The pink "us mem"

DSC04679, originally uploaded by dccrowley.

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.

4.30am - bird call

4.30am Bird call from doncrowley and Vimeo.

Between Gytsjerk and Oensjerk

Between Gytsjerk and Oensjerk from doncrowley and Vimeo.

The church in Wyns

DSC04651, originally uploaded by dccrowley.

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!

Wyns

DSC04649, originally uploaded by dccrowley.

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.

The ferry at Wyns

DSC04640, originally uploaded by dccrowley.

Wyns, a tiny village on the river Ee between Leeuwarden and Dokkum. It has a restaurant De Winze, but no shops. Cute village though.

Discover Friesland on Google Maps

georss.jpg, originally uploaded by dccrowley.

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

The bleeting of the lambs

The bleeting of the lambs, originally uploaded by dccrowley.

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.

Lunar Eclipse 03-03-2007

Lunar Eclipse 03-03-2007, originally uploaded by rhys400D.

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 in the New York Times

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.