All over Western Europe people are excited by the forecast that this weekend will bring some much needed relief from a severe spell of cold weather. In the Netherlands, however, the same forecast is met with much regret as it probably ends the hope that this year, for the first time in fifteen years, we will see another Elfstedentocht. The elfstedentocht is a 200 kilometer skating race that takes about 20,000 riders through eleven cities in Friesland, a northern province in the Netherlands. The Dutch love their skating. But it actually isn’t that cold all that often in the Netherlands. So, the race has only been held fifteen times since 1909. Anticipation is great every time there is a cold spell. So while the rest of the world was anticipating the outcome of Security Council meetings, Dutch news was dominated by meetings of the “rayonhoofden,” the people responsible for measuring whether the ice had reached significant thickness. Yesterday they delivered the sad news: “it giet net oan.”
For the rest of the world, this means that you won’t get to enjoy the curiosity reporting that always happens when people in other countries get completely crazy about things that seem extremely silly to outsiders. As a snippet of that, I want to teach you a verb that I am pretty sure exists in only one language: “klunen” (the language is Frysian although the verb has become part of the Dutch language too). Klunen means to walk or run on skates over land. It is done when the ice on parts of canals (especially under bridges) is not sufficiently thick to skate on. The clip above gives an example. Enjoy.