Katwijk

Katwijk is the third largest city in the Netherlands. It is well known as the Katwijk in Zee-area, a part of the city built at the bottom of the North Sea.
==History==
In the beginning there was the earth and there was water. At the border between the earth and water, was the little village called Katwijk aan Zee. Adam and Eve moved here when they were banned out of Paradiso, a concert venue in Amsterdam. In Katwijk aan Zee they wanted to start their own concert venue, but the mayor of Katwijk aan Zee forbid them. It was those days that they started their own village, Hoornes-Rijnsoever, on the other side of the river the Rijn. They started their venue and called it Scum. It is still in Hoornes-Rijnsoever.
Katwijk aan Zee was in those days a village that mainly lived by producing grain and corn. Right next to Katwijk aan Zee there was another village, called Katwijk aan den Rijn. This village mainly lived from fishing. This was inconvenient, because now the fishing men from Katwijk aan den Rijn (aka the Rijn-village) had to sail off the Rijn towards the sea, passing Katwijk aan Zee (aka the Sea-village), where each time they got paint bombed, simply because the people from the Sea-village thought it was fun to do so. It took until the year 1506 before the entire village of the Sea-village ran out of paint, and they needed the people from Valkenburg, a village below Katwijk aan den Rijn, for new paint, because in Valkenburg there just happened to be a paint factory.
To establish a good trading route, the three villages formed a new city: Katwijk. This was actually a bad idea, because although the co-operation between the Sea-village, the Rijn-village and Valkenburg was never this good, the people from the Sea-village didn't actually need the paint anymore, because the fishing men from the Rijn-village weren't passing the Sea-village anymore - they could just leave their boats on the beach, after all, this was now part of the same city.
Meanwhile Adam and Eve were doing great business at Scum, and the majority of the youth from the new city of Katwijk moved to the little village Hoornes-Rijnsoever, because it was much more attractive for them. The city council of Katwijk was affraid that in the end, the population of Hoornes-Rijnsoever would exceed the population of Katwijk. To prevent this, Katwijk nuked Hoornes-Rijnsoever and added it as northern part of Katwijk.
It is yet unknown when and how Rijnsburg became part of Katwijk. Some say it used to be a separate village until in 1634 Queen Willem I decided that it would be best if Rijnsburg was added to Katwijk. Others say that a fairy let Rijnsburg appear out of nowhere and immediately made it the east part of Katwijk.
==Katwijk in Zee==
Nowadays, Katwijk is the third largest city of the Netherlands, with a population of 1,8 million. The unfortunate of the location where Katwijk lies, is that Katwijk cannot expand too much. On the North the ground is too hard to build on and on the south there lives a dragon, and to the east a village called Lijden has made a 25.000 volt border to prevent Katwijk from building new houses on the territory of Lijden. To make new space for new houses, Katwijk decided in 1995 to create a huge bubble made of glass at the bottom of the North Sea, around 2,5 km from the coast. In this bubble, a complete city area called Katwijk in Zee was build, good for over 5000 houses (of which 1000 are yet to be built), some large offices of the Untitled Nations and the 5-star hotel "North Sea Hotel". Connected to the mainland using a highway and a light-rail tramway. Total costs of the project: €38 million, of which €20 million was paid by the Dutch government, €10 million by the province of South Holland, €7.999.999,- by the city of Katwijk and €1 by Oscar Wilde.
==Other famous things about Katwijk==
* The Hungarian National Soccer Team uses the New-South stadium for their training sessions
* The Space Expo ground base is located in Katwijk. For only €3, you'll be shot into space and you can watch the stars for five whole minutes.
* The beach of Katwijk is full of sand
* Katwijk has a windmill
category:Netherlands
nl:Katwijk