Winter 2008-09

We'd a very long winter last year, as a matter of fact, it was so cold that for the very first time in 12 years, the Netherlands's canals and lakes were frozen! With the global warming effect, this was a definitely a rare occasion.

With temperatures below zero for weeks, the skate mania broke out - locals went crazy, some dashed to find their tucked away ice-skates in the cellar and many rushed out to the nearest sport stores to buy new skates! However, people who wanted to buy new skates were in for a surprise as it was sold out throughout the country! It was also known that one has to queue up for hours to rent a pair of skates at the skating location!

Needless to say, hospitals in the Netherlands were also busy with their fair share of more enthusiastic skaters coming in with broken wrists, arm and legs :P

In the northern part of the Netherlands, preparation for 'Elfstedentocht' in Dutch or the Eleven Cities Tour will be in frenzy. Imagine, a combination of a marathon with skating in cold winter conditions race. The one-day tour is an obsession for its many thousands of participants and the millions more who follow it worldwide. The event is held in the province of Friesland but only in those years when the ice freezes over the 124-mile track of lakes and canals that makes up the route. The last tour took place in January 4, 1997. The tour always starts and ends in the Friesland capital of Leeuwarden and travels through the cities of Sneek, IJlst, Sloten, Stavoren, Hindeloopen, Workum, Bolsward, Harlingen, Franeker and Dokkum hence it is known as the eleven cities tour.

When the next race will be held is anybody's guess. And it's exactly that unpredictability that makes the Eleven Cities Tour so highly anticipated.

For me, I was also sucked into this whole skate mania feeling; getting all excited! You never know when is the next skate mania going to be ;)