So it has been cold all week, and that is only a matter of time before the true heart of the Dutchies comes to life. Ice skating on natural ice is finally an option again after several years!
NU.nl
After the disappointing news earlier in the week that the ice match of ice matches wil definitely not go ahead with these covid measures, this weekend was actually the weekend to get on the ice if you are a lover.
And Dutchies as we are who act in herds...we went for it. Causing the emergency rooms to overflow again with all kinds of people breaking stuff because the haven't skated in years.
In case you dont know it: The Elfstedentoch by Wikipedia
The Elfstedentocht is a long-distance tour skating event on natural ice, almost 200 kilometres (120 mi) long, which is held both as a speed skating competition (with 300 contestants) and a leisure tour (with 16,000 skaters). It is held in the province of Friesland in the north of the Netherlands, leading past all eleven historical cities of the province. The tour is held at most once a year, only when the natural ice along the entire course is at least 15 centimetres (6 in) thick;[1] sometimes on consecutive years, other times with gaps that may exceed 20 years. When the ice is suitable, the tour is announced and starts within 48 hours.
Well if you read this it seems like the Elfstedentocht is like every year, but actually the last one was in the winter of 1996/1997 I think which I can vividly remember on how crazy this all was.
The fact is, natural ice is not here that often and especially not enough ice of 15 cms over a trajectory of 200 kms to hole an entire iceskate route. In that year when it was held there were about 1 million visitors, so I can imagine that that is way too much for these covid type of days.
But back to today the day. So no official race today but damn so many people were already pretty pumped up this week because they were able to go ice skating again.
Pixabay
I saw a lot of whatsapps dropping by from people who were asking if someone had some left over ice skates for the kids to borrow. Also friends were asking if they could sharpen their ice skates somewhere, which ofcourse if way too late, because all the sharpeners were super busy.
I guess if I really want to set up a business, I am gonna buy a big stash of iceskates and let them hoover in a storage for years until it is cold again and sell them for the max. That is how you should do it hahahahha.
But what did I do with this iceskate weather? I started as far away from the ice as possible. My skills are not really something and going to masses isn't the best thing to do now. The positive note on this that it was super calm in the forest, because everyone was out on the lakes.
It was a nice end of this winter with the snow and ice, and it took away everyones attention from the covid for a couple of days, which was damn refreshing. See ya next year King Winter!
