Here is our friend Boyd. He is a charming and kind person, and he has excellent manners, which he exercises with ease. We met him in Boston but he lives in a polder here in Nederland, which you Americans can look up. He has a cool job, working for Apple in the store in Den Haag. His soft-spoken American/British/Dutch girlfriend, an undeniably cosmopolitan woman, is coming to live with him in a couple of months (she attended the same Dutch language class as we did and Boyd came to a few classes with her). He helped us today with T-Mobile, who insisted on having their klantenservice in Dutch, and he has taught us many things about how to live here.
At dinner, Susan related the story of Queen Maxima saying that there was no such thing as "THE" Dutch person, because, the queen explained, there was such a variety of people in the country. I thought that was an insightful and nuanced comment by the Queen, even though she received some criticism for it. Boyd likes the king and queen, and recounted some stories showing their lack of avarice, in contrast to you-know-who. The king's brother and sister-in-law have visited the Apple Store for help and to shop!