Update: Wednesday 5 Dec

Seeing a movie in the Netherlands is very different. I've been going a lot lately, I should know.

Ever since Jenn and I got these Unlimited cards for the local theater chain, we've been trying to make at least one movie a week, to make the card more than worth the money we spend on it.

I think I posted here before about how in the movie theaters in the Netherlands they have assigned seating. Jenn and I can buy our movie tickets from machines at the entrance to the cinema by scanning the barcode on the card, and it pulls up a map of the theater so you can pick your seats. That's nice. We've learned we don't like sitting at the very top row... Not big fans of the front rows either. We're getting rather picky.

We bought our unlimited cards a few days before I left for the States, probably the 14th or 15th of November. So for that month we only paid 10 euros for the remainder of the month. Even with me gone for 7 days, we managed to go to five movies.

Two of them were 3D. In the Netherlands, they make you pay one or two euros for the 3D glasses. I get them free with my unlimited card, thankfully. Those 3D glasses make me disoriented. Everything gets blurry and I have to take the glasses off to keep my eyes from crossing. I can't focus on things on the screen. Unless, of course, they are holding still. Then the screen spins off to look at something else in the movie and I go cross-eyed again. I don't like it. It also makes me feel very sleepy, even when I'm not tired. It messes with my brain and I wish all the good movies didn't have to come out in 3D. The Hobbit is out on the 12th and it's in 3D. Why?! Oh well, I must go.

Also, it took me a while to realize but of course they don't have those green screens that tell the movie rating. Why would they? It's an American thing. You're just so used to seeing it though...

They also don't have previews that are attached to movies. You know how when you go to a movie when it first comes out, or go to it 5 months later in the cheap theater, or buy it as a DVD, it always has the same previews no matter what? Not the case for the Netherlands. It makes sense that it wouldn't be, half the previews they play are for Dutch movies, and even the American movies have different release dates here (it's usually earlier, yay). They change the previews depending on what movies are coming out soon. That said, usually in the US they give each movie previews for movies with genres related to the movie it is attached to. Also can see why they do that, attract the viewers to movies that are similar to their interests based on what movies they are already seeing.

And those previews for Dutch movies? I wouldn't mind going to see one. I would have no one to go with though. No one wants to see movies in Dutch. Such a sad story for me. I guess I don't have enough control of Dutch to go see a movie in Dutch anyway, but still. I want to. I always get distracted by the Dutch subtitles on English movies. I have to force myself not to watch the subtitles, because I miss important information.

P.S. Almost forgot. When my teacher said I "make my own sentences" that's just what she means. I put the sentences together myself rather than copying and memorizing something I read on the internet, or Google translate.