Hup Holland Hup

This Wednesday, I get to go see a the Oranjes, the Dutch National Soccer team, play the Slovakian national team at the soccer stadium that is right next to my house.  It should be fun.  This game is part of the Euro-something Cup, a pan-European Championship.  (I keep wanting to call it the Eurovision Cup but that is a pan-European singing competition instead.)

I am going with a bunch of international students from the University which will be nice.  That way, if I can't find my seat or something, at least I will be amongst others similarly situated.  Also, apparently, the Oranje team is less likely to provoke riots than, say, Feyenoord (the Rotterdam team), so things should be less wild.  I don't think there is a big rivalry with the Slovaks so it should be relatively peaceful.  (The Dutch are all riled  up about Eastern Europeans coming in and taking all of their jobs but I think they are mostly concerned about the Poles and the Romanians as I don't think there are a significant number of Slovakian immigrants in the area.)

Hup Holland Hup is the Oranje fight song so I need to learn the words before I go, or at least write them down somewhere convenient.  If you go here, you can see a video bunch of picture of happy Dutch soccer fans, their fancy decorations, and can hear the Dutch football song.  It is kind of a nonsense song, I think, but part of the refrain (which is written below the video) is "Go Holland Go, don't let the lion stand in the bench . . . put on your football shoes . . . and take the whole world on."  I wrote a little bit about this last year, as well.

Now the only thing left to do is to decide if my hat clashes with my new hairdo.