Sunday, May 17, 2015

Ringing in the New Year - Dutch style!

(Here's another that's been sitting on my computer forever)

Now, I've never been one for partying on New Year's Eve, I think it's kind of a highly over-rated holiday.  I'd rather just eat some yummy food and get a good night's sleep.  This is not what happens in the Netherlands however.  This holiday is a big deal!!  We went to a movie early on New Year's Eve and then came home to go to bed because we had to get up the next morning for a fun activity (more info below).  However, the going to bed early thing was a little tricky because of this (note:  the video is actually terrible, mostly this is just audio):


No, we are not living in Syria, this is the Netherlands, this is what it sounded like from 3 pm New Year's Eve until 3 in the morning New Year's Day.  (At least that's what Kyle says, I'd fallen asleep by that time).  This resulted in an aftermath that looked like this:

Crazy!

Of course things got even more crazy.  Another great Dutch tradition:  the annual New Year's Day North Sea Swim!  Imagine 10 000 people running into the North Sea on New Year's Day.  Such fun!  Actually, I'm a total wimp.  We met up with some friends of ours; since both of them wanted to run I had regretfully bowed out (ha ha) and volunteered to be the photographer and toddler-holder.   Here is the "Before" photo (everybody got matching neon orange toques from a sponsor of the event):

As it turns out, it's difficult to hold a (fairly freaked-out) toddler and video tape at the same time, so this video is pretty bad, but you get the idea of the general chaos.




All's well that end's well:




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