You Know It Is Summer in Holland When…
Summer in Holland is rare. Some years it is skipped altogether. Even when it does show up there is no guarantee that it will bring with it the kind of warm weather and cloud-free skies normally associated with the season. So how can you tell when the Dutch summer has actually begun? Here are a few helpful clues.
Fourteen Ways To Know When It Is Summer In Holland
1) Wearing shorts seemed like a good idea. However, the deceptively sunny morning that convinced you to do so waits until you are too far away from your house to go back and then suddenly turns into a heavy rainstorm.
2) A BBQ becomes a two-man job. One person has to cook the meat while the other holds the umbrella.
3) Sunscreen only becomes useful if it is waterproof.
4) The official start and end of summer are June 21st to September 22nd but the actual start of summer can be anywhere in-between, for any random length of time, often stopping and restarting whenever it wants. Spring is usually skipped altogether.
5) You can take several hours to eat an ice cream without any fear that it will melt.
6) The mosquitoes don’t stay away. They just put on an extra scarf.
7) You experience all four seasons in one day.
8) Schipol is underwater.
9) Wearing sunglasses becomes an act of defiance against the weather.
10) ‘Sun Sightings’ become a thing and are treated with as much scepticism as unicorn sightings.
11) Additionally, everyone forgets what the “giant ball of fire in the sky” is and freaks out on twitter and Facebook whenever they see it for a brief second.
12) Ordering a summer beer suddenly seems ironic.
13) If you receive a postcard from Holland it is slightly soggy and the ink is smudged with raindrops.
14) It rains!
(Bonus) In the rare event of a warm Dutch Summer here are a few of the things you can do to survive a Dutch heatwave.
I used to joke about needing my summer anorak when visiting family in Scotland. I guess it was good preparation for moving here. I still haven’t put away my winter sweaters.
I loved summer in Amsterdam. Sadly, that was yesterday. Seriously, we all face a lower risk of skin cancer than folks in Southern California, my former stomping grounds ;-).
Very good, Stu. Sadly, it didn’t make me laugh…just nod in agreement!
Yeah, rain in the summer… They should set-up a training to cope with that… People from the UK must find that very weird…Never happens there!
Summer is the best “DAY” in Holland
so far summer has lasted two days in England. Yesterday I was able to spend the whole day without a coat. To day even though its warm you need a jacket because of the ice cold wind. Why on other days is it overcast all day then the sun makes an appearance just as its setting?
I came back from the UK two weeks ago and the first week there was downright tropical. A far better summer than over here, even if only for one week. We haven’t even had that much, I think. I want to go back!
Likeahike, what part of England were you in? I haven’t seen a weeks worth of summer. Mind you it does seem to be regional over here even though its a small country. I have seen it rain on one side of the road but not the other.
Totally OT, but this just came out:
http://what-if.xkcd.com/53/
I welcome you, our new Overlord!
Like a colleague of mine said to me yesterday: “Summer in Belgium is lovely. It’s the nicest week of the year”
I used to hate the blazing sun in Chicago summers but used ice cream as a coping mechanism… now I eat ice cream not as a method of keeping cool but to maintain my Vitamin D levels.
Ha ha! Sounds quite a bit like summer in England though we are having a mini ‘heat wave’ at present which is causing huge excitement!