All Things Holland

Beer-Bavaria and Heineken (from the south) are common, but Northern Dutch beer is the bees knees.  Try to find some old bars they will show you some smaller breweries which make some great beers like for instance Texels brewery which makes the best beer on earth called Skuumkoppe. {try it at Moe's- Prins Hendrikkade 142sous} The beer is dang good in Amsterdam.   Hot chocolate- eh, not the best, I prefer the rich melted chocolate and milk hot chocolate I got in Switzerland, but hey if you need something to warm you up it's up to you.   Coffee- espresso, but once again sometimes you can ask for milk and get a cheap cappuccino (depending on the establishment) Genever- a hard liquor, also called Dutch gin.  It is a light whiskey. Fresh orange juice- you can find these machines around Europe now but I love them.  You watch the oranges getting squished, lots of pulp but super fresh.   At Moe's

If you enjoy eating delicious food and/or being gastronomically adventurous your entertainment surrounds food.  That being said I will try almost anything once and the Netherlands does not have many foods that really scare me ( cow tongue, squid, chitlins) When we set our feet down in Amsterdam I immediately thought of all the foods I wanted to try.  Some words that I quickly became familiar with were 'gesloten' (closed) and open and the abbreviations for the days of the week The food. Pickled herring-> no I didn't try them.  I know, I know; during the winter they only have the canned variety so you need to wait until May-June to get the years fresh catch called 'hollandse nieuwe' Bitterballen-basically hush puppies.  They can be filled with different things. Frites-normally with frites sauce which is most similar to mayonnaise, but it is a tad lighter with a hint of lemon in my opinion.  The food to eat in Amsterdam, no you can not start a diet whil...

Do not be sucked in by Argentinian or Italian restaurants, they are everywhere instead go to the outskirts of town for some excellent local food. Come in through central station-> if coming with luggage prepare yourself to wheel your bags over rough cobblestones to your hotel. Walk streets before biking them, otherwise you will get hopelessly lost. Rental bikes- find one close to hotel or a spot that you want to see as you walk back to the hotel, scout out prices, check your bike before you leave to see if you have a small map attached on the back, be careful about brightly colored bikes because they mark you as a tourist [which tells the Amsterdamers to take it easy on you when biking but also draws unsavory types], always lock your bike completely Try to get off Damrak (main tourist street)- it's really crowded with luggage wheeling tourists, full of souvenir shops, and lousy restaurants Canal boat tours are worth it especially if your feet are tired from walking ...

So after waking up from delayed sleeping pills, which had been recommended to me by some French friends, we lumbered out to catch our train at the Gare du Nord in Paris.  We got to the train station at 5:45 and our train left at 6:25am.  After our 3 hour train ride we arrived at the busy and beautiful central station in Amsterdam.  Is there any big city that I have felt so at home?  I like the way they talk, I love their style, they have great comfort food, they are 'the' bike people, ecofriendly, and easy going. Amsterdam is also called the Venice of the north, complete with open plazas filled with pigeons, surrounded by beautiful gilded stone buildings, high fashion shops, cafés and this Venice is a bustling one.  Zoom! three heavy black bikes go by brushing beside you with the ring of their bells, stop! there's a tram coming through, wait! there's a car going down the road, watch out! for the rickshaw, make way! for the horse carriage, and even the occasio...

I decided not to do a medal by medal count of the Dutch Olympic results for the 2014 Sochi Olympics this year. Good thing I didn't. It would have been repetitive. The 'Orange Crush' won an astonishing 23 of a possible 36 medals in Speed Skating with 3 'sweeps'. Take this into consideration. The Canadian team brought 140 athletes to Sochi and only left with 1 more medal than the Dutch who only brought 41... all they really needed was their Speed Skating team. They had twice as many medals in speed skating than all the other countries combined. In fact, it was so dominant the International Skating Union is looking at why the other countries did so poorly and is considering making changes for up coming Olympics. Speed Skating is a way of life for the Dutch. It's their unofficial sport and they backed it up finishing 4th in the total medal standings with 23 of their 24 medals coming in speed skating. The 24th was also skating... short track.

Hello. It's been a while. Wanted to let you know if you didn't already. The other writer to this blog (and the one who was good about writing articles on time) is away and started her own blog about her travels. Check it out here  http://sewfrance.blogspot.com  Definitely worth your read. In fact, today's has a little Dutch touch. See what I did there. So, she's got me motivated to write more soon. Look for new articles coming up. I have a backlog. So enjoy your winter; spring is coming.

