© Michael Kooren/ReutersCanals in the Netherlands no longer freeze every winter, so the chance to ice-skate outdoors created a frenzy in Kinderdijk and elsewhere in the south. โEverybody took days off,โ said one mayor.
Nieuwerkerk Aan Den Ijssel, the Netherlands - For the first time in 12 years, the Netherlands' canals froze this month, bringing the Dutch, who like their tulips in neat rows, a heady mix of pandemonium and euphoria.
Hundreds of thousands of skaters, their cheeks as red as apples in the subzero temperatures, took to the ice, and hospital wards were filled with dozens of people with fractured arms, sprained ankles and broken legs.
Train engineers were ordered to go slowly to avoid hitting skaters who clambered over railway tracks to get from one frozen canal to another. Even the minister of defense, an avid skater, fell and broke his wrist. His ministry announced that the national defense remained in safe hands, even if one of them was in a cast.