ORANJE

The dutch football team is called "oranje" here. It is because the team is associated with the royal family, and one of the surnames of the royal family is oranje. (the other is nassau).

And, in dutch, the fruit orange is called sinaasappel. So, oranje refers to color, not to the fruit. Ironically, however, dutch football team is referred as "portakallar" in Turkey, after the fruit orange.

Now is the european championship games, and Oranje is doing very well, even to the dutch people's surprise. Almost nobody gave the team a chance to qualify for the second round, beating france and italy.

On June 7, we had to walk to the central station with Maikel to take the Thalys train to Paris. There was no tram that early on Saturday. And we saw a store on our way, selling refrigerators etc. They had put the following two fridges on the front window, in reference to the first match between Italy and Netherlands..

I have checked Buienradar for the rain forecast of Amsterdam on Friday. To my surprise, they had colored netherlands in orange, in reference to european championship.

TURKEY
Surprisingly, Turkey won against Chec Republic last night. It was 2-0, but we scored 3 goals in last 15 minutes, 2 of them in last 3 minutes. Today, Stan congratulated me for the winning, and qualifying for quarter final. Ruud also referred to it when we had research meeting in his office. Our secretary Monique asked me on the corridor if I had seen the game.

I read in today's Metro that turkish supporters were in Amsterdam's Mercatorplein last night, celebrating the sansational winning.

One nice thing would be to have the final game between Netherlands and Turkey. Let's see. The ball is round, you never know..