Come On You Horns!!

There are not many moments over the last (almost) 13 years where I can honestly say I know exactly where I'd be right now had I not moved to the Netherlands. Monday 27th May at three o' clock in the afternoon however is a whole different ball game. If I was still in England right now I would be presently be in a state of fever pitch excitement in the build up to this coming Monday. Why I hear you ask?

This Monday Watford FC, fondly known as the Horns by fans, takes on Crystal Palace for the last place left in the English Premier League at Wembley. The Championship play off final is the last 90 minutes (as long as extra time and penalties are not needed) of the Horns' 2012/13 season. And had I not moved to the Netherlands I know for sure I would be one of Watford's 34,000 allocated ticket holders. I would be there at Wembley donned in yellow. Had I still been living in England I would also have seen this amazing end to the semi final game against Leicester City from the stands, and not on You Tube:



I would have followed the unbelievable season from my season ticket seat at Vicarage Road and not through my IPad and the BBC.

Before I moved overseas I was a season ticket holder and had been for many years. My parents took me to my first Watford match thirty years ago in 1983. In 1984 Watford lost to Everton in the FA Cup Final. Heartbreak. And between 1984 and 2000 I witnessed most of the highs and lows of every season, at Vicarage Rd and at many other stadiums across England.

I was at Wembley in 1999 when Watford successfully beat Bolton Wanderers 2-0 for a place in the Premier League. The day was indescribable. The atmosphere was electric. The tension was unbearable. The celebrations were memorable and lasted until deep in the night. Thousands of people united in the particular joy that only sports fans can explain. In 2006 Watford were again in the play off final, this time played at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. Twice in the play off finals. Twice winners.

And so here we are, fourteen years later, days away from another Wembley appearance. This one will be a very different experience for me though. Monday is not a Bank holiday in the Netherlands and at kick off I will be in a meeting in a hospital. I'll be following the match online as much as I can and whilst it's certainly not the same as being at Wembley in the flesh, it's the best I'll get this time around. And though I can't be there, I'll be hoping the outcome is the same as it was back in 1999:

COYH!!!!!!! 

My "British" Olympics

The Olympic Park
(c) Sarah Rodrigues

I have to admit hearing about the London 2012 Olympics every day for so many years before the Olympics actually started just over two weeks ago was really getting on my nerves. What particularly bugged me was the negativity in the press in the lead up to the games. It seemed that from under every stone someone crawled out with their own opinion about how the games were being planned, budgeted for or  how the venues were being built. I even started writing a blog post way back when I had finally heard enough negativity. But then I decided the post was in itself negative albeit negative about the negativity. So it never went live.

And of course we most recently had a furore about tickets (or lack of). And then the games arrived. And then the tide turned. In spectacular fashion. For two weeks Brits were captivated. My Facebook was full of photos of friends and family that were lucky enough to get tickets for different events. And wow did they have a great time. Some saw the rowing, others saw women's football, some were lucky enough to see the men's football final, the women's pentathlon, hockey and basketball matches and the closing ceremony.

Whatever the sport, whatever the venue, it was clear that the atmosphere was amazing. The noise at the velodrome on TV was spectacular. The atmosphere in the Olympic Stadium could even be felt at home when Jessica Ennis brought home gold for Britain.

Jessica Ennis in the 100m hurdles
(c) Sarah Rodrigues

Every medal was celebrated. Every medal chance was seized by spectators and hopes were high across the board. And Team GB delivered. In style! Third in the medal table is no mean feat.

The Olympics following on from a holiday in Britain where I was surrounded with British flags and products lathered in the British flag has made me feel suddenly very British again! Don't get me wrong, I cheered on the Dutch athletes too (except for the little matter of a hockey victory by the men's team in the semi finals *cough*) but there was no confusion this time around about where my loyalties lay.

