Thursday, November 01, 2007

Marathon

Fred looked out the window and said, "Oh look. You can take a picture and put it on your bloge." He pronounces it with a long 'o' to be funny. I usually smile because it sounds so dorky.

Every year at the end of October, there is a big marathon in Amsterdam. It must have been the Sunday before last, which makes it the 21st of October. Since the Olympic Stadium is right down the street from us, we have a nice shot of everyone starting. It's a constant stream of running people for an hour or so. These people have literally been running for about five minutes by the time they get to our square - or plein, as we say here - and that day Fred and I spotted one of the runners taking a pee break next to one of the trees down there. I thought, At this rate it's gonna be a rough day, buddy.

Of course a lot of the trams aren't running on marathon day and, unfortunately, Fred and I had left our bikes at Centraal Station the night before because we'd gotten a ride home from Haarlem where we attended a birthday party. So we had to walk to get where we were going (Can you imagine having to walk?) and it was one road block after another.

However, just like the guy peeing on our tree and no one said anything, we climbed over the barriers and no one blinked. In NYC they'd be all over you. They're a little more chill here.

So why am I writing about the Amsterdam marathon? It's the beginning of NaBloPoMo! (And I'm already desperate.) I'll get to knitting news tomorrow, probably.

1 comment:

Tammie Nolte said...

Great article, send it in to Amsterdam Weekly.nl. Timely, opinionated and wildly entertaining. "Send in the Clowns as Rep. theme music" is a wonderful line. I chuckled some snot out of my nose.

Tammie Van Texas