Man fined after breaking ice on Amsterdam canal. Don’t mess with the ice in canals when Dutchies are hoping to get some ice skating in. Officially he was fined for violating the sailing ban, not breaking the ice. (I read on NOS.nl that he was fined for sailing in the wrong direction.)
The Netherlands is wrapped in a cold spell, with temperatures set to get even colder over the next few days before gradually warming up from Monday.
Code Yellow: Roads still icy, trains still running on adjusted schedule from nltimes.nl. For the most part Sprinters (stop trains) are running to serve all stations, but there are not as many Intercity trains which run between cities. Although the NS promised to put in longer trains, people are still seeing packed trains:
Lekker bezig NS: overvolle sprinters. 1.5 m afstand zo goed als niet mogelijk. Als makke schapen in een hok, mijzelf incluis. Geen intercity’s dus i.p.v. 40 minuten nu een uur in deze volle trein én geen korting in de spits. Maar retail moet dicht blijven, wat een gekte. pic.twitter.com/q8NYXc2VC5
A tweet showing full trains without the ability to keep 1.5 meters distance, noting that shops are closed but this is allowed.
Speaking of shops, they are now allowed to be open for click & collect, but a lot of bigger stores are not offering this option, including H&M, Bijenkorf and Zara (article in Dutch at nos.nl). In some cases because they think the work involved won’t be worth the money gained.
Arnhem zoo brings penguins inside due to the cold from nltimes.nl. Considering these penguins occur naturally in South Africa and Namibia, this does make sense. It does say that the only the partner-less penguins and young penguins without a cave to keep them warm were brought inside (awww, they have their own caves?)
And, finally, while not related to the Netherlands at all, I must simply share this tweet:
The Dutch cabinet is consider extending the curfew to 2 March. The curfew runs from 21:00 to 04:30 every night. See also: Outgoing Dutch Cabinet says it will seek curfew extension through March 2 from nltimes.nl. That would be an extension of 3 weeks and bring the measure into line with other measures that are currently in place until (at least) 2 March.
I forgot to post this yesterday but here are some pictures from regio15.nl (in Dutch) of what The Hague looked like under a thin layer of fresh snow on late Saturday into early Sunday morning. We got some more after that, of course.
Van Ark [the minister of Sports] to consider allowing ‘corona safe’ competitions on natural ice from dutchnews.nl. The Dutch government is in a very difficult position at the moment. Dutchies are very fanatic about being able to hold an Elfstedentocht (11 city skating competition, English Wikipedia) at the first possibility of natural ice being thick enough. An Elfstedentocht had already been ruled out late last year due to corona, but now that we are in a situation where we will have at least a week of ice, everyone is thinking about it again. A majority of the Dutch cabinet is for it (article from ad.nl in Dutch), with limited or no public. However it does seem like a bit of a double standard when other things are being cancelled. On the other hand, the last Elfstedentocht was in 1997 due to climate change, so…
And finally, a bit of crazy news: Politie vindt onderkoelde man die in vrieskou van Gouda naar Weesp liep from omroepeest.nl in Dutch. In summary, the trains were not running this weekend so a man decided to walk from Gouda to Weesp (about 54 km or 33 miles) in the evening during the snowstorm. He actually almost made it to Weesp before he called his mom and said he was in trouble. The connection was then lost, so his mom called the police. They finally found him using a police helicopter. He was found not far outside of Weesp, laying on a bike path, suffering from hypothermia of course. But the story ends well: after some care he was reunited with his family. Sounds like he wasn’t fined for breaking curfew, either….
Here are a few more pictures that Marco and I took yesterday during our walk outside. I fear that everything is probably ice by now, since the Netherlands isn’t known for cleaning up well after snow storms. It is sort of logical, since we don’t get that much snow these days.
Above is a statue of Louis Couperus (English Wikipedia), a Dutch novelist and poet.
It wouldn’t be a proper Dutch blog post without some pictures of bikes.
One slightly evil looking snowman. We saw this one near the “Constitution Sofa”, which is the slightly weird translation I found on thehague.com. I’d probably translate it as “Constitution bench” instead.
And finally, a picture of the New Church. Marco and I haven’t been inside its gates in ages. But with the falling snow it was particularly pretty this time.
Marco and I went for a walk around lunchtime today to take a few pictures of the snow that fell. It was fairly cold, but that was mostly restricted to my fingertips.
First a picture of a very cold Hofvijfer. There were actually about 10-15 birds in this part of the water, although it is pretty difficult to see.
I didn’t even see the bird flying above when I was taking the picture. My only thought was of my freezing hands and wondering how fast I could take the picture and put my gloves back on.
Lange Voorhout. Off in the distance (and almost impossible to see) is the Escher museum (official website in English). Did you know it is possible to take a virtual tour of the museum? I found it pretty interesting, even if I felt like I had to move the mouse in the “wrong” direction to move around. Note: I’m not sure if they will keep the virtual tour up after the museum opens its doors again, so don’t wait too long.
