So the first country is the Netherlands, the country where over 16,500,000 (making it second most densily populated country in the EU, if you haven't noticed it's pretty small) people love gezelligheid & hagelsag and words that seem
impossible to pronounce such as Scheveningen Seven consonants in a row, like kstschr? The Dutch don't mind it: Tekstschrijver!!
The capital of the nation is Amsterdam and is home to 801,000 people. The city famous for it's canals but also notorious for the Red light district and "legal"drugs. Ajax is the football team that plays there, who are by the way the biggest rivals of Feyenoord the (most popular) football team from the second biggest city in the Netherlands, Rotterdam. This city hosts the docks that used to be the largest in the world for a long time.I recently found a Dutch person on the internet and asked him the following questions:
What do Dutch people consider a stereotype for the Dutch?Well... On the one hand, you have the old stereotype with cheese and windmills etc. and on the other hand, you have drugs and Heineken, there is a nice picture summing this up but I don't know its name..
I found the picture--->
Are Dutch people nationalistic?
Not really.. Dutch often prefer other countries over their own but they simply refuse to admit it ;). But when there's an international (soccer) contest all the Dutch magically turn into ultimate patriots and all the streets turn orange. It's insane. I didn't know what he meant with orange streets, What. The. Fuck.--->Why do the Dutch like orange so much?
It's the national colour of our country.. I don't know what's the reason.
The Dutch Royal family once recieved a piece of land in France called Orange. Since then their name is van Oranje-Nassau. (For the people who are really really bad with languages, oranje is Dutch for orange)
What languages are taught on Dutch schools?
Dutch
English (Obligatory for nearly everyone)
German (Slightly more common than French)
French (French is more common for smarter kids)
Frisian (Only in the Dutch province Frisia)
Latin (An option for the smartest children)
Ancient Greek (Same as Latin)
Spanish (Only on the Caribbean part of the Netherlands)
Of all the languages, English is the most common among the Dutch. Together with Sweden and Denmark, the Netherlands is the country where English is spoken mostly by the inhabitants. (Of course with an exception for the UK, Ireland and Malta) Over 80% of the Dutch can speak English.
What is a common misconception about the Netherlands?
Many people think that drugs are legal but they aren't. The government tolerates weed but it's still illegal. I tried to figure it out but it's too complicated :S
Another one is that everyone calls the Netherlands Holland, but it's not.
The yellowish provinces are Holland--->If you want to know more about this topic (and a whole lot more) watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE_IUPInEuc
Natural disasters are uncommon in (Northern) Europe, what natural disaster is feared most by the Dutch?
Flood, it's actually pretty common in the Netherlands because 1/3 is below sea level. Floods are not that big. There once was a very extreme one in the 1950s that killed a lot of people and destroyed things that had just been rebuilt.
More information about the North Sea flood: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_flood_of_1953
The Dutch and the Danes are the most cycling people in the world, convince me why the Netherlands is THE cycling nation.
Everyone in the Netherlands owns a bike and most of them use it as their main kind of transport. I think that over 90% of the students goes to school by bike daily, even though some of them have to riden their bikes for 40 km every single day. Even our prime-minister goes to his work by bike
According to him this is what every station and school looks like
What is (apart from the Netherlands) the favourite EU cory in the Netherlands?
... Denmark or Belgium I'd say.
How do Dutch people think of their neighbouring countries Belgium, Germany and France?
It turns out that not many Dutch people know that their country shares borders with France, if you want to know more about this border watch the video in the question above.
The Dutch think of the French just like any other country would. We have a love-hate relationship with the Germans. We like their cars, speak their language and usually can get along well but when the Dutch soccer team plays against the Germans we loathe them a lot ;). Pretty much the same with Belgium, there is some rivalry between us but we get along well.
So the Benelux is a union within a union and the differences with the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg are rather small. So what if their governments would make everbybody vote to make them turn into one nation, or not, and everybody had voted except for you. 50% would want them to join together and 50% would not, what would you choose?
I wouldn't want them to join together.
