Amsterdam: Holland? The Netherlands? Why we go there?

Holland!

The country of tulips, windmills, dijk (dike), City of Amsterdam, museums, trams, bicycles, canals, weed, "coffee shop", space cake, bong, the Red Light District, the VOC (Dutch East Indies Company)..the..ahem.. fabled "Flying Dutchman" ship, Rembrandt and van Gogh...and somehow despite all of these..we totally forgot to mention anything about Netherlands.

The Netherlands

Time to get the facts right... ohhh.. and this is awesome as it was Madam herself in her defence said that it was her who showed me a youtube video on this  Holland vs the Netherlands. I cant remember if she did (thank you for the gift of forgetfulness) until last night she showed me the video...which I've never seen it before (honest)..

Anyway, the gist of the video was this...

1. The Netherlands over has many names over its colourful history.. even one United States of Belgium and Kingdom of Holland etc etc..

2. Holland is not a country..but a province and there are two of them. North Holland and South Holland

3. Those in Holland (North and South) called themselves Hollanders while the rest are Dutch

North Holland

South Holland

North and South Holland in The Netherlands

4. The last one I would have to say it's purposely done by themselves. Just look at the tourism board of the Netherlands' website... aaaaannnd the name is? www.holland.com nice!!

The website in question... 

To say the least, the Dutch do travel ('govern') a lot during the VOC days from the New Amsterdam (in Manhattan, NY) to New Zealand (yep, there is a province called Zeeland, south of South Holland)....Malacca and Batavia in between.

Ok, the shitty part is this...Amsterdam is the capital of The Netherlands, which Haarlem (another city) is the capital of North Holland... Rotterdam is the most populous city in South Holland, but the capital of the province is The Hague which is also the seat of government (imagine Abuja for Nigeria, Putrajaya for Malaysia). Since both of the the most populous, famous and seat of power are either in North or  South Holland..thus the name stuck for the whole nation (atleast for perople like Madam), while the name Netherlands (means The Low Country, most of the country are below sea level) I could say played the second fiddle. Low profile...

Holland or Netherlands? Clearly a map of Netherlands

But why oh why we are vsiting Netherlands?

The answer is Madam

Working with a prominent Dutch company requires her to travel to the Netherlands every year and a few weeks in Lagos. 

She would rant on and on about Amsterdam and Keukenhof to name a few and about her friends whom renovated the whole house...yes the whole house by themselves from ground floor to roof top. Very DIY type of people.

So, for the children spring break trip would be the Amsterdam in the Province of North Holland in the Netherlands. There you have it.

And let me show you, for the interest of my dear readers of my next posting about Amsterdam, the flag of Amsterdam..

Ahhh yes..the famous Amsterdam flag with the X's
beside the children's pictures at home

One X is ok, but three? ahahahahaha..this is going to be awesome! Aheh?