All Things Holland

Awesome. Seems the Dutch and Europe in general are ahead of us in technological energy saving ideas.

If you were given the job of creating a flag to represent your country, how would you design it?  Myself, I would probably think of some symbols of your country then hand over the design portion to an artist, with the plan of choosing colors that aptly represent where you live.  What have most countries of the world done?  Three bars filled in with color.  Lets talk about the Netherlands flag.  This "orange" country has a drab flag, but not only is it drab it's deceiving.  So many countries use red, white, and blue that it is confusing. + A little sun bleaching,  Luxembourg +Sea sickness       France + Dyslexia ,  Russia                                                                             ...

I had a case of 'Hey, I know that guy" the other day. I found another actor who is Dutch, who knew. Rutger Hauer Born in Breukelen, Netherlands 1944. (Yes that is where Brooklyn in New York got it's name from, I think I should post about that more some other time). I posted the picture of him that made me say "oh that guy". Anyone guess what movie the above picture is from? Anyone? Batman Begins, He played Mr Earle. The 'corrupt' businessman CEO leading Wayne Enterprises while Bruce was gone/dead. He gets what's coming to him in the end; "Didn't you get the memo?" Great stuff. Rutger is also known for playing a villain in Blade Runner. Recently he hasn't played many high profile roles besides the occasional guest start on TV shows. More info on his early life thanks to Wikipedia . His films IMDB . The man even has his own website ! Neat did you know facts about Rutger. His first and last name both end with er! -Got his st...

Remember last year when Forbes published a 'Happiest Countries' Report? This year the United Nations published their first World Happiness Report and guess where the Netherlands are? This explains the ranking system. 1) Denmark 2) Finland 3) Norway 4) NETHERLANDS USA comes in at 11. Yahoo has an interesting take on the Netherlands. They ask a chicken or the egg question. Do the bicylces and Tulips exist because the Dutch are happy or are they the reason for Holland's happiness? The Happiness Report is 1 of 2 reports filed this year ranking the countries of the world. The Happiest Countries Report shows a snapshot of the state of the world's happiness. While the second report " Happy Planet Index " (The Forbes article) tallies how a country balances personal well-being, environmental impact, and life expectancy. This list includes more countries that a vacation going would be interested in. The Netherlands is farther down this list. ...

Sorry for dropping off the face of the earth these last few weeks. Class has started for both of us and it's hard to find time. Excuses Excuses. This may be a bit dry. I won't be able to put a picture up of every Olympian for the Dutch, but here is a summary of their Olympics. I'll rehash some wins I've already talked about and try to focus on the new ones. The Netherlands finished the Olympics in 13th place overall with 20 medals total. 6 Gold, 6 Silver, and 8 Bronze. A higher count than Beijing but one less Gold. Still, a good haul for the Dutch, finishing ahead of larger countries like Spain and Brazil. Medals Women's Cycling BMX - Bronze; Laura Smulders Women's Road Race - Gold; Marianne Vos Men's Cycling Track Keirin - Bronze; Teun Mulder                Keirin is a form of sprint cycling where the start is speed controlled. Read this .  Equestrian;       Women's Individual Dressage - Silver; Adelind...

I decided to wait a few days for the medals to pile up before posting an update. (If this was a blog about USA or China I wouldn't be able to keep up!) The Netherlands won 5 more medals since last I posted. 2 Golds in Swimming and 3 Bronze in other sports. Pushing their total to 8 ranking them 11th overall. Women's 8 Rowing - Bronze. Gold went to USA with Silver to Canada. I found a picture of the Dutch women's rowing team after they won. Looks like they are having fun regardless of getting 3rd. No offense to the lady in the middle but you can almost hear her snort from here. Men's 100kg Judo - Bronze (Henk Grol). Gold went to Russia, Silver to Mongolia and Netherlands tied for Bronze with Germany. Henk Grol. Sounds almost like a name from some Dan Brown novel (pictured below, chiseled). Dutch men aren't ready to be out matched in the tough guy department by the women just yet. Women's 50m and 100m Freestyle (swimming). 50m Freestyle (2 Dutchwomen Medal...

