2,30 is the new 1,80

After a long un-Dutchly beautiful summer 'at home' I've returned to home in New York last week. Wezepe, Haastrecht, Chimay, Leiden, Antwerp and Amsterdam - just a few of the beautiful cities and towns that I vacationed in for the past two months.

Near Wezepe I walked through the beautiful purple heath with my sister and her husband. In Haastrecht I had coffee in front of my parents' tent. They were camping on a small field that was surrounded by creeks and it was so wet that the ground was rocking like a houseboat. In Belgian Chimay I had local beer and local cheese, and made bonfires with 8 Amsterdam friends; and in Antwerp I had mussels with my boyfriend, who paid his first ever visit to the Netherlands and Belgium.

I didn't only lounge around, I also worked for a bit, as a caterer in several corporate cafeterias in and around Leiden. I learned how to make soup with frozen meet balls, frozen veggies and instant powder, how to fry meat croquettes (fun!), and how to use a nozzle washing dishes (more fun!). But talking to my fellow middle-aged women caterers - about their children, the catering company, and the weather - was possibly the most fun.

Have the Netherlands changed since I left in the summer of 2008? Yes, unfortunately they have. Geert Wilders, a Dutch racist politician - he wants to ban the Koran and deport Arabian and African immigrants who believe in sharia law - who hates intellectuals, went from being successful in the polls to being successful in real elections. Two days after I got back to the Netherlands he came in second in the Netherlands in the elections for the European parliament. Sadly it is not inconceivable that he will win the national elections in 2011, which I know is hard to understand for Americans, who often still think of the Netherlands as a happy liberal and socialist place.

Did anything else change? Up until recently I was always pretty upset having to pay five to eight dollars for a pint of beer in New York, but I found out that you spend just as much in Amsterdam most of the time. Two euro thirty has become the new one euro eighty: even in shady dive bars you have to spend the former on a teeny weeny glass of beer. Let's do the math: two Amsterdam glasses of beer are one New York pint, and four euro sixty is about six dollars and fifty-five cents with the current exchange rate. Yes, that's also pretty sad.