maeslandkeering. "Only" the ball joint at the apex of the triangular gate arm were made by the Skoda works in Czechia. Most of it was ofcourse built on-site. You can't really transport 230 meter arms anywhere over land. Those ball joints have to hold back the entire force of the storm surge as it batters into the gates, so they are absolutely critical to the function of the barrier and IIRC they were some of the largest castings Skoda had done up to that point. Each ball has a diameter of 10 meters and weighs roughly 680 tons (proper, metric tons that is ;) I still remember traipsing around the visitor centre and underneath the massive arms during construction (there was and still is a visitor center there) as a wee lad of some 5 or 6 years old. Hard to forget the sheer scale of that construction project.

Hey Jingles! As a Dutchie I am proud to be living in a country that is so open and friendly in your words. I am however also inclined to invite you to my hometown of Utrecht, or any other smaller city to point out there isnt, well "business" going on at every street corner XD. So yeah, visit Utrecht and see the side of the Netherlands that isnt so tourist oriented. Anyways, great video! Its fun to hear about the Netherlands from someone who doesnt live there!

Jingles: Uploads a video about the Netherlands. Every Dutch person in a 50 km radius: G E K O L O N I S E E R D

Jingles. I've got to admit, I haven't really been watching your channel lately, life's cathed up on me. That doesn't mean you've been a solid 10/10 for the past couple of years you've been doing this! I cant honestly remember the first video I ever watched but I've been around for maybe 10 years or so. Never the less, my heart goes out to you and that honest to god huge ass heart of yours. Keep doing what you're doing, You are a solid one. xx

Norway was the same for me - Went up to Narvik to the NATO site, to live-fire AA Missiles - woke up early to go for a shower, ran the water and steamed up, and in walks 4 Norwegian blonde females in, and asked if they could share the shower. Being a virile red-blooded American lad, I said "sure". Even got to scrub one's back. I told my squad mates, and they called BS. Later, we were in the Chow hall, eating, when two of my shower mates walked up, in Norwegian kit, and said hello, and greetings. Turns out, they were Army nurses, Officers, and very pleasant young women. My mates started showering early after that.

Dear Jingles, as a subscriber to your channel since 2013, I want to thank you for the countless hours of entertainment that you provided for me personally and for all your subscribers.your videos have seen me through a lot of ups and downs throughout the years and I can’t thank you enough. I apologize for any grammar mistake since english is not my first language.

Swamp German. I'll carry that title with pride from now on :D

Thank you Jingles for the positive story about our country. Every now and then my wife and I visit your country and sometimes your compatriots think we are Germans and then I explain that our parents were on the right side in WWII. Times are changing and nowadays many tourists from Germany visit our province for a beach holiday in the southwest of our country. One thing here in the Netherlands my wife and I never go to a pub when we are in the UK we always go to the pub, preferably one like the one from the Midsomer Murders series. Greetings Jingles and keep up your videos Ronald😀✋🏻

Seeing Young Jingles in uniform was a bit strange, must admit, but cool.

If someone is thinking that the game is kinda unrealistic because of the flat horizon, it isn't. That's about 90% (give a few percentages off) how flat the country is. In fact our tallest mountain (322m) is shorter than the Empire State Building (380m).

It's been a while since I was last over there, I spent a lot of time over there growing up as it was cheaper for a family holiday there than it was over here! Certain parts of the country also feel like home, living on the edge of the fens as I do. Fantastic country, lovely people. They're also mostly normal height :) I was a teenager when I started going over there, made friends, started learning the language. I still couldn't spell any of it to save my life but still remember the looks of shock when a group of English lads wander in to a bar yammering away in English, order our drinks in Dutch then switch back to English. Utterly stunned that anyone bothered to learn any of the language, doubly so that we were English. I've still, more than 30 years after first going over there, managed to only pass through Amsterdam once. I may have to go to see the museums at some point but I've generally met up with friends in other parts of the country and Amsterdam was just well out of the way for all of us.

These videos are all fantastic, I love this series!

I am a 1/4 Dutch (Maternal Grandfather was from Rotterdam) 3/4 English Canadian! All my Grandparents immigrated to Canada as children in the early 1900s. So I found today's video very interesting. For my wife and my 25th Anniversary (2006) we did a Bus Coach Tour of England. Visiting places like Salisbury, Plymouth, Bristol, Bath, Chester, Lake Windermere, York, Cambridge and of course London. We had booked flight and lodging for a September 2020 to Netherlands, planning to visit Amsterdam, Rotterdam and a Canadian WWII Cemetery. We planned to stay in Haarlem! Of course COVID-19 had delayed our trip which was intended to celebrate our 35th year with our organization, and 39th Wedding Anniversary. This is now penciled in for Spring 2022. I really look forward to your next video about Market Garden. Thanks again for these great videos.

