I guess most people skate on artificial ice most of the time… I do not consider that REAL skating :-). REAL skating is when you can go out on canals, lakes and other open bodies of water. We call it “natuurijs” (literally: natural ice) and there is nothing like it! It is cold in The Netherlands right now so, we have natuurijs. It has been three years since we had any natuurijs to speak of… But now we have a lot of it as well. As I wrote before, Tobias can skate on his own now. On the rink it was still slow and shaky, but he has progressed rapidly in the past few days! He is making the right moves, picking up speed, learning how to stop and loving it all the way!
This past weekend we went skating on the Breevaart, which is a waterway close to our house that goes all the way out to Reeuwijk. We went there twice, and then on Saturday we went to Annalief’s birthday party in Voorschoten. They live right by a small body of water and we skated there. Then on Sunday we went out to visit friends in Oudewater and we skated there too on the “Grote Gracht”. Monday I went on the Breevaart for a few hours myself. Yesterday I took Tobias back out to the Breevaart after school. Today Tobias is going skating with school.
The weather prediction says that the cold weather will last until Sunday, so this weekend there will be some skating too! I just LOVE it!
Oh, yeah, another thing: there is “Elfstedenkoorts” (Eleven City Fever) in The Netherlands. That means that the “Rayonhoofden” (Regional Heads) are debating whether “It Giet Oan!”. Now, that probably sounds like a bunch of jibberish to you, but it means that we might have an “Elfstedentocht”, a skate tour of 200km in the north of the Netherlands. That rarely happens because for 200km of waterway to freeze over with a sufficient amount of ice (6”) to hold 16.000 skaters it has to really freeze for quite a while. The last time we had one was on January 4th 1997 and before that in 1986… So, it is rather rare. Right now there is talk of declaring the Elfstedentocht as a national holiday and everything so, it is a big thing here! I would argue that it is even bigger than the Dutch team in a Worldchampionship Soccer Final, but I bet people would disagree. It does come close though, in terms of impact and audience. Can you imagine a whole country glued to the TV foor 7 to 8 hours starting at 4am? Well, that’s what happens when there is an Elfstedentocht… Right now it looks like it might happen Sunday or Monday… I will keep you posted… :-).
Tobias does not quite get the whole Elfstedenkoorts yet…
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