Every Dutch summer is the same. At first it seems like there will be no summer at all. The weather is terrible. It rains. It’s cold. It’s cloudy. It rains some more.
Then suddenly the entire country is hit by an intense heat wave as if summer suddenly realised it was late and is desperately trying to make up for lost time.
Such extreme heat can make it difficult to think sometimes. It is simply too hot, and you were given no time to adjust to these sudden summer temperatures.
That is why I have written a handy list of things you can do when the next Dutch heatwave hits. This year’s heat wave might have already passed (or has it?) but it is important to prepare for the next year.
› Place bets on what colour code weather warning the day will end with.
› Try to separate your melted-together hagelslag (which has probably infused to form one giant deformed hagelslag).
› Try to understand why sunny weather can cause such massive delays on the trains.
› Set up a fan near an open window until you realise it’s essentially the same as setting up a window-mounted hair dryer.
› Jump in a canal to cool down and then realise it was a really bad idea when you unintentionally get a mouthful of water.
› Hope that the extreme summer means an extreme winter and Elfstedentocht.
› Spend more time in the Albert Heijn (simply because they have air conditioning).
› Cycle with your elbows raised in the air in the hope of creating some kind of arm pit ventilation/breeze (less confident cyclists may wish to do this by alternating arms).
› Enjoy an extended rokjesdag or (for the ladies) the often hit or miss geen overhemd/korte-broek-dag.
› Start a barbecue and then realise that being within 50 meters of it is like venturing into Mount Doom (this is probably why the majority of Dutch barbecues happen in 15 degrees cloudy weather).
› Drink a summer beer (before it evaporates).
How do you like to spend the summer in the Netherlands?
Invader Stu is an accident prone Englishman who has been suffering from Dutch culture shock for the last ten years. Enjoy his stories, more of which can be found on Invading Holland.