Amsterdam Freezes Over

Everyone had been praying for the canals to freeze and finally they did. All of a sudden ice skaters took the place of tourist boats on the Prinsengracht, one of the main canals here. It was unbelievable and awesome to be walking on natural ice right in the middle of Amsterdam!

And I do mean I was walking on the canals, not ice skating. I did try with the used skates I got from a second-hand shop (7.50€ instead of 130€ for a new pair) but turns out ice skating doesn’t just come back to you. Not that opting for a 25-kilometer route in the middle of nowhere was helpful either, especially after not having stepped on ice for 16 years. To paraphrase a friend, I was like Bambi on ice. So I went and sat facing the sun for 2.5 hours outside the only makeshift cafe in sight, drinking gluhwein while my lungs, not exposed to any sun, accumulated enough phlegm to make me sound like a choking cat later that night. (OK, so standing outside for another couple hours to watch a friend in an ice skating race at 10pm didn’t help either).

But that’s just the problem with beautifully frozen canals: in order for them to freeze, it must get really, really cold. For about a week the temperatures were around -10 degrees Celsius and the wind made it feel even colder. I skipped the bike and used public transport instead – bloody expensive. A part of me (the frozen part) kept asking what in the world I’m doing here, why I’m not in my 35-degree weather hometown in tropical Brazil. It was easy to dismiss these questions while looking around me and looking at other people’s photos of this wonderful place I call home for now. Every place has its own beauty and Noord-Holland didn’t let anyone down:

Photo courtesy and copyright of Erik Eti Smit, an excellent and very generous photographer: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eti-eti/3164908260

Photo courtesy and copyright Erik Eti Smit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eti-eti/3181452213/in/photostream/

Photo courtesy and copyright Erik Eti Smit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eti-eti/3170928710/in/photostream/

A tiny stretch of the 25-km route in Noord Amsterdam