Netherlands 

Dear readers, we will stay in Europe and talk about the Netherlands. It is a beautiful country in the west of Europe. The official language here is Dutch and it is a unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy, headed by monarch Willem Alexander.

But now, let's move to the culture and people living in this country. We could start with the food, which is, in my opinion, one of the ways, how to show the traditions.

So, in the Netherlands, there is very rich cuisine. If we start with the sweet part of the cuisine, we have there a cookie named stroopwafels, which is a caramel waffle, or a candy named drop, then poffertjes (Dutch pancakes), filled speculaas ( a cake), tompoes (a special pastry) and limburgse Vlaai, which is also a cake, oliebollen- yeast dough.

A traditional dinner here is a stamppot- potatoes mashed with vegetables. Other salty foods are friet met mayo (Dutch fries), or haring(a fish. herring), patatje oorlog (also fries but made differently), or bitterballen- small meat based snack, erwtensoep (a soup from peas).

And what about the people? They do have a lot of freedom a lot and there is not much racism, so you can also believe in whatever you want.

Important holidays here are Oldyear day, which is celebrating of the last day of the year. The first day of the year is called Newyear day. They also have a Good Friday, which we have in the Czech Republic too. And they do celebrate Easter. On May 5th, Liberation Day, they celebrate freedom from the German occupation in WW2. They do celebrate Ascension Day, which is 40th Easterday. Pinksteren, after ten days, the new beginning of the church, and Sinterklass, which is Saint Nicholas in the Czech Republic. It´s a day, when "the brother of Santa" comes and gives presents. Christmas in the Netherlands is similar to the Czech Republic, they have a decorated tree and they spend time with family and friends. They also have a big major dinner. Halloween is not really celebrated, but some people, especially teenagers, do celebrate it.

One day, I would love to visit this country, it seems really nice to me.