Dutch championships klunen (=walking or running on skates)

July 14, 2007 at 8:48 AM

Ok I now understand the expression double Dutch better and this is an example (ok it has nothing to do with the violin). In strong winters, once in 10 years, in the Netherlands we have the 11-city speedskating race of 200 km. Because sometimes the quality of the ice is not good enough to skate on it, we have to walk with skates over land. This is called: KLUNEN. Some ice speedskatingfreaks organise every summer the Dutch championschips klunen, walking or running on skates for 700 meter. I was one of the members. We started on a wooden bridge, walked over orange carpets and had to skate over synthetic ice with waxe. Earlier that day I had skated on real summerice in the neighboorhood. I was the last skater/kluner. Just like my violin playing I am not so talented in sport or music, but I like it.
I dressed like it was winter (in the middel of the summer) with my ANDRé RIEU scarf, but nobody could see the violin on it.