Starved for sun and warmth: 1st hot weekend in 07

I'll never forget my first summer in the northern part of Europe. It was back in 1998 when I was doing a traineeship in Mannheim, Germany. One day the sun came out and suddenly everybody was half naked, everybody had sunglasses on and going out in the streets, people were SO happy, So cheerful, everybody was sitting outside in the terraces, in the parks, they would cram themselves in tiny little balconies (that I would have never called balconies myself)....summer was here (at least for a day)...and they HAD to enjoy it.

I would have never thought, that some years later...I would join "them" and I would get SO excited as well to get some sun. I guess it's true...you always long for what you don't have, or what you are not sure if you will get. In this part of the world...the world Summer doesn't mean "heat" or the fact that you will be able to wear summer clothes or sandals. Long gone are the days back in Lima, when I would put away all the coats, jackets and anything that had long sleeves; socks and closed shoes. For the past 7 years...I've been chasing the sun and trying to get the most out of it! I now understand why the euphoria, why the need of getting half naked and joining the masses of half naked bodies in wherever part of the city we might enjoy some rays of the long longed God sun! (However, I don't think I will ever join the group of people that feel it's nice to parade around in underwear in public parks!!)

I think there's enough evidence by now to prove to the more sceptics that Global Warming is here, been reading a very interesting special about it in the latest Newskeek. And regardless of the fears and the politics behind, besides the potential scenarios that make me actually wonder if I should invest in a beach house by the Baltic sea ;-)...the fact is that since Friday not only Spring was here but with a breaking record of 28.9 degrees Celsius for the month of April in the Netherlands it felt like Summer was actually here.

On Friday evening I joined Joost, Geert Jan and some other friends for a quick drink in De Pijp...and there was some holiday feeling to people sitting in the terraces or just standing outside with beers, white beers, white wines or Mohitos in their hands.


On Saturday Aissa and me decided that we HAD to go to Bloemendaal, one of the closest beaches to Amsterdam. I have to point out that Aissa is Brazilian and we actually became quite good friends since last Summer when we would get into the train on Saturdays and Sundays ready to make the most out of the beach...we both have grown up by the beach and we definitely LOVE it! However this time we decided to cycle to Bloemendaal (for Non-Dutch pronounce "Blue-mendal"). It took us 1 hour and 40 minutes at a steady pace to ride the 30kms to Bloemendaal and 1 hour and 30mins for our way back. As the Netherlands is so flat and as we cycle almost every day, it was not hard, we didn't get soar legs or were tired, however as we have just plain city bikes...God did our asses hurt on the way back ;-) And we spent a really GREAT day laying down in the sand and feeling the gorgeous rays caressing our bodies!


On Sunday I decided to stay in Amsterdam, however the day was even warmer than Saturday so I actually spent about 8 hours lying in the sun in the Vondelpark. For the ones that don't know, the Vondelpark is a rather big park in the middle of Amsterdam and I happen to live only 5 minutes away from the south exit. Petter, Aissa, Stephie, Paul and Nema joined me....and from 2pm till almost 9pm (when it started getting dark- I LOVE the looooong days) we enjoyed copious amounts of white and rose wine and then some lovely white beer. It was only when I cycled back home that I realised that I was a little drunk and the fact was furtherly confirmed at 4am when I woke up and had a terrible urge for over a liter of water ;-)


All in all a perfect hot weekend, the perfect beginning of the warm season! I look forward to more beach days, more picnics in the Vondelpark and definitely more wine and beers in good company ;-)


For a few photos of Sat and Sun click here and for a 1 min video of my cycling through the park click here.