On the ice

As Dutch as can be :-)

It's been twelve years, since it was this cold in the Netherlands. That means it's been twelve years since there were such great opportunities to go ice skating outdoors. A Dutch ice skate manufacturer sold 150.000 pairs of skates in less than two weeks. Three pairs of those are now ours :-) We finally decided we wanted part of the ice skating fun and went out to buy skates yesterday. Each of the three stores we went to had only about five pairs left and only the third store had some in our sizes. Emma now has adjustable figure skates (size 30-35, last pair in the shop), Janne has training skates (double irons) and I bought my very first pair of 'noren' (I think the translation is Nordic skates).
Having fun on the ice

And today, we went to Charlotte in Alblasserdam (near Kinderdijk, see earlier post) and we skated all afternoon on perfect natural ice, in a perfect Dutch scenery (along canals, past windmills), together with hundreds, even thousands of other skate enthusiasts. Maybe so many people love to go skating outdoors, because we hardly ever get the chance! For me, it was my very first time to go ice skating outdoors like this. I remember ice skating outdoors in my home town, where they would flood a square or some grassland, so it could be used as ice skating ring. But, that doesn't even get close to the experience of ice skating on a canal or river! You can literally skate for hours, without having to turn back or having to skate the same stretch twice.
Emma on skates at Kinderdijk

Janne on skates (on skate to be exact) at Kinderdijk

Emma and Janne are very lucky little girls, because they got to ice skate on natural ice during their very first winter in the Netherlands. And they loved it. We were on the ice with them for over two hours and they still wanted to go on. Janne didn't do much real skating, she was walking and running on the ice with her double-iron training skates. Emma on the other hand gave us a huge surprise. After about one hour of practice, she skated on her own! And this being her very first time skating (ice or roller). We were so proud of her. The only person more proud was probably Emma herself :-)