Suna in Wonderland

Right after we came back from winter holiday, whole Netherlands was excited with Elfstedentocht (Eleven Cities Tour). TV, Radio, Newspaper and wherever you go, people were talking about it.

When canals, rivers and lake of 11 cities in Friesland province freezes, then world’s largest speed skating competition takes place. According to Joop, not everyone but only members can join this event, and 2 professional skaters would have to recommend your name to be a member. Once you are accepted as member, every year you receive notice whether you can join the event “if” it really takes place. My father in law (Johan) participated only 2 times in his life time (so far) and since it’s rare event, people live abroad would fly over just for the competition.

So when temperature dropped down to -21c in Holland, people got excited! News informed that all schools will be closed and people started to prepare for that day. Unfortunately as it started to get warmer, it looks like not going to happen this year.

Since this event is rare, Dutch people looked for alternative place for them to skate on natural ice, Weißensee, Austria. I already felt how much Dutch love to skate just by the fact that it’s average 11 hours of driving from Holland.

Speed skating event takes only 2 weeks in a year and during this time, this little Austria village is completely packed with Dutch people. It is not exaggerate to say that during 2 weeks it becomes little Holland and I had opportunities to stay for 1 week with Joop’s family and their sports lover friends. We stayed in nice family hotel called Nagglerhof, where beautiful view, sauna and amazing breakfast and dinner were provided.

After big breakfast we would skate/ ski during the day. When it started to get dark around 4pm, then nice warm sauna waits for me. Also complimentary of warm tea and cakes were always nice after sports.

Johan (my father in law) has been coming to Weißensee past 20 years and more less so as other people. Everyone seems to know each other like a family. Joop explained that, this is why new people have hard time joining this place. One other thing that really amazed me was that about 80%of people here were age of 50s to 60s. Despite of their age, their spirit seems young as 20s. Although serious accidents occurs on the ice frequently, it still does not stop them to skate. On 31^st of Jan, 7 in the morning still pitch dark black, 200km of race has started.

1 round is about 12km which means you would have to go for 17rounds to complete, normally it would take 7 am till 3/4pm.(people eat and go to toilet while they skate) I took 1 round and was already exhausted. I totally give all the participant big respect!!! After 200km, I thought they would be dead tired, but they still went to village to celebrate, drink and dance till 2am! I think they are real Peter Pan!

only completed 200km will get medal ^^

Skating on natural ice was real fun. At one point, ice was crystal clear that I could even see underneath the water. Now that I have skates Joop and I are considering to train in Shanghai. Perhaps I will aim for 100km next time.