that’s the thing, of course, that leapt out at me when reading about the Netherlands. Right there, reason to move there. Besides all the fabulous biking, of course.
But here are other things i found about the country, which maybe you didn’t know, either.
well, there’s a bunch of kind of confusing stuff about the Netherlands Antilles, which caught my eye because it was called a constituent country of the Netherlands, consisting of Aruba, Curacao, the Netherlands, and Saint Maarten. You might have already known this; maybe you’ve been to saint Maarten. but this netherlands antilles split up LAST OCTOBER, and now there are two constituent countries, curacao and sint maarten. the other three islands – bonaire, sint eustius, and saba, are now part of the Netherlands proper. it seems a little muddled to me, but it’s not yet eight in the morning and there are many many other things to find out about the Netherlands before i have to leave this morning.
the capital of the Netherlands is Amsterdam, which you probably already knew. One of the theories i presented to kevin about the bike crashes in the Netherlands is that maybe they all happened there in amsterdam and consisted of tourists crashing into each other in the capital city as they wheeled around gawking at the prostitutes in windows. it sounds logical to me.
the Netherlands is frequently referred to as Holland, but that is not accurate – North and South Holland only make up two of its 12 provinces.
the Netherlands is ranked at the 10th most democratic countries in the world.
and here, doesn’t this make you want to move there? it sounds so civilized:
Dutch politics and governance are characterized by an effort to achieve broad consensus on important issues, within both the political community and society as a whole.
The country also has a queen, Queen Beatrix, and i like that a lot. surely she was named after Beatrix Potter, which means she must be very animal-friendly.
Here’s what wikipedia says about the monarchy:
The monarch is the head of state, at present Queen Beatrix. Constitutionally, the position is equipped with limited powers. The monarch can exert some influence during the formation of a new cabinet, where they serve as neutral arbiter between the political parties. Additionally, the king (the title queen has no constitutional significance) has the right to be informed and consulted. Depending on the personality and qualities of the king and the ministers, the king might have influence beyond the power granted by the constitution.
But hmm, why would the king have the right to be informed and consulted, but not the queen? why has the queen no constitutional significance? The Netherlands, according to wikipedia, is considered to be a liberal country, but that doesn’t seem so fair to me.
in 2001, the Netherlands became the first country to allow same-sex marriages.
there are many famous artists from the Netherlands.
due to the multi-party system, no no single party has held a majority in parliament since the 19th century. Wow! that’s pretty amazing, isn’t it?
The official language is Dutch, but another official language is Frisian, which is spoken in the northern Netherlands province of Friesland. there is North Frisian, East and West Frisian, but no mention is made of South Frisian.
There are some regional language, my favorite of which is called the TWEANTS, a group of dialects spoken in the region of TWENTE.
in the southern province of Limburg, they have the LIMBURGISH language.
of course, 70% of the population speaks English, so i don’t have to hurry up and find a Dutch language class today, anyway. it can wait.
besides the abundance of pastries, there is, of course, delicious Netherlands cheese including gouda and edam, plus more. Netherlands cuisine sounds mighty good, and my favorite thing i’ve found in the 10 minutes i’ve been doing this in-depth research is called Boerenkoolstamppot. What an awesome word!
They also have RIJSTAFFEL, an Indonesian feast that i wrote about extensively a while ago, and have yet to try, but i know it must be delightful.
that is all i have time to report on my newfound Netherlands, except i do have to say that kids writing reports on stuff nowadays really have it easy. Basically, how could a teacher get kids to do anything more than cutting and pasting stuff from wikipedia, or the million other sites packed with information about everything?
ok, one more quick fact before i’m done here: martin van buren, our 8th president, spoke Dutch as his first language and is the only U.S. President to have spoken a language other than English as his first language.
ok, ONE MORE LITTLE FACT (damn you, wikipedia!) –
Van Buren’s unsuccessful reelection campaign in 1840 is regarded by etymologists as instrumental in the popularization of the word “OK”. In the context of the campaign, the initialism was used as a nickname for Van Buren and stood for “Old Kinderhook,” which was a reference to Van Buren’s birthplace.
Wouldn’t that be a great Trivia Question – what did OK originally stand for?
i have thoroughly gotten sucked into the time-sucking internet this morning, officially.
ok (old kinderhook) then,
mrs. cutting-and-pasting-knowledge hughes.