Me as a Rotterdammert [Yes, thats a word], would love to see you explore Rotterdam more with its famous Architecture and Bridges and some of the Tunnels found in the Rivers aswell :) And yes us Rotterdammers are a proud folk of our port city :D

Amsterdam looks amazing in MS FS. Can we stop and be amazed by that for a minute? Its absolutely next gen

Aah, the redemption of the swamp Germans, thank you Jingles :D

If you need some ideas/places to visit, just reply. I cross the Arnhem bridge (John Frost Brug) twice a day by bike. This week is the remembrance of operation Market Garden. Troops were dropt at ''de Ginkelse heide" near Ede. In Arnhem at the beginnen of the bridge at the memorial statue are lying flowers. Many Pagasus flags hanging in the city center.

Cant wait for next episode! Im from Nijmegen and I saw your facebook post a while ago where you joined the sunset march across the "Oversteek" ; the bridge where we commemorate the 48 fallen soldiers that died during the operation in 1944. I hope you enjoyed your visit here!

Glad you like our little country. We work very hard to keep it a pleasant and inviting place for everybody!

Hi Mr Charlton I have to say that I have followed your channel since it's first video and many of the video series of clips I have enjoyed very much but this series has been one of the most interesting and enjoyable series to watch. The clip on Crete was of personnel interest as my father was sent to Crete after being evacuated from Greece in 1941 (he served in the 7th Medium regiment RA) It's a very good format to fly over the area's of interest as you get a really feel of the area and your narration sets the scene very well. Also I served as a CI in the Air cadets for some 16 years and though I was never in uniform I understand the military life fairly well and hearing you talk about your life reminds me of some of the things I got upto and also some of the stories my farther told too Really like this set of clips and always been a fan your work on You Tube Keep it all coming you will be surprised at how much joy this stuff is to alot of us listeners Jon

I probably missed it, but have you ever uploaded any (salvaged) footage of that road trip along the Market Garden route?

I must agree, of all the places I was stationed around the world with the US Military, the Netherlands was my most memorable. I was in country for five years, late 70s thru early 80s. Beautiful country and culture. I still have friends there. 🥰

Thanks for featuring the Netherlands, Jingles! I've only visited once but it was the most memorable business trip I've ever had.

Whenever you go to the red light district it is obligatory to knock on the window and ask "how much?" The reply will be something like "50 euros" And then you go: "That is not expensive for double glazing"

Excellent stuff jingles. Thank you

My grandmother is from the Netherlands. She grew up during the war, and was able to subsequently leave a short while after.

Jingles, you can't fly that paint scheme without "I'm old enough to rock and roll" playing in the background while racing a dirt bike.

Had the pleasure of living in Eindhoven. Beautiful city and an amazing country

Jingles: There is something that just keeps bringing me back to the Netherlands Me: Stroopwafel? ..... darn....

Jingles me boy- picture visiting the Netherlands as a young soldier with a Dutch family name.... let that sink in! Amazing!

The attic where Anne Frank hid for a couple of years was an office building where her father was 1 of the bosses. That's why they could hide there. Although by day they had to be completely silent. After 17.00hours the office would be empty and they could talk and walk normal again. This is given as 1 of the ways they might have been betrayed: somebody in the office got wind of their presence and told the germans. Anyway great vid again.

Jingles, you flew right over my house! Goes to show how small the Netherlands is, because 90% of the swamp germans that reply here say you flew over their house as well xD Anyway, you should visit Rotterdam during the world harbour days (wereldhavendagen) in September, you can actually book guided tours to some of the container and coal / iron ore terminals and oil refineries in the area which gives you an even better understanding of the vast scale of everything involved in these operations.

"i have been to the netherlands more times than any other country" .... of course you have Jingles, You have been in the Nave, where else would you go but to where all the water is? *duck and cover*

Thank you for flying over my house Jingles! I laughed a lot during the video. Great story. Be and feel welcome anytime!!!