The Women's Heptathlon, including Dutch athlete Dafne Schippers
(c) Sarah Rodrigues

How did your country do in the 2012 Olympics? Were you cheering on your home or host country?

The Olympic Flame
(c) Sarah Rodrigues

Elfstedentocht

I have to admit I have been swept up in the euphoria around a possible Elfstedentocht (Eleven Cities Tour), but with minimal ice growth the last few nights it's not looking likely is it?

Every year I get quite excited about the idea of being able to experience (albeit this year on a television due to three sprogs in tow) such a truly Dutch sporting event. The reason why escapes me because I am no ice skater myself. In fact, I can count on two fingers the number of times I have been on ice skates - both times in an English ice rink, and both times more than two decades ago. Both times I seem to recall a lot of bum bruising, cursing and death grips (whoever happened to be near to me when I was about to plunge to the ice). And yet I am fascinated by the idea of this 200km skating tour through Friesland. I'm as gripped by the idea as any Dutchman (or woman).

When the last tocht took place in 1997, I was in England, had never heard of the Elfstedentocht (and to be honestly knew very little about the Netherlands at all) and could not have imagined my annual interest in a potential ice tour through the Dutch northern province. In 2009, I was experiencing the Dutch euphoria when ice hits and even writing about the phenomena that is ice skating in the Netherlands - (Read When Holland Freezes Over).

How things change..... and how I hope I get to see an Elfstedentocht some day!

Check this video out to feel a little of the excitement around an Elfstedentocht: http://www.rnw.nl/english/video/skating-tour-1985-caught-film

For more info and to keep up to date with happenings this year: http://www.rnw.nl/english/dossier/elevencitiestour

"Well I Never Knew That": Rafael van der Vaart - From Humble Beginnings

(c) Amanda van Mulligen

In September last year, Dutch footballer Rafael van der Vaart made a move to Premiership football in England from Real Madrid after losing a regular place in the Spanish side. The move to Tottenham Hotspur was met with excitement from the English press.

A few weeks ago I watched an interview with the Dutchman on Football Focus on a Saturday on the BBC. He talked about his youth growing up living in a caravan in Heemskerk. And that is where he learned to play football, using empty beer bottles as goal posts. He says now that he realises that his lifestyle growing up was different but he covets it all the same. He was talent spotted at the age of 10 and subsequently joined the Ajax Academy. The rest, as they say is history.

This interesting fact about this international football star had passed me by. Now a quick look on the internet and the English press was full of it at the time of his transfer.

What is also interesting is the fact that his mother is Spanish. She moved to Holland when she was 6 so by rights he could have also chosen to play for the Spanish national team. Luckily for Holland he chose to play for his birth country.

He is reminded of his humble beginning every time he heads 'home' as he passes the caravan where the van der Vaart family used to live on the way to his parents' house - the one he bought for them when he made a name for himself in the footballing world.

Having cost Spurs £8,000,000 and played in a World Cup Final last year, he certainly has come a long way from the life he started in a caravan north of the Dutch capital city. No wonder his mantra is 'believe'.

Ten Things You Don't Know about The Netherlands and the Dutch Until You Move Here (Part 5)

(c) Amanda van Mulligen

The typical Dutch stereotype consists of cheese eating, clog wearing tall people talking a dialect of German with a backdrop of windmills sailing round on the flatlands. However, there is much more to this small country and the people who live in it than the rest of the world thinks. Here's the fifth and last part of a series on things you don't necessarily know about the Dutch and their country until you move here.

9. Politics is Fragmented, To Say the Least
Before I moved to the Netherlands, I had little experience or direct knowledge of how it is to live in a country under a coalition government. Since I moved to the Netherlands I have known little else. Until the last general election in 2010 in the UK, there has been no coalition in my lifetime, or my parents' life time come to that. Recent Dutch politics has been nothing but a series of coalitions, and unstable ones at that. To say recent Dutch governments have been fragile is an understatement - yet somehow that isn't reflected in daily life.

