During week 23 we spent a lot of time with our friends in Hilversum, partly because the World Cup began on Friday the 9th, and football is best enjoyed with good friends.
One of our friends, Sandy, has two cats and a dog. The dog and one of the cats are very old, and all three animals live in perfect harmony, to the point of sharing the food:
(Canon 1D Mark II, 35mm L Canon, ISO 1250)
Besides being quite ancient, Sandy’s cat also has the unusual (for cats) habit of begging at the table. Sometimes we think he is confused about his species:
(Canon 1D Mark II, 35mm L Canon, ISO 1250)
Then Saturday arrived, and we met up with our English friends to watch England’s first game at the World Cup, followed by two other games. What bliss: three World Cup games, good weather, good food and good company. The women were only interested in the England game, so once that was over, they sat on the terrace and played Scrabble while we men watched the other games:
(Canon 1D Mark II, 24-70mm L Canon, ISO 100)
This little girl was also not into football, she was lost in her thoughts:
(Canon 1D Mark II, 24-70mm L Canon, ISO 400)
The baby, however, had no choice, and he was properly dressed for the occasion:
(Canon 1D Mark II, 24-70mm L Canon, ISO 400)
…as was Nigel’s little dog:
(Canon 1D Mark II, 24-70mm L Canon, ISO 400)
However, Nigel’s dog was more interested in food than in football:
(Canon 1D Mark II, 24-70mm L Canon, ISO 400)
For the World Cup, the Netherlands is all decked out in various orange ornaments, including these statues in a small town somewhere north of here:
(Canon 1D Mark II, 24-70mm L Canon, ISO 100)
The Oranje voodoo seems to be working, as the Dutch have won their first two games and progressed to the knockout stage of the tournament…
Amendment: Someone asked me about the Bavaria lederhosen. Bavaria is a Dutch brewery which has tried to hijack the beer sponsorship of the World Cup. The official beer sponsor of the tournament is Anheuser-Busch with its Budweiser brand (a somewhat strange decision, since nobody in Europe drinks that stuff). A Dutch brewery, Bavaria (which has absolutely nothing to do with the German state of Bayern), has distributed many thousands of ersatz orange lederhosen among Dutch fans. At the Netherlands-Ivory Coast game the other day, several hundred Dutch supporters wearing those outfits were stopped at the gate, since FIFA did not want to upset its sponsor. The Dutch, being a pragmatic people, took off their fake lederhosen and watched the game in their underwear. Anyway, this is what the fuss is about (modeled by the 17-year old son of our English friends in Hilversum):
