The Breda's team plays in the first dutch championship: The Eredivisie. We saw the soccer match: Breda against Eindhoven. Eindhoven is the first team in Holland, so Breda was not the favourite.

The match began badly for Breda: After 5 minutes, Eindhoven shot a goal and opened the score. But, Breda reacted well and shot a goal after the first goal: 1-1.  

15 minutes before the break, Breda leads with a new goal. 2-1 for Breda.

During all the match and specially during the break, the Breda supporters were very welcoming with me. They offer me beer, feed etc. When the plays rested themselves, youg soccer players played soccer on the stadium area.

The second part match began and only 10 minutes after, Breda shot a third goal. It was the final score; Breda wan against PSV Eindhoven 3-1. The supporters was very happy because it is a precious victory. After this match, PSV Eindhoven was not the leader of the championship and Breda stay up in the ranking.

                                                                              Rat Verlegh Stadion                                                                                                    Plays are training                                                                                                 

                                                                                                           Young soccer plays                                                                                                       A Corner

                                                                The second goal

The Carnival of Breda is a very important event here in the Netherlands. The festival lasts 5 days starting on the 17th of February.During that time Breda is no longer called Breda but Kielegat.That name refers to a traditional costume worn by peasants. From the youngest to the elderly, everyone is dressed to have fun and celebrate.
The Carnival starts when the mayor gives the key of the city to the prince of the Carnival. The following day is dedicated to children. 

Tomorrow we'll go and see the Grand Parade.

*****

Well, I (Katell) actually did not manage to get up early enough to see the whole parade. It is kind of a shame because I could not see the Prince of the Carnaval give the keys of the city to the people and everything else but I do not regret it. I was really tired of the night we spent in the city center, watching all the Dutch people with the craziest costums and music. Speaking of music, the Dutch really like Dutch music and it is the only thing you can hear especially during the Carnaval. I do not appreciate it but I must say it was kind of funny.

At the moment we arrived in Breda, we looked for bikes! Don't forget that we are in the country of bicycles! More than 40% of the population use to ride a bike to move along in Breda. Most of them ride to go to school, to the university or to go to work.

In the city, the cars can not enter in the center. Besides, parkings are very expensive here, around two euros per hour, and bicycles have the priority on the road. Everything is made for bikes, there is a lot of cycle lanes, generally red and there are specific traffic lights.

So we found or we bought bicycles in Breda and it was like we found the graal. Biking is better, faster and more practical way to go in the Netherlands than driving or than walking. However you have to have good and strong lockers to keep your precious mean of transport. Holland is the country of thefts of bikes. You can buy a strong locker for ten euros. Don't panic, the police is on watch. Here there is Margaux's bike :

Be careful, the brakes are so special in the Netherlands. First time, it can be surprising. You have to back-pedal to slow down, there are no brakes on handlebars!

Moreover, you can find a lot of funny and decorated bicycles in Holland. Here you can check some examples of original bikes that we found in Breda and Amsterdam.

We are staying in Breda for 3 week now and we still have discovered the city a few.

We were catched especially by the very good organisation of traffic. As we can see on the picture, each transport mean has its own road: Road for car (on the right), bicycle path for bike (in red in picture center) and path for pedestrians (on the left, where there is snow). We saw that dutch people grant more importance to bicycle than car and pedestrians. In fact that, when it were snowing, machines cleared the snow from the bicycle paths primarily.

The dutch people are very respectful of this rules ; that's why there is almost any accidents or serious accidents. This is the case for pedestrian crossing. Contrary to french people, dutch people wait that the traffic light become green to cross the road even if there is any cars. Moreover, dutch traffic lights have the particularity to do noise ; the noise change with the color. We think that is for blind people ; they can cross the road easier with the noise.

This movie show how the traffic operate light :

Queen's day in Amsterdam.

We plan to travel and participate to a lot of events. Here is a brief programme :

- from 19th february to 21th fébruary, the Carnival of Breda.  Everybody has to dress-up in a funny way.

- gala soccer match: the11 february, NAC Breda vs AJAX Amsterdam and the 11th march, NAC Breda vs PSV Eindoven. 

-flower market in Amsterdam from the beginning to the end of Spring. The biggest flower market of the world.

- Koninginnedag : Queen's birthday the 30th of April. It's the national day in The Netherlands!

We would like to make a trip around the Nederlands to visit, for instance, La Haye, Rotterdam and obviously Amsterdam. A lot of places attract us in the capital city : The Dam place, Rembrandt house, Anne Frank huis museum, jewelleries, windmills, etc...We want to make a boat trip too!

 Amsterdam

 La Haye

We would like to go to Ireland, Belgium, Germany, Denmark and Sweden. We hope we will find the time to visit all this countries (and the money too)!

You could follow our adventures on the column "on the spot" or "travel experiences" of our blog!

By Ludo and Margaux