Dutch or German?

The Dutch soccer team unfortunately lost to Germany on Wednesday, but they are still playing a game against Portugal in a couple of hours from now.

My hub is definitely not a sports fan, but he is a true red, white, and blue Dutchman. He will be glued to the television for every last drop of that game today. Actually that makes him more like his mom than his dad. She always liked a good "voetbal wedstrijd" and watched it from very close to the television. I think my father-in-law was just there beside her for the companionship.

As I am definitely not interested in soccer or "voetbal" at any time, let's jump back to the Dutch and German relationship. For the almost 30 years of traveling to and from the Netherlands with my Nederlandse hub, airline personnel thought I was Dutch and he was German. We laughed, but I don't think he thought that was so funny. The Dutch are proud "Volk" and being confused with a "Duitser" is a "no no."

So my question is who in the world started calling Nederlanders the Dutch? Even Hollanders would have been closer to the truth, even though my hub's family weren't Hollanders. They originated from provinces (states) in eastern The Netherlands near the German border. Confused yet?

While listening to the national anthem of The Netherlands on Wednesday, my hub was annoyed at the references to Germany and Spain in the lyrics. Now who pays attention to that, except him? Actually maybe someone should write new and appropriate lyrics to such an important anthem. I will leave that to someone else. Have you ever read my Nederlands? But I do better than Google translation!

I digress. Someone, probably an American, heard Deutschland (German for the country Germany) and confused the inhabitants with the Dutch (or Nederlanders), and now we are all confused! In Pennsylvania, a group of people are called the Pennsylvania Dutch, when in fact they are actually Pennsylvania Deutsch (German). Or did their ancestors really come from Switzerland? I Give Up!

Last week at my Master Gardening class a classmate referred to my life in Sweden. Now how did she come up with that country? Please don't let her read this blog! She will never figure it out.

German Apple Cake recipe tomorrow. Wonder if it is from the Deutsch or the Dutch? He He! LOL