Snow, ice and wind

Snow, ice, cold… It is known for something regular in the Netherlands. Funny enough, it isn’t, actually.

The first time this winter, when the snow came. There felt five centimeter snow in one night, the morning after it, it became ten centimeter. In a country that had a lot of snow back in the history, you would expect that we have some kind of plan so a normal life can continue. No chance…


That one day, and the entire week following, started a mess that was incredible. Trains didn’t ride on time, or they didn’t came at all. “The weather is too bad.” The persons that had to deliver the mail during that weather became almost allergic for the whining of the public transport. And they kept whining. Trains kept being delayed, busses didn’t even come and at the train stations like Utrecht Central Station, people kept waiting and waiting while it was getting colder and colder.

People, friends and family, actually called me to tell me that if I had to take the train, that I should call someone that I wasn’t coming to school or whatever kind of appointment. My dad called me with the question if he had to pick me up somewhere. He forgot that IF I was in Utrecht, he would never be able to pick me up within an hour, just because of the traffic jam there was.


In the harbours are the boats frozen solid. People are walking on the ice that was part of the IJsselmeer. And there are actual chances of another ‘Elfstedentocht’ (a big ice skating event. People are crossing eleven cities in Friesland, gaining a stamp at every city). People want the ‘good’ things of winter like ice skating and soft snow that makes the cities seem all sweet and stuff. But they don’t want the cold and the icy wind.
The Netherlands and snow, once they were each other’s friends. But now the regular Dutchmen curses the ice that keeps the country in its grasp. If it’s up to a lot of people, ‘King Winter’ will packs its bags tomorrow and go back to the North Pole.

Trains, delay on wheels

A jumper. That is what we call a person who decides to end his or her life by jumping in front of a speeding train. It is one of the two most annoying reasons why a train can be delayed for over an hour. The other reason is a possible bomb.
Both are totally annoying. Especially if your already in a hurry. But if you have to ‘choose’, then you better have a jumper.


I was waiting over half an hour for the train to come when the announcer finally told us: ‘The train from Amsterdam Central Station to Utrecht Central Station is delayed for an unknown time span because a crash with a person. We apologize for the inconvenience.’
Great, I was already late!! But yeah, they can’t keep the train driving with some kind of massive bloodstain on it. Even that idea makes me a little nauseous. And then there is the train driver... Train driver is officially one of the most traumatising jobs there is. It was put on that list one or two years ago. And that isn’t weird, in the Netherlands looking at the statistics, each day at least one person throws itself in front of a train.


But a crash with a person?? I mean, you can hit another car and crash it, or you hit someone in the face or something like that. But you DON’T just ‘hit’ a person with a train! Everyone knows that the person probably threw him/herself in front of it. But somehow they decided to say the ‘political proper thing’ as we say it here. If you don’t want to say that there was a jumper, then just say that there was ‘a crash’ or something like that.

The other thing I said was a bomb. Today was such a day. At the train station of Den Bosch, there was a bomb warning. The result: no train can get to Den Bosch, or leave Den Bosch. And of course everyone says something else. ‘We did found explosives.’ ‘We’re not sure yet if it is a bomb.’ ‘They found a bomb inside a train.’ ‘We didn’t find anything yet.’ Make up your mind!!


Ooh…there is my train. Catch you all later!!

Amsterdam VS. birds

The rose-ringed parakeet, a feathery friend here in Amsterdam. If they are very quiet, you can barely see them because of their green colour. But being silent isn’t their strongest point. A lot of people here in the Netherlands don’t like them anymore. You can even say that there is a war going on between the parakeets and (older) inhabitants of the bigger cities.

Nobody knows the exact year, but somehow a couple of rose-ringed parakeets escaped from their aviary and flew away. The previous owner didn’t do anything to get them back and maybe he thought they wouldn’t survive the weather of the Netherlands, since it is a lot colder here than it is in the natural habitat of the parakeets which is Africa and South-Asia.
But the parakeets were smarter, or their evil masterminds. You can pick one. The point is they survived, and now the population grew to four thousand of them only in Amsterdam. They also decided to live in Rotterdam, Den Haag, Haarlem, etc, and in Belgium, England, Germany and other ones I don’t know so fast.

Aah well...somehow people started to hate those birds, most of them are owners of such small gardens which are far away from their home and for which I don’t know the English word right now (what?? I’m from the Netherlands!!). And of course you have the ‘older people’. Funny enough, you would expect them to love birds, and most of them do. But in ‘Het Parool’, one of the newspapers here, there was a letter send by one of the readers. He asked people to support him in stealing the eggs of the parakeets and help him. He seriously wrote: ‘Everyone should grab a ladder to climb up the trees and get their eggs, just like we used to do with the eggs of lapwings.’ What was his reason: the cycle path beneath the tree he was talking about wasn’t red anymore but white because of the bird poop. THAT was his reason to exterminate the populations. How childish can you be??
In my defence, since I am only talking about the parakeets and not about the lapwings, I didn’t know anything about those lapwing eggs.

Am I the only person who doesn’t understand those people who want to ‘exterminate’ the parakeet populations?? Maybe it is because I really like those birds. When I’m cycling to school very early, they are the only ones that are awake and sometimes they even fly along with me for a couple of meters. And not so long ago, during some kind of mini-storm, a branch broke and apparently the ‘wound’ left on the tree was full of ‘spilling’ tree sap. The effect of this tree sap was that the tree, and especially the ‘wound’ was covered in green feathers and beaks. The birds really liked the tree sap. It was really funny to see but when I came near to the tree, it became more fun. My head was at the right height for the tree sap. I was ‘attacked’ by several birds who had I fight for the spot on my shoulders and head to drink tree sap, and at the end they were even looking at me if maybe I had something to eat. One of them stole my leftover lunch. And even with that fact, that some bird stole my lunch, I still love them! And this will not be my last blog about birds! Poor readers :P