Freezing Amsterdam Explodes at New Year

Quiet Dutch Go Loadly Bonkers With Bombs Away!

You don't want to see this photo, even if I suffered for it. I had to take off my fur-lined gloves to take it and I was sorry I did that, because my case-hardened typing and shutter-release finger got very cold very fast. Just the same, I took two other photos; two more souvenirs of gloom, and I will keep them around here just in case I am ever tempted to go to Amsterdam in winter again.

Black ice on the roads but thousands of bikes are parked in front of Amsterdam CS and throughout city.

Actually, I was hoping the photos would show the lights. Gloom or not, cold or not, Amsterdam had a lot of colorful lights, here and there. At midday, when it is less gloomy, there are fewer lights too, but then some quite colorfully painted buildings and walls are revealed, although dimly.

The day following arrival, the damp in the city seemed to radiate from walls, from the sidewalks; and on the wrong angles a breeze added more than a little zing to noses, fingertips and toes. Nevertheless, the sightseeing boats were plowing through the thin ice in the canals and I suppose they contained passengers - or maybe they run like buses or trams; that is, all the time.

Look; everybody knows more about Amsterdam than me. The place is full of bicycles, canals, bridges, trams, museums, hotels and a vast variety cafes and bars. Everybody knows this. On the last day of the year, Sunday, these were operating. If you should ever happen to be camping in Amsterdam on a Sunday that is also the last day of the year, my advice is, bring your own food and drink. Everything else was closed, I was told.

While 500 firecrackers are exploding each second, fog and smoke obscure details, not gloom.

At midnight it was not only pitch black, there was a sort of freezing fog. Dutch TV said zero plus a second and it was New Year and everybody kissed everybody and took a slash at their drink. Pretty low-key. Hey now, it's 1996. Five years to the Big 21.

About ten minutes after midnight, war started. Zig-million Dutch people went outside into the freezing black gloom and set 87 million firecrackers off. I tell you, this wasn't some genteel state-organized, sanitized, fireworks display - it was - war surplus! - utter lunacy. The noise was indescribable - no one firecracker was ignited; they were torched by the caseload; caseload after caseload - amidst the nearly totally constant roar of explosions, rockets pooomed into the inky sky - or - kinda went horizontal like 88mm flak anti-tank shots. Poom-pfizzzz.

Dim figures could be seen in front of the oriental cafe at the nearby intersection and it soon exploded, and - kept on exploding and clouds of spent blackpowder obscured the streetlights. Other dim figures set up a 'Stalin-organ' right in the middle of the intersection and let it rip pom pow pom pooW pom PoW pom POW POW POW Kaboom POW bangey bang bang Kapoom POOM pom poom POW POW POW - until about 01:20. Seventy minutes of pulverizing money.

By which time we had missed the GMT New Year in London 'live' on BBC-TV, and certain anti-climax.

Next morning, in addition to considerable debris, all of outside was coated with black ice. This effectively made going to the nearby park to skate on a canal or lake somewhat redundant as it could be done wearing plain shoes on the sidewalk at the doorstep, but we went to the park anyway. Very slowly.

It is probably quite a nice park and it is a big one, with horse trails, but it suffered the fate of the rest of Amsterdam: the furthest view ended about 300 metres from the viewer. If there are ruins, this sort of view can remind one of a certain type of German painting, but here it looked like the freezing fog it was.

If the downtown canals freeze solid, you can skate to work, just the same as in Yukon City.

Still, it is not every year that the lakes and canals freeze, so there were a lot of water birds waltzing on the ice as well as a few hardy souls - skating out of the blue gloom, to pass under an iced bridge, skating off into more gloom. Hands behind their backs; the sign of possibly thoughtful recreational skaters. I was told they were very happy. Ice is good, ice is fun. As this has been quite a number words to tell you very little about gloom and firecrackers in Amsterdam at New Year, I now offer a bit of service:

Continental Train Travel Advice Number One: Unlike the Paris Metro which has reserved seats only for special categories of people, it is possible to reserve seats on European trains. (All TGV trains require reservations.) If at all possible, reserve seats. The trip from Paris-Nord to Amsterdam CS takes between six hours nine minutes and six hours 14 minutes. As it is sort of a 'milk-train' it stops in a lot of places and many people get on and off - and many more people ride the train at one time or another, than there are seats for. With all the backpacks that travelers have nowadays, standing for hours in a narrow corridor is not fun.

If it is a train with compartments, there is a sign facing the corridor which indicates whether seats are free or reserved, or reserved from where to where. In open wagons, there is a sign on the back of each seat which shows this status.

Continental Train Travel Advice Number Two: Unlike the Paris Metro which has no food service whatsoever, long distance trains do have food services. However this varies widely from train to train and even the time of day makes a difference. If you are not travelling first class, it is best to assume that there is - no - food service, and bring your own, or eat a hearty meal before getting on a train.

Some years ago I arrived at Gare du Nord with a couple of minutes to spare before the departure of the Paris-Moscow express. Only after the train was rolling did I learn that it had no food service of any kind, and no drink either - to tide me over from 18:00 until arrival in Berlin the following morning at 7:00. Luckily, there was a couple of Vietnamese students in my compartment going back to Berlin after getting some groceries in Paris, and they kindly shared some of their canned lychees and Dr Wang's soda, saving me from certain starvation. Back then, in the days of the Wall, there was only a couple of minutes to get off at Berlin-Zoo, the only stop in West Berlin, and in the chaos I was unable to thank the Vietnamese couple with a Berliner breakfast. I do so now: thanks, wherever you are.

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