The Dutch pride themselves as being a very open culture and, my dear reader, they are. And it’s not too hard to see that this is so. The only thing you need to do is take a walk down a street with houses and you’ll be amazed by how many of them have no curtains.

Above – unrelated photo of a crazy Dutch bird. I mean, common, I couldn’t go that far as making pictures of people eating dinner inside their homes, right?

You might ask, no curtains, so what? Well, paired with the fact that the windows are, in many cases, just a tiny little bit smaller than the whole wall and that you can see from one side of the house to the other, than you could ask yourself what’s wrong with these crazy Dutch, don’t they know the meaning of the word privacy? I mean, really, whenever I come home I can see what my neighbor is watching on TV. And I’m not even interested in seeing what he’s watching. I bet I could tell what mail he got if i fancied to do so.

But you know what? You get used to it. My apartment, although lacks the huge  windows, still offers a remarkable view on the office building next door and vice-versa, I would expect. Every morning when going into the kitchen felt strange knowing that, potentially, somebody could look at me making breakfast. And of course I could see perfectly people sipping coffee and reading their e-mails.

Guess what? I stopped giving a damn. And guess what else? Nobody gives a damn. Probably the only people that walk down the street and look in other peoples homes are those who are not used to it.  Yup, the crazy Dutch have some crazy homes…

Above – some crazy narrow Dutch houses in Amsterdam

And talking about houses I already wrote about the magnificent stairs they have. And you have to keep in mind that a lot of homes are so small or narrow that would make a claustrophobic person go crazy by just looking at them.

Yup, the crazy Dutch have some crazy homes…

But you know what? After some time they start to feel just right. The big curtenless windows make sense, since there is so little sunlight, the narrow staircases don’t seem so weird anymore and the narrow houses seem in the right place. And what can you do? It’s just the way the crazy Dutch like them…

So, my dear reader, Read on!

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