I did have my usual Dutch lesson on Thursday, however we mostly did exercises from the book and not much extra work. The class ends around mid June, so we need to finish the current chapter we are on and then start to talk about the Staatsexamen (programma II). Because we need time to cover that, we are going through the text book faster.
Thus I’ll tell you a random fact that I was reminded of when reading my copy of The Book of General Ignorance. We all know that carrots are generally orange. However, they did start not out like that – before the 17th century they were purple, white and red.
So, what changed? In the 17th century the Dutch cultivated carrots to be orange by crossing them with other colors. Some say this was in tribute to the House of Oranje and Willem van Oranje (Willem from the House of Orange). He led the Dutch to a revolution for independence from the Spanish.
Carrot mosiacs by Ilona Fried
Life in the Hague 