Hup Holland Hup!

I have entered the land of World Cup Mania....


Really, I should have written about this sooner, but I hadn't taken my camera to class yet, and you really needed to see this to understand.
The Dutch sure do love their orange! Why orange you ask? The national flag is red white and blue! This refers back to the Dutch Royal family. Since the 13th century, the family ruling the Netherlands has been the House of Orange-Nassau. Thus, Orange is the unofficial, official color.
Ok, so I've made fun of soccer and the whole World Cup thing in previous posts, but in all honesty it isn't that bad.
1. I can follow the game relatively well
2. There isn't a lot of down time the way there is in other sports (namely Football and Baseball) so I don't get distracted.
3. It's fun join in all the local's excitement.

Honestly, are any of you getting this World Cup excitement over there in the states? Is anyone taping inflatable Statue of Liberties and Bald Eagles to their front doors? Are there buildings that have been painted red, white, and blue? I'm not thinking there are. That's alright, America tends to focus on other things, but still I have yet to be anywhere in America that has gotten so excited over a single game! Alright, I know New Orleans was pretty psyched back February, and Boston went into mass hysteria over their World Series win several years ago, but there aren't places like this in Mississippi, and... dare I say it, I'm not a Cowboys fan in Texas.I'm soaking this in for all its worth.

Today at 4:00 (16:00 for you European minded folk) the Netherlands played Brazil. Brazil was most definitely favored to win this match I believe and so can you explain everyone's elation when Holland won 2-1!!

Yep, that's right. Some of my friend and I headed down to the city square and fit ourselves into the back corner of a pub and joined in with the screams (both of delight and frustration). Then the the time ran out everything went chaotic! Apparently, its the going thing to, after your team makes it into the final four, to drive through city center honking your horn with flags and streamers.So Holland's made it in and Uruguay and Ghana are playing right now (1-1). Argentina plays Germany tomorrow at 16:00 and Paraguay plays Spain at 20:30. (These are my times for the game because we're in the same time zone, so the translations I think are 10:00 and 1:00)

We're all hoping that Germany pulls it out tomorrow and hopefully to play the Netherlands for the final. If they do all the Baylor kids are threatening to take a field trip to South Africa to see the final game. (Our Baylor Director is from Germany, we think he might just go for it! haha!)

Ah well, I'll keep you up to date. Oh, and here's the results of my to do list so far. One day down, two more to go!



1. write 10 page paper for Literature class
2. 2 walking tours around Maastricht(1)
3. find new favorite restaurant in the Netherlands
4. start 3 5 page papers for my history classes
5. Watch Holland and Germany win their soccer games (1)
6. Visit Belgium.

Hulu, how could you!

I am appalled. Absolutely, completely, undeniably horrified. Really I am. Last night as I was lying in bed I realized that I hadn't written a post for that day. It's the first day that I have been in Maastricht that I haven't written to you. There's no excuse. But if there were an excuse... perhaps it'd go a little like this:

Here's the place where I write about having midterms this week and how I sat down at my desk at 1:30 yesterday and worked until dinner at 5:30 and then for another 30 minutes after dinner. All of this is true, but really mid terms consist of only one test which is tomorrow. It shouldn't be that difficult. The real excuse for me not writing yesterday- I was watching tv. Lame excuse, huh? I know, but after four hours reading and studying I needed to give my brain a chill, so I decided to stream some old episodes of one of my favorite tv shows from the web. Bad, bad, idea. Oh, it gets worse from there, for I haven't told you yet which show I was watching. Dare I even tell you now (you have no idea how many shade of red I'm turning just thinking of sharing my guilty pleasure.) All right, all right, I'm addicted to The Real Housewives of New York City!
For those of you who have never heard of it, you really don't need to. It's not educational, it's not romantic or funny, it's not a thriller or a crime show, and it certainly doesn't have a McDreamy anywhere in the cast list. In fact in the strata of television shows to watch it's pretty much at the bottom of the pile. But it's so much fun! It's the show that you work all day long so you have nothing to do when it comes on, and you then spend the next hour laughing at women yelling at each other for no good reason and saying to yourself, "at least I don't act like that." So anyway, I hadn't seen the last episode of the season so I watched it, then I wanted to watch the Reunion when they all get together and talk about what we on. Yea, there were three episodes of that, so essentially I watch four episodes of RHNYC. Sigh.

I haven't watched much tv since I've been over here, between studying, writing a blog, reading for fun, and working on GRE material I haven't had the time, but let me share with you what little I know about Dutch tv so far.

1. Be thankful it's in Dutch: Dutch isn't a very common language like German or French and for that reason most shows that aren't from the Netherlands aren't dubbed, they simply have subtitles. I can always find something in English over here, not so with other countries. One night I happened to turn on the tv in Austria (German Speaking) I found the Golden Girls on 3 channels and all three channels had it dubbed into German.

2. Rule #1 does not apply to Nickelodian and other children's shows: I got excited one morning to find some cartoon on television. I think it was The Little World of Richard Scary, a show I used to watch on NickJr. when I was a kid. I've also seen Hannah Montana around (which I have to admit I'm not completely opposed to, if I'm desperate). Ah but fair warning, even though these are American shows they're made for children, and children can't read therefore they're all dubbed into Dutch. Sad day.

3.The Dutch like to replay American shows that haven't been in Syndication within the last 20 years: Since I've been here, I've watched, Who's the Boss, Archie Bunker's Place, and Little House on the Prairie, but alas Grey's Anatomy and Glee are no where to be found.

4. There's always Animal Planet or Discovery Channel: but you can only watch Bear Grylls drink his own urine so many times.

5. Soccer is only slightly more interesting that watching water boil: added in reference to this I wish to state that I now consider professional soccer players to be the biggest babies I have ever seen. So the guy with the ball tripped you, WHAT ARE YOU ROLLING ON THE GRASS FOR?

Ok, so there it is five things you should know about Dutch television. Perhaps I've quenched my television thirst for a while.