The newest Dutch government took a few months to form and was controversial to say the least. However, looking on the bright side - it could be worse... we could be living in Belgium where they have been living with no government for seven months.

The Dutch take to the Ice (c) A van Mulligen

10. The Dutch are Ice Crazy
Maybe I led a sheltered life in England but I had never stood on a frozen lake or seen people skating on natural ice until I came to the Netherlands. If we have a cold spell here, the shops are amok with Dutch folk trying to buy new skates. As soon as there is ice covering any waterway the Dutch make a mad dash for their skates and take to the ice like ducks to water. And they have a blast. I have never seen anything like it - the Elfstedentocht is a great example of the enthusiasm and excitement for skating in this little land.

Of course there is a dangerous side - lives are lost because of thin ice. At best, falling through the ice is certainly no fun and not something you forget in a hurry. My husband can attest to that!

The Hell of 1963 - An Elfstedentocht To Remember

Photo: (c) Amanda van Mulligen

The Elfstedentocht (Eleven Cities Tour) of '63 took place exactly 48 years ago today. The Elfstedentocht is a 200km skating marathon that takes place on frozen over canals, rivers and lakes in Friesland, in the north of the Netherlands - the country's biggest natural ice marathon and the world's longest.

1963 saw a particularly harsh competition, hence the label of "De Hel van '63". Temperatures dropped to -18 degrees centigrade. Only 126 of the 9,000 skaters who started the race crossed the finish line. Thousands of skaters suffered from frost bite, frozen eyes, broken bones and other similar horrible injuries

Dutch director, Steven de Jong, directed a historical drama based on the twelfth Elfstedentocht - 'De Hel van '63' was released in 2009 and it had very mixed reviews. However, I really enjoyed it and it's a great way to spend 108 minutes to get a good idea about the Dutch culture around skating, the importance of the Elfstedentocht, how the Elfstedentocht works in practice and how severe the 1963 drama actually was.

In a nutshell, the skaters pass through eleven Frisian cities, starting and ending in the Frisian capital of Leeuwarden. In each city participants collect a stamp (as well as in two secret locations along the route to stop cheating) but they must pass though all checkpoints by midnight to qualify as a finisher. The winner of 1963 was Reinier Paping - in conditions so severe he became somewhat of a national hero.



The last Elfstedentocht took place in 1997, but every winter the rumblings and hopes of the event taking place 'this year' surface. In fact, at the end of last year, there was a flare of (unfounded) optimism when weatherman, Harry Otten ( Wereldomroep) said if everyone went out to clear the snow from the ice there could be an Elfstedentocht 'next week'. In reality, the ice was not thick enough (it needs to be 15 cm thick across the entire course).

I am looking forward to the year it can be held - what an event that will be!

A New Year's Dip

Aside from blowing things up and spending over 60million euro on fireworks, the Dutch traditionally take to the water at New Year by means of a nieuwjaarsduik. At different events across the country brave souls don their swim gear and charge into a body of freezing water. I went to watch them in Zoetermeer at the Noord Aa.

To say it was all as mad as I had expected is an understatement. Two hundred people stood together on the Noord Aa beach wearing woolly red Unox hats with towels and dressing gowns covering their swimming shorts, bikinis, T-shirts and swimsuits. They all waited in good spirits for a local councillor to give them the go ahead at 13.00 to start their run into the water.

Photo (c) Amanda van Mulligen

As preparation there was a few minutes warm up before everyone shed their dressing gown and towels....

Photo (c) Amanda van Mulligen

 and then they were off....

Photo (c) Amanda van Mulligen

Two hundred Zoetermeerders pelted it down the beach into the water. There were a few minutes of screaming, laughing and splashing before the last dipper was back on shore, dabbing themselves down with towels, blankets and warming their tummies with a hot cup of Unox soup.

Now.. er.. happy new year!! You can see more of the Noord Aa event in the video below.