Why, you ask? Somewhere between 3 & 6 inches of snow shut down all public transportation in the whole of London. I'm amazed his flight took off; indeed, it was one of the last to land at a London Area airport that day. Heathrow: Closed. City: Closed. Gatwick: Closed. No trains operating, no buses running. Hence, I had to stay on more night in the Netherlands, after having been there since the previous Thursday for business. Offices were closed Monday, those in the 'burbs (like mine) were closed Tuesday, and I have reports that some schools were even closed Wednesday. Check out our pictures and see for yourself the crushing snow we got! (Admittedly, if this was the worst in 17 years, well... I guess I understand that even a few flakes would have people freaking out.)
Riding by Clapham Common in my taxi early Tuesday morning, I noticed a huge amount of large snowballs, like bottoms of snowmen, littering the park. It seems everyone did enjoy the novelty of snow that stuck! Here's a scene found practically right outside our door:
In other news, you may have taken note that we were in Holland for the weekend. I have been traveling to the Netherlands on average about once a month since I've been here: it's where my R&D colleagues work. (You may remember my pictures of lovely Vlaardingen from a post back in July.) Since I had meetings Thurs, Fri & Mon, we thought it was the perfect chance to do our first traveling of the year.I met Jason in Amsterdam on Saturday morning, and we essentially spent the weekend roaming the city, exploring its various neighborhoods, drinking its beer, and taking in the sights that make it a particularly unique city. It was very very cold for just wandering (in the 30s), but we enjoyed ourselves nonetheless.
I didn't know what to expect of Amsterdam other than the stereotype (which does exist -- our noses let us know when we passed by 'coffeeshops', and we spent a little time wandering the windows of the ladies of the night -- but as you might know, isn't really our scene). So, I was really pleasantly surprised by the beauty of the city. The buildings themselves have an abundance of personality -- both in their varied shapes and in the way they dare the occupants to take their lives in their hands to dwell in them. You get the sense it's a bit of roulette - 'Will this building sink too far to the left while I'm a resident, or will it maintain integrity long enough for me to find something more stable?'!
So, we wandered around canals, admiring and marvelling after the architecture. We were astonished by the sheer number of bikes scattered around the city (in use or not), and how not one bicycle seemed to be less than 10 years old. We somberly toured the Anne Frank house, and took in an impressive collection of paintings by the city's favourite son, Van Gogh. There's a lot still to do, but given the number of trips I'll likely be taking to Holland in the coming year, I'm sure we'll be back. Hopefully when it's a bit warmer!!
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