Skip to main content

Nummer een

By
I've never blogged before so bear with me folks. I can count on one hand how many people would read this regularly so, why am I doing this? I think that writing whenever I feel like it will help me in writing my book. Said book uses my family history as the main idea that drives the plot. In so researching my family there are just too many neat things to make people wait to read about when I finally finish my book. I am attempting to learn Dutch. And lastly, I find the country of the Netherlands to be a very interesting place and I would love to visit. So, what kind of things are going to be shown here?

1. Interesting things about the county of the Netherlands.
2. Info about my family that has relevance to history.
3. Anything Dutch related.

For starters I'm planning a trip to a village that has my surname as it's name October 8-12 and will be posting then. Americans in general don't think much about where they came from or question where names or areas or customs have come from. While where I live there isn't much in the way of a Dutch influence, where my family came from there definitely is. Even some words we probably use everyday. So stay tuned and check back if you are interesting in all things Dutch!

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

de Vries, Hans de Vries. Almost.

By
In 1967 THE James Bond (Sean Connery) decided to step away from the world of James Bond films. EOS studios thus had to find a replacement. It came down to 5 men. 2 Brits, an American, a Australian, and a Dutchman. John Richardson, Anthony Rogers, Robert Campbell, George Lazenby, and Hans de Vries. None of those names ring a bell? George Lazenby won the part for the 6th Bond film, On Her Majesty's Secret Service. A movie that has been lauded both as the worst and one of the best Bond films in the franchise. If you haven't seen it, you should. It was the Bond film that 'Breaks the Fourth Wall', Bond gets married, wears a kilt, and goes skiing. But the reason for this post is instead of this; (Yes, THAT is James Bond) We could of had this. Improvement? Probably not. He looks a wee bit angry. Plus, no one watches OHMSS anyway. So, did de Vries have a movie career after Bond? Ha, no. The only notable movie rolls I can find for him were pre bond. And that was ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Waffle, Wafel, Walfre, or Wafla?

By
A post! Due to a dearth of ideas (see what I did there? Wordsmart word) by me or the other author (cough cough); I was hoping a great story would be found using Google. Sadly, no. But I did finish a good book recently (Janson Directive by Robert Ludlum) that included a solid bit set in Amsterdam. The Amsterdam bit had me focused on Houseboats, which is a much bigger thing than I thought, and English Words with Dutch origins again. One I hadn't really thought of in a while that Ludlum referenced. Behold the Mighty Waffle Here in America. When we think Waffle our first thoughts are probably Belgium Waffles or Eggo (the surprising good readymade toaster variety). But did you know that Waffles are very old? The Dutch word Wafel (mid 13th century) and the Frankish word Walfre (1185) both come from the root word walfa which means honeycomb or cake (how about both!). Wikipedia goes into great detail about the origins of the Waffle and Waffle through the years. Fascinating bit compari...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ray - Forest Boy

By
Remember around a month ago when the news story hit about Ray the Forest Boy who randomly showed up one day in Berlin, Germany? Well I forgot to post this but it has been found out who Ray the 'Forest Boy' actually is. 20 yr old Robin van Helsum of Hengelo Netherlands (100 miles east of Amsterdam). What allowed the police to finally determine who 'Ray' was? His stepmother. She recognized his picture on the news. He went missing 9 months ago. Now that he has been exposed as a hoax and not the Forest Boy who had been living in the woods for 5 years; Robin may face stiff fines and penalties for the extra police time and work put into his case which could cost as much as $40,000. 'Ray' originally walked into Berlin claiming he had been walking for 5 days after spending 5 years living out of a tent in the 'wild' where he had buried his father. One Berlin police officer said that there were things right from the start that did not match to his story. Lik...
2 comments
Read more