Skip to main content

Why Orange?

By
(There was a picture of a orange shirt here but now it doesn't seem to be working)
Have you ever wondered why the Dutch National Soccer team wears the color orange when the colors on their flag are red, white, and blue?

The simple answer is that orange is the color of the Dutch Royal Family which hails from the House of Orange. The original orange (William I of Orange also know as William the Silent) organized the Dutch revolt from Spain. Unlike other Royal houses that were eliminated or viewed with contempt by the populace; The Dutch Royal House are still very popular in the Netherlands. The color orange has come to signify the country and therefore a national pride. On royal birthdays the tricolor flag is flown with an orange pennant above.

Each year on April 30th, Amsterdam and the entire country turn orange. Revelers sing "Oranje boven, orangje boven. Leve the koningin!" (Orange on top, Orange on top. Long live the Queen!) The Soccer team's nickname is Oranje which is Dutch for Orange.

That shirt may be a little bit nationalistic but I love the color!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Songs Called Amsterdam

By
iTunes free song of the week last week was a song called Amsterdam by Imagine Dragons. I've never heard of them but it's a catchy Alternative song. But it made me think. In my own personal music collection. I have a few songs named Amsterdam. Three to be exact. This may give to much away about my music tastes but hey, I'm out of ideas for posts as evident by the lack thereof. I don't read into song lyrics deep enough sometimes, so not sure what some of these are talking about but most are hardly about the city itself.  1) Amsterdam by Imagine Dragons Just got this one like I said. Not sure yet. Here it is below. Make you want to ride a train.  2) Amsterdam by Guster Couldn't find a good video for this one. But here is the song. I guess, it's easy to get lost in Amsterdam... 3) Amsterdam by Coldplay My favorite of this bunch. Turns out it's called Amsterdam because Chris Martin wrote this in Amsterdam. The song says nothing of the canal fille...
1 comment
Read more

Holland is just a step away

By
When life gives you lemons make green tea lemonade. So, when one lives in the midwest why not make the best of it and explore the sites in this area? You don't need a lot of money or even a passport. That brings us to Holland, Michigan a Dutch settlement in America. Obviously the city is very proud of its Dutch heritage, as shown in the klompen picture at the top. Klompen is the name of the Dutch wooden clog dance. There are many dutch settlements in Michigan but what makes Holland so distinctly Dutch are its two festivals: the tulip time festival in the spring and the winter festival. The tulip festival is held in mid-May and lasts for 8 days. The festival includes tours at the local windmills, tulip farms, local dutch houses, as well as dances, concerts, street scrubing, and a dutch marketplace. One interesting thing about the Dutch costumes that are presented during the festival is that they are from the 8 out of 12 different provinces of the Netherlands. Here is...
2 comments
Read more

Ambulance Garage = Home

By
So I couldn't sleep tonight so I thought I write my next blog entry about a place where you could sleep. See what I did there? That's called a 'segway'. I think. Recently MSN had an interesting article entitled '10 unique structures transformed into astonishing homes'. Structure 3 was a Parksite Ambulance Garage in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Here's the description from that article. "This 2,800-square-foot living space was converted in 2008 from an ambulance garage. The Doepel Strijkers team transformed what was a flat space into a multilevel[ed] habitation by creating a dugout in the center. [This] dugout also created room for a second level. The bedrooms are suspended over the sunken kitchen area in a polycarbonate 'light box' with integrated LED lights. The kitchen has custom cupboards. [Orange blocks] on the stairs to the living room act as a seating [area] or tables. A new glass wall looks out to the greenery of a park." If you search Doe...
2 comments
Read more