During my lunch break on Myesonday I made my way over to a plant store near Olympic Stadium, here in Amsterdam. Usually working past the time places stay open, I thought it best to buy my spring plants during my work day, plus I’d seen this shop several times since starting my new job, seemed like a good place.
I choose my spring flowers and bring them inside to pay the extremely tall, grey haired gentleman with the glasses. As I pay him I look down at the pansies and ask (in Dutch), I’m from the New York area, where normally pansies don’t make it once the weather gets warm; I’ve always wondered, does that work the same way here, or do they last longer since its slightly cooler weather here?
The man looks down at the little plants and begins to explain using alot of hand motions: We’re on a very similar level compared to New York, on the globe relatively speaking. So the same, technically, applies, you only get flowers for a few months and its over.
From there the man seemed to jump into a larger conversation:
It is all related. Plants in the US, plants in the Netherlands. Mortgage crisis in the US, mortgage crisis here. Whatever happens, his tone gets louder, in the US, we will always feel the effects here. Then he looks at the ground, although, I think we’re better equipped to survive the crisis, as people don’t use credit to but things the way they do over there. But mortgages, oh the mortgages, these prices in this country have been out of control for too long, it had to stop. Again he returned to his earlier statement, I think we can survive it, we are a small country and people can be very smart about not borrowing and not getting into debt schemes, I hope we survive it with minimal damage. But again, it is all relative. Pansies, economic crisis….. US, Netherlands.
Have a nice day and good luck with the planting, he waved to me as I stepped out of the shop.