August 3, 2010

As The World Turns with a Dutch twist

Filed under: Shows by Orangemaster @ 4:09 pm

A late night Dutch television show once featured soap star Elizabeth Hubbard, aka Lucinda Walsh on As The World Turns (ATWT), talking about her role on the world’s longest running soap, scheduled to stop next month after 54 years.

Elizabeth Hubbard currently lives in the province of Friesland with – you guessed it – a Dutchman.

The last episode of ATWT has Lucinda ending up in Amsterdam, where she might end up buying a house in real life. She has a guest spot on Dutch soap ‘Goede Tijden, Slechte Tijden’ (‘Good Times, Bad Times’ – GSTS) for twee weeks, playing Sair Pointdexter, Irene Huygens’ mother from America.

Hubbard plans to learn Dutch (something everyone wants to hear) and keep busy with writing and the likes. ATWT is about one and half year’s behind, so that’s still a ways to go before it finally stops.

You can catch Hubbard using Dutch words and making jokes (in English with Dutch subtitles):

(Link: nieuws.nl)

Tags: ,

May 24, 2010

Walking across the Wadden Sea

Filed under: Nature,Sports,Weird by Branko Collin @ 11:40 am

Legend has it that when God created the Groninger, the Groninger said: “Get off my land.” And as if to prove a point, Groningers (and Frisians) still walk across dozens of miles of sea each day, as New York Times reporter David Corn attests:

After about an hour, Mr. Kraster comes to a stop. He says he has some good news and some bad news. For the next stretch, the ground will be less muddy — but the water will be higher. He points in the direction we’ll be heading. I still see nothing but sky and water before us. He could be leading us anywhere — including into deep water. He takes a step, and the water is close to his waist. The rest of us realize we are standing on a ridge and about to take a plunge.

The activity described here is mudflat hiking, wadlopen in Dutch, and is possible because of the unique properties of the Wadden Sea. At high tide the area is a sea, at low tide it is land—partly—and you can cross from the mainland to the Wadden Islands over some of the muddy watersheds. This is exactly what 30,000 people in the Netherlands do each year. Mudflat walking is also possible across the Wadden Sea portions of Germany and Denmark.

(Photo by nl.wikipedia user Marieke78, some rights reserved.

Tags: , , , , , ,

March 16, 2010

First peewit egg of the year found

Filed under: Animals,Nature by Orangemaster @ 4:53 pm
peewit-eggs

In the province of Friesland, it is a tradition to be the first one to find the year’s first peewit egg (‘kievitsei’, in Dutch). Unlike other birds who lay their eggs in nests, the peewit (aka Northern Lapwing) lays its eggs in the ground. There are wide open fields in Friesland where people go ‘egg hunting’.

Over the years, there has been much commotion about picking these eggs, as many Dutch people see it as unnecessary and what have you. As well, following a ruling by the European Union, harvesting these eggs is now forbidden — except in Friesland where a cultural exception was made. After much lobbying, the province of Friesland is now allowed to look for peewit eggs between 1 March and 9 April. I believe the difference is finding them is one thing and picking them (stealing them?) is another.

According to website Expatica.com, “It is a Friesland tradition to give the first lapwing egg of the year to the province’s royal commissioner. Originally, it was given to the sovereign.”

The finding of the first egg is a symbol of spring and always makes the news. The eggs in the picture are different and from Australia, albeit of the same bird.

(Link: blikopnieuws.nl, Photo of eggs by wiccked, some rights reserved)

Tags: ,

February 27, 2009

Online market place refuses Frisian adverts

Filed under: General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 9:50 pm

logo

While skiing in Austria recently, the nice inn owner ask me if the Netherlands had other official languages than Dutch. I said yes, and promptly grabbed a copy of the Leeuwarder Courant that just happened to be lying around, a Dutch and Frisian newspaper from Leeuwarden, the capital city of the province of Friesland.

And then this happens. Online market place site Marktplaats.nl (owned by Ebay, by the way) has told the media today that it refuses to place adverts in Frisian.

Their excuse? According to a spokeswoman, the employees cannot check the adverts because they do not speak the language. Fine, so find someone who can, I would think. Obviously, if a company wants to pay good money in these tough times to advertise in one of the country’s official languages, you could make an effort. Problem is the sites says yes to Dutch — and English adverts. Ouch.

The chairman of the Fryske Beweging (Frisian Movement) Jabik van der Bij called their refusal to run Frisian adverts ‘foolishness’ and are thinking of taking Marktplaats to court.

(Link: leeuwardercourant.nl)

Tags: , ,

March 28, 2008

Superbus gets road trial in June

Filed under: Automobiles,Design by Orangemaster @ 10:26 am
superbus1.jpg

The Superbus, designed by former Dutch astronaut Wubbo Ockels, will get its first road trial on 25 June. The bus, which can woosh by at 250 km/h, is set to trial run on a 27-kilometer stretch of highway between Harlingen and Leeuwarden, Friesland. The highway will of course be closed for the occasion. Ockels announced the trial last Wednesday during a meeting at the head office of transport company Connexxion, one of the sponsors of the Superbus.