The Netherlands won another medal today in a sport that I used to put in my group of Olympic Sports that aren't televised and should be. Then I looked it up on youtube , and maybe there's a reason why it isn't aired a lot.  Judo is evidently not the fist flying craziness I thought. To me it looks more like Tai Chi sped up. Regardless, Edith Bosch (Pictured Here in the White) won a bronze medal in the Women's -70kg Judo. She had won the same medal 4 years ago in Beijing.  Continuing Holland's tradition of Women who can kick your butt.

The Olympics began with a bang (or was it Bond) last Friday night. The Dutch entered the stadium wearing their traditional Orange. Gota love those pants. Their uniforms actually won best dressed on this yahoo blog . It also seems the Dutch Women's Field Hockey team has gained worldwide attention before even taking the field to defend their Beijing Gold. Both for their play on the field and their uniforms. An article about it here  Yahoo . And a photo gallery here . Wow. The medals began coming in on Sunday for the Dutch when the Women's 4x100 Free Style Swimming Relay team secured a silver medal. Falling just behind Australia and beating team USA for second place. Followed soon after by Marianne Vos finally winning her elusive Olympic Gold Medal in Olympic Road Race Cycling. Here's a picture of her crossing the finish line (that is one excited and exhausted looking person) and one of her accepting her medal.  As of Tuesday, the Dutch are in 16 place for to...

As I type this there are 3 days, 18hrs, 33 mins, and 57 seconds left before the start of the 2012 London Olympic Games. In 2008 the Netherlands won 16 medals. 7 Gold, 5 Silver, and 4 Bronze. The Golds came from; Women's Cycling Track Individual Points Race (figures), Equestrian Dressage Individual, Women's Field Hockey, Women's Lightweight Rowing, Men's Marathon Swimming, Women's Freestyle Relay Swimming, and Women's Water Polo.  Silvers; Women's Judo -57KG, (Sailing) Women's 2 person Dingh and Women's Keelboat, Equestrian Dressage Team, and Women's 8 rowing. Bronze; All came in Judo different weight classes. 2 men's and 2 women's.  What do I take from all those medals? Dutch women kick butt. I would say at least 75% of the medals won were won on women's sports. Nice. They were 12th in the total medal count that year. According to the official BBC website, it looks like around 182 athletes will be competing in sp...

The London Olympic Games begin in less than 43 days. I thought it would be appropriate to break down which sports the Netherlands will be competing it. Here's the breakdown. -Archery -Track and Field;         Discus, heptathlon, marathon, shot put, decathlon, hurdles, various sprints -Badminton (I didn't know that's how it's spelled!)     Interestingly their athlete in this is Jie Yao who now resides in Holland. The competetion level in China is so great, she moved to the Netherlands to have a better chance of making the olympics. -Cycling    BMX, road, track, mountain biking -Equestrian    Dressage, eventing, jumping -Fencing -Field Hockey -Gymnastics     Trampoline, artistic -Judo -Rowing -Sailing -Shooting -Swimming -Table Tennis (similar story to Badminton) -Taekwondo -Triathlon Some of those sports never get televised. It'd be interesting to see. Especailly table tennis or...

With the 2012 Olympic games a little under 200 days away (It officially kicks off in London July 27 2012, I'm super excited!) I thought it would be neat to learn about how Holland has faired at previous Olympic games. The picture above is of the Dutch team walking into opening ceremonies at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Nice ties! The Netherlands have consistently sent competitors to each games since the year 1900 (Except for a boycott in 1956). They were the host in 1928 and are interested in hosting again in 2028. A bicentennial of sorts. Dutch athletes have won 246 medals at the summer games mostly in swimming and cycling; and 86 medals at the winter games of which 82 came from speed skating. Looking through their wikipedia medal count; The Netherlands top sports include; speed skating (which is a crazy passion of the country, more on that in another post I think), swimming, cycling, and equestrian rounding out the top 4. These also being their most widely recognized sports of ...