When I was stationed at RAF Lakenheath between 88-90, if you visited Amsterdam or any of the other locations where drugs we legal or toleranted. You were guaranteed to be "randomly" selected to pee in the bottle within a week of returning back on base. ;-)

If i remember correctly. The Dutch Government started cracking down on the red light district and closing a lot of them down because tourists were coming to Amsterdam for two reasons -- 1. Weed 2. Hookers Their argument was that Amsterdam had so much more to offer *REAL* tourists then just those looking for a quick shag. I think they started the crackdown about 10 years ago.

Something else unique & interesting (among lots of other stuff) in Amsterdam is De Poezenboot - a cat rescue, on a canal barge.

Hey Jingles, if you ever visit the Netherlands again, try and go to the south of Limburg, take a southbound turn at Eindhoven for about an hour. Maastricht is a pretty nice city on the river Meuse (Maas) and Heerlen (my city of birth) is possibly the oldest Dutch settlement, although historians are still trying to find evidence for the actual oldest settlement, between Heerlen, Maastricht and Nijmegen. Also, it is the only part in the Netherlands with hills and lovely terrain to hike in. And we make the best beer/pils in the Netherlands (my favorite is Alfa).

the evac horns went off the other day. turned on the radio... nothing, the television.... nothing to see there either. turned out there was a evil gnome flying overhead. I was stuck in that b*****basement 6weeks! thanx a lot

thank you for the compliment about my country haha. much love from Zeeland (best province in the netherlands) :)

Hope you also do a flyover of Alkmaar, which is THE Cheese city of The Netherlands and the City that halted the Spanish to go any further and pushed them back. And Also Giethorn, the "venice of the Netherlands". I do find it awesome you visited Den Helder in this episode. As my father was a Royal Marine, I visited that city Many times as I lived close to it Growing up. Heck, if you ever want to visit The Netherlands again and want to visit The Cheese City Alkmaar and get a tour, I will gladly show you around!

My in-laws are German (in fact escaped from East Germany just before the wall was fully built, and Opa refered to the Dutch as "Germans who went to the beach and didn't come back".

I never heard the term 'swamp German' before and I think it's awesome. And yes I'm Dutch. 😂 Been called 'cloggie' more than I care to count though. 👍

Never knew the young Gnome was such a Handsome chap

Weed is technically not legal in The Netherlands, they just used loopholes to sell it in coffee shops

Shortest and most effective way to insult a Dutch? Call him/her German... Seriously, the Netherlands are a fantastic country. In terms of society and social development, the Dutch are clearly way ahead of most other countries in Europe. I really wish, we Germans would take a page or two from the Dutch and start being more relaxed, laid back and most importantly more tolerant about many things of daily life. I think to some extend, the Dutch are a role model what Europe should be. Big shoutout to our neighbours and greetings from Germany.

I'm not sure how I feel about seeing Jingles' adventures to the nether region. And WTF do the dutch have mountain warfare troops for?! The highest thing in the Netherlands, are the windmills.

LOVE this series, sir! Even got a friend that never served to start watching these. He loves history, and you tend to toss in a lot of that to go with your fabulous anecdotes and stories. Extremely entertaining. We had a similar guy to your innocent 17 year old....except he had a quirk. He'd head to the bars and find the, uhh....larger specimens, take them back to the barracks, and show them off in the morning. Dude had issues. Though among those issues, getting laid was NOT one of them! I suppose I have to give him that?

*Feels emotional about the compliments and starts waving the dutch flag

I've seen as a tourist on my first visit to Amsterdam 2 buses of old people from Spain touring the streets of red light looking at the girls like they were looking at aliens that was one of the surprises on my 1st visit to the Netherlands.

One small note to add to this travelogue. New Year's Eve in Amsterdam. It must be seen, to be believed.

Jingles the ladies are staying in the red light district called de " De Wallen"

I have to say, when i as a german heard the transcription from dutch to swampgerman it gave me a hard laughing, because its somhow pretty accurate and on a second thought i was pretty sure the commentary section will burn immediately :D Anyway, i love that term! :D

Love visiting the Netherlands, have lots of family living there

I was window shopping and nearly got run into the canal by a Dutch man on a bicycle :)

I used to feel bad being born in the Netherlands, because it's such a boring country with just flat lands and old cities and old houses. But for some reason whenever I travel anywhere else, it always feels nice to be back home, everything is so organized. The country feels like a big living room, where everything is comfortable.

Haha!!! We had a "Dickie" when I was in the U.S. Army...hilarious

I watched your video yesterday, and ""swamp German" took me way longer than it should have. Probably also because I don't actually *watch* your videos but have them run in the background.

