Tool Time - 7/29/19

Tool Time - 7/29/19

Goedemorgen iedereen,

A little bit of a late blog this week, I was waiting with writing so I could tell you about buggy-surfing! While I spent almost the entire week doing an insanely large amount of homework I spent todays entire afternoon racing on the beach. Buggy-surfing, something I had never heard of before, is basically wind surfing but with a little cart and on the beach instead of on the water.

Important to know is that I am the only one in my family who does not know how to drive. I would probably be a danger behind the wheel, as I do not have the gift of knowing what speed someone is going at. You might be going 50 and I would probably think you are going 30. I do however have a windsurfing license, I know how to surf on the water. So, driving on the beach cannot be that hard right?

Well, I summersaulted twice along with my buggy! Sadly, I do have a video of that exact moment but it was kind of fun. Learning how to turn in buggy is a little harder than turning while windsurfing and I took me about 30-minutes to sort of get right. Lucky for me we had 2-hours on the beach so I had enough time left to try and go as fast as I could. That is also when I flew through the air like I was Peter Pan trying to go to Neverland. I had forgotten lesson one, if one of your wheels is off the ground let go of the cord as fast as you can. Now know I’m not the fastest person so…. I flew.

 

My hands are entirely covered in blisters from pulling the cord so I would go faster, so I did not do much for the rest of the day. Other than more homework. Since I did not do much this week I will be telling you a few fun facts about the Netherlands.

Dutch people do not usually hold the American ‘Yard Sale”, we have an app called Marktplaats (Marketplace). People sell their old closets, books, TV's, etc on there. That way you do not have to hold a sale in your front yard. Good for us, because Dutch houses usually do not have a front yard.

If you cannot get rid of your stuff on the app, we have a “vlooienmarkt” aka a flea-market. This is where people sell their stuff for the lowest prices ever. Hundreds off stuff are on display. It is always very busy at those, because people from the Netherlands tend to be a bit cheap.

Now my favorite Dutch fact, is that we do NOT have the entire country covered in windmills. Most of them are gone by now, but because we need some tourism we have the “kinderdijk”. It is a place where we do actually have the mills and people who are dressed up in the old-fashioned clothes. It is basically a fake Netherlands for tourists.

Until next week,

- Elena