And yes, the Superbus does look like the famous alien designed by the H.R. Giger.

Read more about the Superbus project.

(Link: volkskrant.nl)

Tags: , ,

January 10, 2008

25 years of wine barrels as hotel rooms

Filed under: Architecture by Branko Collin @ 9:30 am

The Vrouwe van Stavoren hotel in Stavoren, Friesland, has been offering Swiss wine barrels as hotel rooms for the past 25 years. The barrels with a volume of 14,500 litres are furnished with two single beds, a small living room with TV, and a bathroom with a shower and a toilet. They are located on the porch of the main hotel. Owner Bauke Kolk copied the idea from a foreign hotel. It has been so successful that there’s an actual waiting list for those who want to stay in one of the barrels.

Good news for the hobbit wannabees among us though: Kolk has bought 8 more barrels, French ones from the château Corcelles that were used to store Beaujolais. These will have room for a double bed; Kolk believes that these are more suited to young couples. The French barrels are currently located at a carpenter’s in Stavoren, where they are presumably being made rock-proof.

The hotel is named after a legend (Aarne-Thompson index 736A) that explains the decline of the once proud city of Stavoren into a mere village (though the real reason is really more prosaic).

Via Zibb (Dutch).

Tags: , , ,

December 21, 2007

First “natural ice” speed skating race of the season in Nijelamer

Filed under: Sports by Branko Collin @ 10:43 am

Last Wednesday the Frisian village of Nijelamer was the first in the country to organise speed skating races on natural ice. On a 160-metre track, 38 pairs started, skating two races each: one away from the village and the second race towards it. The person losing both races was out of the competition. In the end, 21-year-old Ronald Mulder from Zwolle won. Two days earlier, skating icon Henk Angenent had expressed doubt on national TV as to whether natural ice races would be held this week. The farmer from Woubrugge had observed fresh mole hills and saw this as a sign that the frost would not stay. But it did, and the skating peloton was happy for it. (Via free daily De Pers, Dutch.)

Photo by StanTheCaddy, distributed under a Creative Commons BY-2.0 license: children skating at the back of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam in January 2007.

Tags: , , , ,

November 30, 2007

Here’s the beef

Filed under: Food & Drink,General by Orangemaster @ 11:31 am
clever1.jpg

A couple of butchers in the very small village of Triemen, Friesland found an odd way to cheat the local government out of about EUR 150,000. Although the couple received welfare money, they actually ran a very professional butcher’s shop out of a shed. Finally, someone who called themselves a “hard-working tax payer” tipped off the authorities. Not only did the couple receive welfare money, but they mooched off their “friends” as well. Maybe it’s time for them to move.

(Link: vleesmagazine.nl)

Tags: , ,

November 22, 2007

Doutzen Kroes poster girl for Frisian language

Filed under: Fashion,General by Orangemaster @ 10:03 am

kroes1.jpg

Doutzen Kroes, known as a L’Oréal and Victoria’s Secret model, has been asked to use her pretty face to make the Frisian language even more attractive.

The 22-year-old top model will be playing a major role in the campaign ‘Praat mar Frysk’ (roughly, ‘Just speak Frisian’) for the province of Friesland, which will be launched next week in Tytsjerksteradiel, according to news website Wâldnet. Doutzen was asked because she can show that she comes from Friesland and speaks Frisian ‘beautifully’. The goal of the campaign is to make Frisians aware of their language. Only about 2% of the Dutch population speaks it. And then a few years back, there was that nice duo Twarres who scored an international hit with their song ‘Wêr Bisto’, which is in West Frisian (the same Frisian I’m on about, as the Germans and Danish have their varieties).

For the folks who thought Dutch was the only official language of the Netherlands, there is also Frisian as well as the regional languages of Dutch Low Saxon and Limburgish.

(Link: reclamewereld.blog.nl)

Tags: , , ,

August 13, 2007

New pole-sitting record

Filed under: Dutch first,General by Orangemaster @ 3:19 pm
paal1.jpg

In Kollum, Friesland, Werner Leichtenberg, Sandra Ellens and Wieke Lap have set a new Frisian pole-sitting record. Last weekend, the three spent 60 hours straight (OK, they are allowed to go to the toilet) on a pole in the centre of their village, according to the pole-sitting organisation. The old record was established in Warns at 58 hours. As well, the three decided to get off their pole at the same time, so that they all could share the record together.

This originally Frisian sport has made a serious comeback. The rules are simple: the one who stays the longest wins. The poles are usually in water so that if someone falls asleep, they will not get hurt when they fall.

(Link: nu.nl)

Tags: ,