All Things Holland

The search is over. I have been looking for a band (that I have actually heard of) who are Dutch for a long time. This band I found almost by accident. I heard their song on the radio, used an app on my phone to identify who it was, then looked at their bio. Low and behold they're dutch! Who am I talking about? Golden Earring Founded in 1961 (A little before my time) in The Hague, Netherlands. Their big international successes were 'Radar Love', 'Twilight Zone', and 'When the Lady Smiles'. I've only heard the first 2. You're probably thinking, "I've never heard of this band." Listen to these songs and you'll say, "Oh, those guys." Here's Radar Love (My favorite of the 2) And Twilight Zone The band members include (very Dutch names); George Kooymans, Rinus Gerritsen, Barry Hay, and Cesar Zuiderwijk. They're still performing today with the hopes of releasing a new album soon. Obviously, they're...

Sorry about the dearth (wordsmart word) of posts these last 2 weeks. Been away and busy. But today I was searching the news feed for a good Dutch story. Let's see; Dutch National Soccer coach steps down, nah, Forest boy really Dutch citizen, maybe later, oh, Royal Dutch Shell.... wait like Shell Gasoline? Remember when I did an article about Dutch companies? Well how about a company I had no idea was Dutch. A Huge Gasoline Company. BP is British; Chevron, ExxonMobil, ConoccoPhillips are American; Total S.A. is French; But who knew Shell was the shortened name for the Royal Dutch Shell company. Shell, founded in 1907 and headquartered in The Hague, is the 5th largest company in the world and 2nd largest Energy company. Shell operates in over 90 countries producing 3.1 million barells of oil daily with 44,000 stations worldwide. The name "Shell" actual came from when The Royal Dutch Petroleum Company merged with a British company (The Shell Transport and Tradi...

( 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...