Full Article Here . (I will now summarize. Sorry for the delay. I have been away on a ski trip.) The question. Why are some nations happier and more satisfied than others? 8 ingredients of prosperity. Economy, Entrepreneurship, Governance, Education, Health, Safety, Personal Freedom, and Social Capital. Adding up each countries rankings on their performance in these areas and you get the Legatum Prosperity Index. Legatum ranks 110 countries and their overall level of prosperity. The article goes into much more detail as to why each country attained the ranking it did. After looking at the lists, odd how most of the countries I want to visit are in the first list. Obviously, the Netherlands are 8! Whoo hooo! Surprisingly they're only ranked 1 above the USA. On another side note. It's interesting almost all of the Scandinavian countries rank in the top 10. Time to move, or at least visit. Below are the top 10 happiest and saddest. The photo gallery shows more. Happiest 1) Norway...

I should be studying for a test I have in about 3 hours but the other author on this site is giving me a hard time for not posting as often as I should. I had a neat idea about the happiest countries I read somewhere but that will take some time to put in order. Instead I found some neat little Netherlands fun facts. One big caveat, I've lived in Indiana my whole life and haven't (although I plan too) visited the Netherlands. I'm going off someone elses notes and opinions on these. Although most were taken from a website called discover the Netherlands which I'm guessing means it's fairly truthful. Enjoy. I added my personal comments after each.... + People in the Netherlands eat raw herring with onions on top (It sounds weird but I bet it tastes great!) + Amsterdam has 1,281 bridges (I believe it. They have enough water to go around) + When Dutch schoolchildren pass their exams, they hang a Dutch flag and a school bag outside their homes (Time to celebrate! Hopeful...

Lets look at the Netherlands outside of the Netherlands, shall we? Well sort of... Now we all know that the Netherlands and France have something in common. They are both amazing. Now what would ever happen if someone mixed these two cultures? WHAM! BAMM! I give you "The Narcoleptic Dancers", a Franco-Dutch brother sister indie duo, comprised of Melody Van Kappers & Anton Louis Jr. Yes, you might say "this is too good to be true!" until you have heard some of their songs. I like the description that Music Week gave of them, " Should Juno ever be re-made in France, Narcoleptic Dancers will have a shoe-in for the soundtrack...»" Now you might ask how is the brother French and the sister Dutch? Well, it follows a pretty complicated family dynamic. Their father was a famous Dutch soccer player who was nick named the narcoleptic dancer for his hairstyle and his soccer skills. This famous father, while playing in France, had a passionate mee...

The snow is falling and every year around this time (it seems it is starting sooner and sooner) people begin to see pictures of a fat man with a white beard in a red suit. The Netherlands too have such a man but he is slightly different than the one we are thinking of. Sinterklaas is a traditional Winter holiday figure in the Netherlands . He is celebrated annually on Saint Nicholas' eve (5 December). Originally, the feast celebrates the name day of Saint Nicholas , patron saint of Amsterdam , children and sailors. Today, since celebrating saints' feast days is an uncommon phenomenon in the traditionally Protestant Netherlands, the Dutch celebrate at the 5th of December, his reputed birthday. He is the basis of the mythical holiday figure of Santa Claus in the United States. Sinterklaas is his usual name. The more formal name is Sint Nicolaas or Sint Nikolaas. He is also known as Goedheiligman or simply Sint. The Dutch write Sinterklaas. (looks alot like Santa Claus doesn...

