Thursday, June 10, 2010

Orange (ya) Crazy

You haven't experience a sports event until you have experienced a soccer game (or football as it is called on this side of the world) in Europe.  Europeans, and especially the Dutch, are very enthusiastic (to put it lightly) for football.  Tomorrow (Friday June 11th) starts the world soccer championship's between 32 countries (the Netherlands included of course) and there is no denying that the Netherlands is ready for the games.  In every store imaginable there are orange (Hollands colour) merchandise to be seen, everything and anything imaginable.  In all my years here I have never seen it this orange crazy. 

It doesn't stop here... Nooo people are decorating their houses and further..... their whole neighbourhoods.  Now I am Canadian,  us Canadians are pretty crazy about hockey and our teams and even when the Canadians are playing the Russians in the World Championship Ice Hockey games.... but never in my life living in Canada have I ever seen any body decorate their neighbourhood or even the out side of their house  to show their support for their team! 


Even apartments weren't left out with decorating and sometimes were even able to keep it looking somewhat tasteful (if you like orange and lots of flags).
But it can go too far .... especially for this one who was the only one to decorate in this whole apartment complex (except for the above neighbours who only had a few flags).


Is my house decorated? Nope - except for a single flag my daughter attached to her window.
*gasp* Do I not support the Netherlands footballers?  I support them 100% but the only ones that benefit from me buying a bunch of orange merchandise is the stores and producers of the products. Besides, nobody in my neighbourhood has decorated their house (thank goodness).  

2 comments:

Sonya said...

Great photos! Well we didnt escape the decorations. We would have but our neighbors asked us to join in and I wasn't going to say no. It will be all gone soon enough...I agree though, I have never seen another place show so much support for their team before..everyone is decorating now!

BLOGitse said...

I noticed your comment on Aledys's blog and I had to visit here! yes, I'm a very curious person! :)
Oh boy - I didn't know they are that crazy about football in Holland!
I don't like that much stuff in any balcony - not beautiful.
Okay one day would be okay but I know some fans are fanatic and that's stupid. But that's how they support sport business like you write!
Greetings from Casablanca!

BLOGitse