Frogs

Crazy little world called ‘speedskating’. A lot of people in our country grew up with it, others are just introduced to the Dutch skating-madness. In a weekend when Sinterklaas arrives, its quite special to be in the Netherlands as a foreigner. Imagine:
The arrival event of Sinterklaas isn’t even finished and the speedskating analyses for the World Cup already starts on tv. And on Saturday evening, you even join the audience in a speedskating stadium to watch the marathon cup. On Sunday you stand in the crowd in the 'temple of skating' Thialf with a Finnish flag in your hand waving on the very Dutch tunes of that typical orchestra. A cocktail of sausage-smells, soup-odours and fishy smells fills the air around you. In front of you on the ice you see a winning Joji Kato riding around half naked (like a Japanese mini-tarzan), your personal favourite Pekka Koskela went back to the dressing rooms in a wheelchair and the Dutch sprinters all failed on their starts. Your clear analyses: starting skaters look like frogs in their ultra tight suits. An old bearded man (not Sinterklaas in this case) in front of you with a purple hat and scarf turns around when he hears that frog-thing. He looks quite surprised at you, but then realizes you wouldn't understand him in Frisian. You were talking about ‘frogs in tight suits’. And yeah, strictly taken, that isn't a even really strange conclusion.