2018 is here and as usual the Dutch are doing what they do every year: firing carbide guns and fireworks. Health and safety take a back step for a day or two and every child, young or old, partakes in the seasonal delight. Last year (jan 2017) I saw entire streets covered in thick layer of what is effectively spent explosive.
This year as my dutch is improving I am starting to follow the news in Dutch and I will include here snippets of it, both for your information and entertainment as well as, and possible more of, an outlet for my dutch practise.
There were calls this year for prohibition of fire-works altogether because they are seen as too dangerous. Nevertheless this year as well, there were news about burned cars (an unfortunate seasonal tradition it seems) and people hospitalised because of fireworks related burns. The video in this article talks about eye burns which could be prevented by wearing ”fireworks glasses”. Apparently most kids now wear them but older children and their parents don’t, hence the problem.
In other news we had the biggest beach bonfire in the Hague (they were using wood pallets carried by crane into place) and the traditional collective sea dip in Scheveningen on the first day of the year with the temperature feeling like -4.
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