A Very Dutch New Year's

Based on our sample set of 1, there appear to be three grand traditions for ringing in the New Year, Dutch-style:

1. Fireworks

We are not talking here about the piddling American-style firecrackers you can buy on the local Indian reservation. No, in the Netherlands, you can buy full-scale fireworks -- and set them off anywhere, anytime, without adult supervision. Over the course of New Year's Eve day, it sounded like the heavy artillery had breached the outer defenses of the city; walking home from work, I realized it was on me to avoid stumbling through other people's firing grounds (also known as the sidewalk).

(This unbridled enthusiasm for fireworks, combined with the lack of bicycle helmets and ambivalence about icy sidewalks, has convinced me that the Dutch have no tort consciousness.)

When midnight struck, we had only to step outside to see fireworks in all directions -- of the type traditionally sponsored by municipalities back home, but here "donated" by the citizenry of Den Haag.

Two major side effects: (1) Setting off real fireworks in the middle of a city is LOUD -- aptly compared by a colleague to WWIII. (2) By 12:15 a.m., the air was acrid and dense with gunpowder (see picture - that is not fog). Despite these palpable externalities, the fireworks continued unabated through the wee hours.


2. Polar Bear Swim

As in many cold climes, the hardier members of the Dutch citizenry traditionally run into the local frigid body of water (here the North Sea) on New Year's Day. What I was unprepared for was the scale of spectation for this event. Granted, we showed up at 11:58 for a noon event, but the crowd was six deep along the length of the boardwalk and pier, and people were climbing trees and flagpoles and the last of the snow mounds to try to catch a glimpse of their more gullible compatriots. So we have no pictures, but here's what happened:

An indistinguishable but sizable mass of people topped with orange skull caps swarmed around the beach to some live Dutch oompa-loompa music. At noon, egged on by an undecipherable loud speaker and a wave of cheers from the fully dressed, the orange mass surged to the sea, but it was impossible to tell who was coming and who was going. At 12:04, it was over, and the spectators quickly dispersed.

But at least it got us to the sea on New Year's, which (as my grandfather used to say) blew the stink off us.

3. Olliebollen

Around the time of Sinterklas's arrival, olliebollen stands popped up overnight. The fried mounds of dough, however, are primarily a new year's tradition -- attested to by the gigantic lines at the stands on New Year's Eve.

Olliebollen comes plain or with raisins, or filled with other good things like apple pie filling. As I love doughnuts and apple pies, these were clearly my favorite. 
That said, fried dough is fried dough, and the olliebollen were surpassed (imho) by the amazing lemon rolls Jeff made as our own new year's tradition.