Look at the snow on this car on the Lange Voorhout – you can see how hard the wind was blowing.
Handhaving grijpt in vanwege drukte tijdens sneeuwpret from regio15.nl in Dutch. In English: Security intervenes due to overcrowding during “snow fun”. The University of Delft’s library is built into a hillside, which means their roof is basically a grassy hill. They said it was okay to snow down the hill (provided no one uses sharp objects which might damage the roof underneath), but of course that meant massive crowds arrived by the afternoon. It is a very cool library design; I’ve been inside once.
Code Orange weather warning issued for Monday; Expect school closures, roadway problems from nltimes.nl. Code orange is a step lower than today’s code red, so there is some improvement. Monday should have been the first day that primary schools were allowed to re-open in the Netherlands, but the weather has definitely thrown a curveball in that regard.
Opps. Tram 16 derailed earlier this morning. Admittedly HTM (The Hague’s bus and tram provider) is still trying to ride most of their routes, with an adjusted schedule. NS, the national train service, said no trains would run today. Amsterdam’s buses and trams were running this morning but have since stopped. Amsterdam’s metro held out a bit longer, until earlier this evening, before that was stopped as well.
Later this evening and tomorrow the Netherlands will be under a “code red” warning for Storm Darcy. Apparently the last time the entire country was under code red was February 2012, before I arrived in the Netherlands.
Dutch issue Code Red weather alert for snowdrifts, blizzard conditions from nltimes.nl. The expected snowfall itself varies anywhere from 2 to 6 inches; it really depends on who you are listening to. The wind is the real problem for traffic, since it will cause snow drifts and limited visibility. Some days it will feel like -15c to -18c (closer to 0F) next week, which is rare in this country. Some news sites are calling this a “once in ten years” event.
And of course, what you would expect to see in this situation…
Marco graciously allowed me to change our plans; we picked up Five Guys for dinner tonight. We haven’t been in there a year and a half, probably… definitely not since the corona crisis started. Which is a bit strange, since it is much quieter there these days. Unfortunately for them.
That’s technically where the line would be, if there was a line. And of course there are no free shelled peanuts at the moment.
But ignoring that – woo, Five Guys! Hamburger with jalapeños, grilled onions and mustard for me, with cajun fries. This time we were smart and ordered “cajun on the side”, so we could add the spices ourselves. That meant the spice was a bit more uneven, but at least they were not completely coated in cajun spices this time.
One of the two message boards at Five Guys, a staple by all of their locations I think.
I noticed a “We miss you” sign at Hema (English Wikipedia) recently and decided to snap a quick picture:
“We missen je” = “We miss you”
Non-essential stores are still closed in the Netherlands, although click-and-collect options will be available from 10 February (see my previous blog post).
In other news, for those of us in The Hague: the yearly sculpture event will be returning to the Lange Voorhout this summer! (Official link from pulchri.nl in Dutch). The exhibition will run from 21 May to 14 September and will feature sculptures from 20 artists. The event is free and open to the public at any point of the day (provided there isn’t an evening curfew… ugh).
In 2018 (blog post) and 2019 the event was sand sculptures. Unfortunately the 2020 event was cancelled due to the corona crisis, so it is nice to see it return this year.
On Sunday Marco and I had falafel for dinner. It is part of FOAM @ home, a pickup service offered every Friday.
It is one of those things – I am sure I have had falafel before (deep-fried balls made from ground chickpeas or lava beans, served in a pita). However I have no direct memory of it so it could indeed be the first time.
It was pretty tasty, a perfect light meal for a Sunday evening.
Eurovision planning live event in Rotterdam; In-person audience unknown from nltimes.nl. It seems like ages ago, but the Netherlands did win the Eurovision Song Contest back in 2019, which meant they were able to host the event in 2020. Only the 2020 event was cancelled due to the coronavirus, so they will be hosting the 2021 event instead.
Milder temps to give way for icy weekend from nltimes.nl. Brrr. Winter is coming back this weekend with temperatures around freezing and high winds. Also a chance of snow, but we will need to wait and see if that happens. Again, brrrrrr.
There was another press conference this evening to discuss the current coronavirus measures. Some changes were announced, while other possible changes like the curfew need to be discussed.
The nightly curfew will be re-examined this weekend to see if it should be extended past 9 February. At the moment there is not enough evidence to say if it is helping or not because the measure has been in effect for less than two weeks.
Primary schools will re-open for in-person education from 8 February. However if one student tests positive the entire class, including the teacher, need to go into quarantine and then get tested after 5 days.
Primary school teachers will be eligible for rapid testing
Secondary schools are closed until at least 1 March, with online education (still) the norm
Stores will be allowed to open click-and-collect points from 10 February
Click-and-click points must be outside
You must order online or by telephone, not in person
There must be four hours between ordering and picking up
You must have a designated time slot for when you can pick up the item
The “urgent advice” to only have one visitor per day is still in effect
Life in the Hague 