Our Adventure in Europe
We’ll go ahead and file this one under ‘Trivia’.
So what does this post’s title mean? No, I’m not going to talk about Vanilla Ice. (As far as I know he has absolutely nothing to do with The Netherlands or Amsterdam.) Rather, it’s a clever play on words. Today, we’re talking about ice cubes, specifically the lack of ice cubes available for purchase in large quantities at the grocery store.
I’ve been meaning to make these trivia posts more frequently, but I’m lazy and forgetful. (Did you notice I didn’t post at all in October? You should have. I mentioned it in November.)
Anyways, for Trivia Time #2 we’re going to talk about fall weather, location and daylight.
In the fall, it rains. A lot. Not torrential rains or constant down pours, though that happens, but more light rain and drizzle. It’s overcast most of the time, too. It’s a lot like Ohio, but not as crazy. Where in Ohio it’ll go from 40°F to 65°F to 38°F over the course of 3 days, in Amstelveen it’ll go from 6°C & overcast to 7°C & sunny to 7°C.
On the globe, Amstelveen is located:
Altitude: -4m (-16') 1
Latitude: 52° 17' 60N (52.3000)
Longitude: 4° 52' 0E (4.8667)
Latitudinally (yes, that’s a word), Amstelveen is roughly the same as Berlin, Germany; Shannon, Ireland; Warsaw, Poland; and Birmingham, England. Longitudinally (yup, this is also a word), Amstelveen is roughly even with Brussels, Belgium and Lyon, France.
In comparison, Columbus, OH is located:
Altitude: 234m (770')
Latitude: 39° 57' 40N (39.9611)
Longitude: 82° 59' 56W (-82.9989)
Because Amstelveen is ~12.5°N of Columbus, in the summer we enjoy more sunlight. However, as expected, we get less in the winter. A comparison2 of the longest and shortest days of the year reveals:
| Amstelveen, NL | Columbus, OH | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 21, 2007 | Dec 22, 2007 | June 21, 2007 | Dec 22, 2007 | |
| Sunrise | 05:17 | 08:47 | 06:03 | 07:50 |
| Sunset | 22:05 | 16:27 | 21:04 | 17:09 |
| Sunlight | 16h 48m | 7h 40m | 15h 1m | 9h 19m |
And that concludes today’s lesson on fall weather, location and daylight. Next time, we’ll be talking about recycling, marijuana laws and booze.3
1. Yes, that’s a -4m (-16') for altitude. Below sea level. When global warming melts the ice caps and raises the oceans, this place will probably be underwater baring some great engineering achievements. ↩
2. Information found at sunrisesunset.com ↩
3. I’m pretty lazy, as you can tell from the length of time between each of the trivia posts thus far, so don’t think that I’ve actually planned out the next Trivia Time post. Those might be the topics or they might not. (Ooh, suspense!) You’ll have to come back to see for yourself. ↩
For the first Trivia Time post, I thought it’d be good to cover some basic information about the area where we live.
Amstelveen (pronounced Am-stel-vein) is a suburb to the south of Amsterdam. It is the international headquarters for Team McLennan, as well as professional services firm KPMG and communications technology giant Cisco Systems.
It’s a small, quiet community, with just 79,000 inhabitants, but it’s close proximity to Amsterdam and Schipol airport, it’s an ideal location. We’re located ~2min (walking) to the nearest Metro line, which makes getting to and from the city relatively easy.
External Resources (all links open new windows):
http://www.amstelveen.nl/ Amstelveen’s Official Website (mostly Dutch, some English)
http://www.amstelveenweb.com/english An Amstelveen Website with more information in English
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstelveen Amstelveen’s Wikipedia page
In an on-going effort to share our experiences in The Netherlands & Europe, Team McLennan will periodically be posting trivia tidbits about the city where we live (Amstelveen), the city where Staci goes to school (Amsterdam) and the country where those cities can be found.
That’s right, Team McLennan’s website is going to be educational as well as informative. There’s no time table as to how often these tidbits will be posted, but I’m hoping to make a regular feature. Look for trivia posts soon.