Jingles, you make a dutchman happy

Awesome as usual, Jingles. You do realise that German is just a Dutch dialect, right?🤔😂

Excellent video grandad. A born storyteller

Jingles is doing A Bridge Too Far? Fantastic! Setting my watch. I'll be humming the theme music throughout the video.

I think communal showers and toilets are much more common than Jingles might think. It sure is the case in Sweden.

Disclaimer: Cannabis is **NOT** completely legal in the Netherlands. Still a beautiful country and people.

Hello Jingles. Greetings from a cloggie. You just made up for the whole swamp Germans thing. If you ever get to Den Helder let me know. We will get you a beer.

When the Maeslant storm surge barriers activate, the open sluge doors and float the things into the river. After this they sink them or it would not work properly. I have actualy been inside the doors for maintenance on the sinking/surfacing mechanisms

these are some of my favourite videos youve made so far, looking forward to the next!

I spent three week with a German family when I was 16 in the 1980s. They took me to Amsterdam. It did open my eyes. I was interested in seeing the Anne Frank House, but they said it wasn't worth my time. We were only there for the day. I do wish I had seen it.

Got my uncle's 'Club Route' commemorative book. He was at Dieppe & Omaha, Deadlight, wavy Navy. Did 2 training sessions with the Terror of Tobermory.

I've also been to the Netherlands many times, and have a lot of love for them crazy cloggies

The Germans wished they’d have such a nice swamp as ours. One particular really swampy area was the death of many German in ww2.

9:47 For a moment there i heard the Dutch mountain warfare troop... Not very likely, no mountain.

God i love hearing other people’s military stories especially the older guys like jingles stuff like that doesn’t happen as ofter or at all anymore

Jingles a few things 1) Cannabis actually is not legal over here. The ban is not enforced in designated shops or with growth for personal usage. However producing for a coffee shop is illegal and will get you locked up in jail. And yes, the police actively searches for that inside farmer fields or with thermal camera's in helicopters, scanning for intense heat signatures in attics. It is truly a Dutch political solution. Because some parties say that this is stupid and a waste of time for the already heavily overburdened police force, so just legalise and regulate the production already. And others say that everything you be fully banned again. Thus the result is that nothing happens. 2) Prostitution is similar. It is legal, but it again attracts a lot of criminality with human trafficking. More and more of these houses are being closed and that in turn pushed it into more into a shady back alleys or at home. In turn the social protection offered from a concentrated area gets hollowed out. And one again some parties want to regulate it better, others just want to ban everything. 3) Rotterdam isn't just the biggest port in Europe, it is the biggest port in the entire western world. Rotterdam its status was also very much setup with the Ruhr in mind. Germany its access to the seas is just not so good because even Hamburg is kinda outside of normal shipping lanes. In the 19th century, the decision to use Rotterdam was therefore made by the Germans and Dutch combined. Now Rotterdam not only has a massive container capacity, but it also serves as the gateway, main refinery and even strategic reserve location for a good part of western-Europe its fossil fuel imports from outside of Europe. 4) Most of the Dutch flood defences against the sea are actually not man made. The sand dunes take care of most. The big thing is that the rivers where always the weak spot and that has been addressed. Because a storm surge will overpower some dike inland at some point. Further their is a system with these dikes. They virtually all start from a river and then stretch for either some 1250 or 2500 meters before a new dike is build. Then every roughly 100 meters a ditch is dug for water drainage. The reason is because these lands where given over to a group of settlers starting from the medieval era in certain sizes per family. This was also documented. The settlers would make such a dike around their allotted bit of land, drain it with windmills and then each take their allotted space, separated by the ditches. Then when a new group of settlers arrived, they would take the previous dike as a starting point and at yet another piece. This is why their is such a pattern in these fields and dikes. It also had massive implications for the country itself. Because this settling started around the same time as the 4th Lateran council of 1215. There the church decided that all new parish churches had to have a school. Thus when all these new polders also required new parish churches, suddenly education became very widespread. The second implication was that this system necessitated a lot of cooperation between communities and within communities. Because the dikes had to be maintained and if necessary, an area had to be sacrificed so that for example a nearby city could be spared being flooded during the usual spring floods with all the melted snow from the Alps flowing down the river. Third and probably most importantly is the massive social upheaval these polders would cause. Because around 1350 these polders where often already suffering from the land sinking and the groundwater thus rising. This caused the cultivation of grain to become ever more difficult. Now the plague arrived and massacred the population. What then happened is that grain prices all over Europe, plummeted. Thus it became affordable to import grain from France or Poland via the sea. Further the feudal lords started demanding cash payments from their serfs because the grain price dropped so low. The settlers who where still serfs, thus switched to cash crops or cattle herding to sell milk or cheese to the cities. They often earned so much money that they could not only pay their taxes, but also save up the money to outright buy their land. This process rapidly destroyed the local nobility its power. It also freed up a large part of the population to move to the cities because grain was abundant and sustenance farming no longer required. And that in turn sparked the massive merchant expansion where resources where imported mainly from the Baltic, processed into refined goods by a large pool of skilled and unskilled labour and then shipped or sold locally again. The result of this was a society that by the 15th century was the most urbanised and literate society in Europe. Yes, even higher levels of urbanisation and literacy than Noth Italy. I mean, even the women where taught and often perfect capable of reading and writing both Latin and Dutch, the low German dialect that increasingly deviated from the high German (German spoken in the south, because highlands) that would become dominant in Germany from this time onwards. That was because of the Habsburg dominance of the HRE and the usage of their dialect.