I'm BACK! Allow me to extend my sincere apologies to my one reader (wink) but I have been very very bad in keeping this updated like I said I would. I've been going to lots of basketball games and many new happenings have kept me from my promise to keep the world updated to all things Dutch..... Today, since I'm in a basketball mood and I saw a video of him on my favorite teams website; I thought I would introduce to you, Rik Smits - ( picture ) otherwise known as the Dunkin' Dutchman. Measuring in at 7 foot 4 inches tall he was born August 1966 in Eindhoven, Netherlands. Rik attended Marist college (located near Poughkeepsie NY I had to look it up) and was drafted by the Indiana Pacers with the 2nd pick in the 1988 draft. He spent his whole career (12 seasons) at Indiana. He retired due to foot problems that had plagued him throughout his career after the Pacers lost in the Finals to the Lakers in 2000. Rik likes to collect and race vintage cars and motorcycles. In the...

Depending on where you are from, people make automatic assumptions about you. I've been thinking about this and it is true with countries as well, maybe more so. So are unfounded, most are out of date but they are there non the less. Canada = maple syrup, hockey, "ay?" Britain = bad teeth, drive on the wrong side of the road, BBC, Queen France = arrogant, "french girls", fancy food Russia = vodka, cold, supermodels, communism USA = "everyone should speak english", fast food, sports Germany = Hitler, blonde haired blue eyed Why am I doing this article? Here is the tag line. Netherlands = accepting (look the other way), tulips, wooden shoes, windmills, color orange, (recently) soccer. Here are a few facts about the Netherlands. 1) You already know they are known form their Beer. Heineken and Amstel. 2) Cheese. A county full of cows has good cheese. They are known for Gouda cheese. The cheese is named after the region it was made in, hence Gouda. 3) Flowe...

Yesterday I was made aware that I need to be careful putting pictures up here due to copyrights and all that stuff. Thankfully, blogger has some websites that it claims are safe so here it goes. The Dutch have trucked out some serious artists, most during the 19th century. I'm not much of an art connoisseur, so thank you internet. Vincent van Gogh - Born in 1853 in southern Netherlands. He was a Post-Impressionist painter who battled mental illness his whole life. Famously cutting of his ear and mailing it. The story goes that he cut off a portion of his left ear lobe and put it in an envelope which he gave to a brothel wench and told her to "Guard this object carefully." To the left is his most famous painting entitled Starry Night. He also painted many self-portaits. Again, I'm no expert, but he seems to have a very distinct style. An expert described it as blots of colorful paints when placed next to each other trick the eye into seeing movement. He painted th...

( Map ) Both. Kinda. The country is known as the Netherlands (Nederland in Dutch). Holland is the name of the name of two of the twelve provinces that make up the Netherlands. North Holland (Noord Holland) is the home to Amsterdam while South Holland (Zuid Holland) is home to The Hague (Den Haag). The Hague is the "political" capital of the Netherlands while Amsterdam is the "real" capital. You have probably heard on the news about The Hague. It is in a way the political capital wester Europe. The European Union Courts are located there. I guess in a way the next powerful political establishment outside the UN. So the Dutch are Nederlanders but translated into english it is just Dutch. The reason that Holland is used interchangeably as the name of the country is that that is the most influential province of the country. We really don't have an example here in America. It would be like if the United States would be called Texas or something. I'm sure Texans w...

So I've been called out. I had my first comment yesterday stating that during their fight for independence in the Netherlands, Protestants were under oppression in England. I love reading about history but am no History major myself or professional so I appriciate the comment. I remember that happening but I focus on items that interest me. Which is why I've focused on the Netherlands area. So I guess I'll go into it a little more. The Netherlands have always been a very open and free society to live. Think Amsterdam today. In a way I guess you could compare it to Las Vegas or New Orleans. So I have no doubt that some Protestants moved to the Netherlands to escape the oppression and help fuel the independence. People or all walks of life, races, and religions were welcomed. This accepting attitude helped to fuel the competition between England and the Dutch in the 17 and 18th centuries as they raced to gain a trade monopoly over each other. This ties in nice with why I'...