Happy New Year. In the Netherlands people make their own oliebollen and appleflappen. It is fried in sun flower oil, it is flour with raisens. The apple flas are coated in cinnamon and fried. Everything is then sprinkeled in suger. The photos here show how apple flaps are made. These ones taste amazing, much better than thee stuff you get in shops.
Tonight everyone sets of fireworks.
Pretty crazy idea really, but the dutch love this. They put speculaas biscuits into a white bread roll and eat it! Speculaas is similar to cinnamon but not the same. The spice comes from Indonesia as far as I know.
Now, does this prove I've integrated ;)
I've seen about 4-5 comets in my life. It really is just a hugh piece of ice just flying about... but I alway get excited when they are around. This shot of Comet Holmes was taken in San Fransisco. It's good here in Friesland but not this good. Holmes has been around since late November and it is still visable.
Last year comet McNaught was around. While visible to the naked eye it was not that spectacular. By late january though, those in the southern hemisphere were in for a real treat.
I have not visited all the wadden islands yet, but for now Schiermonnikoog is my favorite. This photo taken by Jeroen Minderman was taken there. But this post is about the island Bosch which was destroyed by storms. In 1570 there was a major storm known as the 'All Saints storm (Allerheiligen vloed)'. That hit all these islands hard and probably destroyed some of Bosch . But is was in the early 18th century that that Bosch completely disappeared around the same time that West Vlieland (Westeyende) on Vlieland became uninhabitable. Seemingly because the wadden islands creep to the east, the most easterly point of Schiermonnikoog is actually on top of Bosch. There is little chance anything of the island will be found as the sea flows here really move stuff around. A group under the name Sunken history (Verdronken gescheidenis) has started some research. There was quite a good post in dutch up on Wikipedia a year or two ago about Bosch. But Wikipedia is censoring itself (a total pain in the neck guys!) and the article has since been taken down. Anyway I have a few links about Bosch. Some are in dutch, but you might be able to run the pages through the excellent bablefish or Google translate. Anyway here are the links if you are interested:
Off the friesian cost you'll find the wadden islands. From south to north they are Texel, Vlieland, Terschelling, Ameland and Schiermonnikoog. On Flickr I found this great photo by 'Ameland1732', who I would like to thank for giving me permission to us this photo. Most people here have their favorite island. They are great places to retreat to if you want 'get away from it all', though during the school holidays they might be too popular for peace and quiet.
Blogged with Flock
About a month ago I shot a series of photos in the evening. The sun was shining but a small storm was under way. The light, contrast and sky were really something. I had already posted one photo. But today this photo started becoming popular on Flickr where I store all my photos, which is why I decided to post it here.
Is this an advertorial. No honestly it is is not. But we booked Jan van Dijk in for our children's party. I had video taped it. The party was so good I'm sticking it up and if it is for you get in touch with Jan.
It was a children's survival party. All the kids come home tired and dirty. But every single kid loved it. The next day they were still talking about it. Jan is in Ternaard, but he does parties in lots of different places in the province. We had our party in Rypsjerk.
Highly recommended.
Alle kinderen komen vies, blij en moe thuis. Wat zullen ze lekker slapen. Maar wat vinden ze het gaaf. Wij hebben damdijk.nl ingehuurd voor onze kinder feest. Het was het beste feest ooit.
We went out with the 'bird watch (vogelwacht)' yesterday to ring church owl chicks. We had a great time, being able to see them so close. Yves was able to hold them and teh people we were with were so friendly and helpful.
Take a good look at the bottom and first floor af these appartments in the middle of the photo. Did someone try to cut or blow there way in or out? I have no idea what was going on here. But it looked really weird. Have a look at google maps to see where they are. This photo was taken from the 'Rengerspad'. The squarish roofs are the buildings in question.
Location
N 53.209798
E 5.793808
This picture was taken just as the lakes inhabitants was getting ready to settle down for the night.
With the sun still shining and storm clouds on their way the light was just amazing over Gietsjerkerhoek
This is the result of a student prank. A statue painted pink. But "Us mem" the cow is a symbol of Friesland. It was painted pink out of protest at the increasing homo hatred in the country.
The Netherlands has always been a very tolerant country for homo's with Amsterdam being often considered one of the most homo friendly cities in the world. But a section of one of the immigrant groups in Amsterdam who are traditionally 'repulsed' by homosexuality have taken to violence.
Lets just say that the police don't seem to be in charge of the situation yet. But that most people here are expecting them to sort the situation out.
What the students here in Leeuwarden did today was to highlight the current situation.
According to Peter Karstkarels 419xFrisland book (in dutch, and a really great book, my favorite in fact), Wyns has a population of 188 and 90 houses. Part of the tower dates to 1300 AD. If you are driving past it could be worth a quick stop. I thought it was nice. It has a restaurant, a playground and a small ship building business
Want to know where Wyns is? Google maps will show you where!
You can park your boat beside the restaurant and get a bite to eat before heading on to Leeuwarden or Dokkum, You can see the restaurant De Winze in this photo. I have not eaten there, but it looks like a good place to eat.
Wyns, a tiny village on the river Ee between Leeuwarden and Dokkum. It has a restaurant De Winze, but no shops. Cute village though.
This is the map itself. I have taken the feed from this blog and piped it through ws.geonames.org/rssToGeoRSS. With the total url which you copy and paste into the search bar of googlemaps.com you get the results.
What happens here is.
- I have posts which mention various locations in Friesland
- The GeoRSS parses the names out of the feed, Googlemaps then finds the locations. It is very cool and it has a 60-70% success rate. One entry ends up on New York, but I mentioned the New York Times on that Post. Another entry ends up in South Africa, I have not figured that one out yet .
So thanks again to Eirepreneur for his post pointing out the possibilities
Spring has arrived. The first lambs are born. We were away for a week. In that week all the starlings and geese left. Lapwings and Curlews arrived. Also bumblebees, butterflies (yellow variety), Trees are budding, especially the willows and there are lots of daffodils about.
We were lucky here tonight. We had clear skies for the lunar eclipse. The neighbouring province of Groningen was not so lucky. In Friesland the nights are dark, so if astronomy is your thing then Friesland is a good place to be.
My own camera is not up to scratch for this type of photography. But at Flickr there are already loads of photos of tonights eclipse online which was less than an hour ago. This shot was taken in England by rhys400D. But it is just like we saw it here. I haven't seen such a good eclipse as this in ages
Friesland made it onto the New York times this week. The article in question starts with a historic photo of the 1917 race passing through Sneek. Further down there is a photo of the blue tiled bridge (which you can also see here). Unfortunately it the article was about global warming. The experts reckon we will be lucky to have an 11 cities skating tour once every 25 years, the way things are going.
Last year spring came a month late, and by the looks of things it looks like it has come a month early this year (thus a two month difference with last year). I saw lapwings in the last week or so but I have heard that butterflies have been spotted already as well. That is terrible because we can get frost here until the middle of May.
Ok this is my first ever video post anywhere. I was flicking a coin between Vimeo and YouTube. Vimeo was easier to sign into and there are claims that they have a better service.
Anyway this video is about 40 seconds long. I saw thousands of starlings (spreeuwen in dutch). It was just before sundown. It was shot in Lekkum, just outside Leeuwarden. The birds themselves where in Tytsjerk, which is a few kilometer further up. I love this kind of thing.