Also I see MS Flight Sim has taken some liberty with the amount of trees around Kinderdijk's windmills. In reality the area is much more open. It has to be. Trees don't let the wind through. And trees behind windmills are about equally as bad, as they cause turbulence.

The best way to describe that area is that it redefines the term "window shopping", and it's amusing until you look in the window and see a hairy bloke in a flower dress.

Excellent video. Thanks. 😊

Dutch soberness example: Me (little kid) and my family walking along the quays of Rotterdam I see a lady standing in a phonebooth My dad, born and bred in Rotterdam, seeing me look "Don't bother the lady, she's working" (This part of the quays was close to the street-prostitution zone)

Lmao I must have missed the reference, but it's hilarious all the same.

*spits out coffee* Swamp Germans?! :) Only Jingles could come up with that and get away with it :D Happy to hear you've enjoyed yourself in our neck of the swamp :) I might point out that most of Van Gogh's stuff isn't in the Rijksmuseum, but in the Van Gogh museum, it's on the same square. Both are worth visiting!

Actually jingles: Cannabis isnt legal in the Netherlands. Its sale and consumption in coffee shops are accepted and decriminalized, but productiom and transport to the shops is still illegal

I like the Dutch nickname for the Netherlands: "the Frog country". I don't know the origin of the name, but it may have something to do with most of the land being green, relatively flat, and half submerged in swamps.

Reminded of a quote from Austin Powers "There's only two things I hate in this world: people who are intolerant of other people's cultures and the Dutch."

You can smoke corned beef and you can smoke hash BUT, you can't smoke Corned Beef Hash. RockOn, Jingles

A full video on the Netherlands and all our achievements and not one mention of stroopwafels. That should be corrected in the next video. As someone else also points out, cannabis is not legal in the Netherlands. Your are allowed to carry a single use dosage of 5 grams. Getting caught driving anything, even a bike under the influence of cannabis is big trouble. Also don't even think of taking our Dutch haze home. Controls are many and our drug sniffing dogs are well trained. There are more caveats, but they mostly don't apply to tourists. Prostitution by the way is fully legal in the Netherlands, and that is why the famous Red Light District in Amsterdam is slowly closing down. After legalization local councils could get a firmer grip on when, where and how prostitution is practiced, and the Amsterdam City Council is definitely not keen on keeping the Red Light District the overcrowded, loud and sometimes obnoxious mess it was. So they are not keen on expanding the Red Light District and basically are trying to lower the amount of working rooms or windows, as we call them.

My ex-wife commented when we visited that it was the only place when we walked on the street, we didn’t get looks (she was black, I’m white). The best thing about the Dutch, they get on with their own life and don’t feel the need to worry what others might be up to. The rest of the world could take a big lesson from that, especially the religious ones who judge when their own book tells them not to.

Yep, i am Dutch and fully agree about what you said about my country. But when you spoke about Dicky i roled on the ground, nice story m8.

"swamp German" I mean, you're not wrong, apart from the fact that most of our swamps have already been drained

The story of dicky reminds me of part of the movie "paint your wagon." A old man introduces a innocent young man with a religious upbringing to a brothel, and by the end the prostitutes are paying the young man. Also, now i absolutely have to visit the dutch.

As a dutch guy that comment of swamp germans was just hilarious