I found this interesting.  The Dutch were definitely a force in the east indies but did you know they had a settlement in Taiwan!  For 38 years ( 1624-1662) the colonial Dutch government had a settlement on the island, toward the south, as a pit stop to trade with China and Japan; almost all of the Dutch there were soldiers at a defensive fort.  At that time the island was inhabited by aborigines and Chinese immigrants, its main resource was deer.  Basically after a while the native people were sick of Hollands tyrannical colonization, and after several uprisings they took back their island.  Some of the interesting contributions of Dutch rule are the standards that were set for Taiwan's international trade ability as well as a liberal view of immigration that allowed many Chinese to come to the island, creating an ethnically Chinese majority, and opening up communication between the Chinese ...

KLM continues to be super fun company and they are continuing their Holland Cool campaign. But why does it always have to be Facebook! Check this out. https://www.facebook.com/KLMUSA?v=app_654446261251028&app_data=gaReferrerOverride%3D I tried putting the video here but you have to have the link emailed to view it. Anyway. Who's up for trying herring? Anyone have any ideas on how to pronounce that beast?

More fast and furious blog entries! I found a neat blog entry on spas in Amsterdam. You could just jump in the canal... http://www.everettpotter.com/2013/07/spawatch-akasha-spa-amsterdam/

I can't do this article justice. Check this out. You may have already read it. http://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2012/08/23/spectacular-new-floating-cycle-roundabout/

Ahhh May 4th, Tulip Time Festival in Holland, Michigan, what can I say about you?  Thankfully this year the Tulip Time Festival did indeed have tulips, unlike last year's StemFest.  However; in my humble opinion Tulip Time was pretty bad.  Imagine a strange assortment of vendors selling their quilted nascar blankets, overcrowded streets and restaurants, and mock indian encampments.  No modern furnature, gouda, dutch bicycles, dutch vendor food like those little pancake thingys or herrings to be found.   Surely the walk to Tulip island where the only true Dutch windmill in America resides must have been amazing?    ( de zwaan was pretty cool, but.... ) First you must pay a hefty chunk of change to enter the island after walking a couple of miles in the blazing sun.  Once there you gaze upon two rows of tulips, followed by a short jaunt to the tourist mill where you see a mildewy replica of Amsterdam and are tempted to buy a button that says "Kiss m...

Whoa. It's almost been a month since our last post. Sorry. Back to being regular. Here's one I've had in my emails for a while. Full Article So the thought is what do you do if your city is on the coast or below sea level? Prepare for the eventuality and either build higher or make them float. That's exactly what some of these cities have done. And obviously the Netherlands is high on that list. The article above has more pictures and detail but check out a few of these. Amsterdam - Very Futuristic with 2 levels.     Amsterdam - 75 Floating Houses clumped together (video at the link)   The rest on the link are from other areas of the world. But fitting that the Netherlands has the 2 top posts.   

Yes one day I will have a separate blog for my bike posts but until then I will continue to relay an important Dutch cultural obsession, the bicycle.  What can be better than a completely man-powered means of ground transportation.  Maybe a man powered flying vehicle?  Come on Leonardo!  He had to have one for his own personal use.  Anyway, the other day I ran across this interesting ad for a bike made by the brand Republic.  Republic bikes are custom made, like how you can customize cars online, and they seem to focus on fixies or single speed bikes, in fact their limited edition right now is "Portlandia".  All of their bikes begin with a famous Greek thinker's name: Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, ...etc.  This blurb about the bike caught my eye. Plato® Dutch bikes The satisfying spirit of the Dutch bike is upright and relaxed, practical and pleasant ... and  Plato  agrees. The Plato Dutch bicycle is designed as a mix of retro stylin...

For a bizarre, uncomfortable approach to this Dutch blog today's post is about the pain of childbirth.  In the news a few months past, were the Dutch duo Dennis Storm and Valerio Zena.  This daring duo decide to take on strange and mainly painful tasks which are then shown on their live TV show "Proefkonijnen", in the past the pair cooked and ate each others' flesh...oh boy.  This time they decided to take on the "worst pain there is", and therefore they subjected themselves to simulated labor. One of the men asked one of the nurses, who were there for breathing exercises and gas masks, if the pain would make them scream?  She calmly answered, "yes, it definitely will."  And so began the pain as the nurses cranked the electrodes that were placed on key muscles of their abdomens in order to mimic birth.  The two were writhing in agony within minutes.  Screaming...check, crying...check.  The agony was cut short as the two finished their expe...

