My Netherlands Visa

Thank God, my Netherlands visa came through successfully this afternoon :) I heard from a friend that her friend had some difficulty in getting her Netherlands visa - so, I am thankful that by God's grace. the NL office called me this morning to say I could pick up my visa in the afternoon. It was quite a thorough process. I had to have a document extracted from Immigration Authority, which took one week, then have it certified at Foreign Affairs, before it could be legalized at the NL Embassy. After that I had to lodge it, with other documents, as part of my application.

I appreciate the stringent procedures, which in turn, will benefit all who are staying or visiting Netherlands, including myself.

By the way, I've just learnt some interesting facts about The Netherlands:

1) Famous personalities include Anne Frank, Johan Cruyff, Vincent van Gogh, Rembrandt.

2) The Dutch are statistically the tallest people in the world - with reasons ranging from genetics diet, and the country's wealth

3) There are about 16mil bicycles in NL, about one for every inhabitant, which is its 16mil population. Singapore's population is 4.5mil

4) Easily 200 nationalities live in NL, especially Amsterdam, its capital.

5) 'Netherland' means 'low country' - as about a quarter of its land is below sea level.

6) Netherlands is commonly called Holland because two of its 12 provinces - North Holland and South Holland - were the most developed and prosperous during the 17th century. Today, both provinces continue their wealth trend, and are heavily populated, including Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague (NL's Seat of Government). Hence Holland tend to be used interchangeably with Netherlands, although the other 10 provinces may have a slight frown upon this.

7) Longest N-S distance is 300km; longest E-W distance is 200km. Compare this with Singapore's 23km N-S; and 42km E-W. NL's surface area is 41,528 sqkm compared with our approx 693 sqkm. Their highest peak is 323m, while ours is 164m.

8) Well known Dutch brands include: Philips, Shell, G-Star, Heineken, Unilever.

9) NL is an independent 'self service' society. Typical Dutch expressions are: "We're all equal", "One thing at a time", "It's a Dutch treat", "All individual opinions are important".

10) The scholarship that I've been awarded with is named after Desiderius Erasmus - a renowned Dutch humanist, theologian, and scholar (1466 - 1536AD).

11) New York City (USA), Colombo (Sri Lanka) and Jakarta (Indonesia) were once Dutch colonies.

12) While the Netherlands flag is red, white and blue, its peoples have a passion for the colour orange. This is because orange is the colour of the Dutch Royal Family. Netherlands' current dynasty is the House of Oranje-Nassau. The lineage dates back to the royal Willem van Oranje. Today in a broader perspective, the colour orange depicts the country's pride and identification. The (former) Queen's birthday is celebrated on April 30th, and many inhabitants throng the streets in a show of orange solidarity.