» Customs
» Practical
» Utilities
» Transport
» Health
» Birthdays
» Hairdresser
» Culture
» ID Card  

                                                                                                          
Customs:

If meeting for the first time, shake hands, look people in the eye, say your first and family name. Quite the same as at home. "Hello" through the phone might be considered rude, but you are forgiven, because that's the way some of you are used to.
The Dutch do eat more than one cookie, unless on diet and cookie-dipping in your coffee is a no-no. Dutch do like to mingle, but don't forget you are not the first family renting the house. Perhaps they miss the former tenants and have some adjusting to do themselves. (Chris and Sharon, still miss you and our garage parties!, Jeanmarie, how are you?).
Dutch are known for being on time, appointments are to be kept, unless something comes up.
Are the Dutch rude or direct? Well, sometimes both, but in fact most of the time they just ask short direct questions, depending the tone, you judge for yourselves. Don't we all have our bad days. And not all Dutch feel confident enough to start a conversation in English.

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Practical:
Buy a secondhand bike, greet your neighbours, chat over the fence, wave to their kids, but you do are allowed to yell if the brats play football with your cat.
Put the garbage out/inside the same day as your neighbours. If the sun shines, enjoy, you  never know when it will be sunny again. Monday is not the only laundry day, and no, wooden shoes, are not in fashion anymore, although my dear neighbour wears them while working in the garden.
And yes the Dutch shower more than once a week. Also they do count their euro's, but don't we all and secondly, the euro made everything very expensive, all went up except the salaries. All immigration and residence decisions go to the IND,  which processes all temporary residence permits. 
From time to time  you will receive plastic bags in your mail box. If needed you may fill them up with used clothing/shoes to be left on the pavement near your house to be picked up for various beneficial organisations. Do not leave the bags just any time, again check with the neighbours. You feel you don't want to intrude their privacy, but most Dutch feel exactly the same as you do. So start with a smile and see how the rest goes.
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Utilities:
Monthly charges are sometimes based on former tenants, but will be corrected eventually. Current 220 volts, plugs have two rather than three pins.
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Transport:

Bike, car, tram, metro, train, bus.
Use the strippen cards (post office, supermarkets, some bookstores), handy and cheaper than a one way ticket in the bus. Tip: You won't make friends if you travel as a group in a bus during rush hour and buy and pay one by one your seperate fares. In case you are wondering how come they all seem to know you're no local, it's because of your biking cap. Only joking, I know they are light and safe, someone showed me.

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Health:
Your GP, general practitioner(= huis arts), is the one who in general will direct you to a specialist, if needed. You may ring the assistant during consultation hours for making an appointment. During weekends/after consultation hours and during holidays a recorded massage will tell you the nearest on-call doctor. Ministry of Health info is handy. 
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Birthday's:
It sure helps to invite at least the neighbour's kids if one of yours is having his/her birthday. If you don't want to, no problem. On birthdays fat chance you are offered more than one piece of cake, and the Dutch do also like beer, wine and rosé. Of course not all of them are party animals, but be honest, neighter are all our friends back home. And, no, they usually don't smoke pot at parties and invite no strippers as entertainment for their guests, actually most Dutch are quite conservative.
It depends on where you are, as always.
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Hairdresser:
Just ask around, best info is from hearsay.
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Culture:
Enough books on the subject available.
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ID Card:

Everyone age 14 and up in the Netherlands is required by law to be able to produce proof of identity upon request of police and authorities. Dutch teenagers at the age of 14 get the ID card for free.
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