Dutch as it stands from a 2005 study is the native language of over 22 million people who reside mostly in the Netherlands and Belgium. (Sijs 348) Dutch as a language in America today is diminishing. (Sijs 107) It looks as if the Dutch language is losing ground it would seem. Apparently one can be proud of one’s Dutch background without being able to speak the Dutch language. A personal anecdote proves this the case. My last name is Dutch and I’m proud of it. Blauvelt means Blue Field in Dutch. I am the 13 th generation living in America since my first ancestor from Holland made the trek to America. I don’t speak Dutch however, I have been trying. I meet a girl whose last name was van Crae (Americanized) and she asked what percentage Dutch I was. I have no idea, probably very small if any. Her father is from Holland, making her 50%. This proves Sijs’ theory. I am proud to be ‘Dutch’ even though I don’t speak it, have never visited, and by now am most likely more a mix of other nat...

(One more part left for tomorrow) No borrowing takes place unless two cultures and their languages come into contact with each other. So who would use loanwords?   Those who come in contact with and acquire new knowledge from a foreign culture use foreign words in an attempt to disseminate their new knowledge (Higa 284).   One reason could be linguistic innovation. When new things or concepts are learned by one culture form another there arises a need to name them in the persons own language. Examples of this can be seen with English words spreading throughout the Earth. Words like Internet, Walkman, TV etc. new technologies that don’t have existing words in other languages so they are borrowed and used straight up with little change in the new language. Hence new words may be created or it may directly borrow from the ready-made foreign word. Visitors and immigrants to foreign countries tend to use borrowed words in their native languages to show their progress of accul...

....Dutch loanwords in American English fall into 13 different areas. Let’s take some of the words mentioned previous and break them down. Coleslaw, which is regarded as a typically American product and is exported to other countries under this American name, was recorded at one time as Cold Slaw which was most likely due to Americans not calling the plant cole; instead calling it cabbage. It was borrowed in the 17 th century from the Dutch koolsla or cabbage salad. Cookie, in Dutch koekje, is a small flat sweet cake. Cookie is one of the most frequently used Dutch loanwords in American English and has been used in many expressions that do not exist in Dutch. Spill your cookies, the way the cookie crumbles, have your cookie and eat it, etc. (Sijs 126) Waffle, or Dutch wafel, is a light flat pastry with a diamond shaped pattern. Derived from weven (to weave) and related to Wabe (honeycomb). Boss, or Dutch baas, meaning master foreman. This loanword has ‘conquered the world’ as it w...

...This may seem a lot to take in and remember but the key to remember is there were other colonists in the ‘New World’ besides the British. In fact there were quite a few European nations in the Americas. Sweden had a colony north of New Netherland, France had the area around modern day Louisiana, Spain was attempting one along the southern coast in Florida, and then there’s the well known British colonies. Being the first Europeans in the area and witnessing plant and animal life they had never seen; the Dutch colonists were the first to name these items and many of these have stuck down to this day. A brief look at the map just north of New York City would prove this. Town names of Orangeburg, Sparkill, Tappan, West Nyack, and Blauvelt prove this point. Orangeburg is a take on the Dutch royal color of Orange, Sparkill translates to Spar=spruce and kill=creek, and Nyack and Blauvelt are Dutch surnames.   Many names were even changed from their original Dutch. An example would b...

This video sums it all up. Oh, and this Pim guy seems awesome.

A few weeks ago I hinted at a paper I had to write for my Language class about Dutch loanwords. Well I finished it and got a high grade. It's no work of art but I thought I'd post it piece by piece for you. All grammatical errors and whatnot are my fault. Dutch Loanwords - How They Shaped American English            What’s more American than booze, pickles, coleslaw, and a cookie? The answer is actually lots of things because all four of those words are not ‘English’ (in this case British) in origin. They originate across the sea yes, but from another nautical nation; the Netherlands or more readily known as Holland. But those are only a handful of many words that we can attribute to the Dutch. “Certainly no language was ever composed of such numerous and such diverse elements” quote by Walter W. Skeat 1892 (Speaking about the English Language). Questions arise then; Why do we have words in our everyday language that originate from H...