Trip Trap Trip Trap~ Falling Down the Dutch Steps!
One Snowy day a few weeks ago, I thought it would be a great
idea to get outside to take some pictures of my beautiful Dutch home covered
with a new blanket of snow. It was absolutely stunning. Overnight, a few inches of fresh snow had
fallen and surprised us in the morning. But being that it was still morning and
I was still enjoying my morning cup of Joe, I hastily threw on my Sperry’s
(they are boat shoes after all… water resistant) and grabbed my winter coat. Clicking
a few pics in the back then coming through the house to head out front. I
peeked outside carefully to see if anyone was around… then crept out in my pjs.
That’s when I reached the top of my front porch steps, slipped, slammed onto my
foot and fell all the way down. Luckily it was only 3 steps but they are made
out of concrete…. So 3 was plenty! Scraped and bruised, I limped back into the
house thankful that my neighbors hadn’t been out walking their dogs while I put
on what for sure must have looked like a scene from a downhill Olympic skiing
event crash.
In my current house I do not have the typical scary vertical
steps. They are very forgiving but they only have a rail on one side. The other
side of the stairs is open. Really quite beautiful but I cling to the rail on
the way down. A tad frightening in the middle of the night.
When we were first moving here and we were looking for a
house, I was shocked by the stairs or trap as the Dutch call them.
And to me,
that’s exactly what they are like… a trap waiting for me to fall down.
A lot of the houses we were looking at were
row houses proudly sitting next to each other along beautiful Dutch streets.
Tall and skinny… just how the heck would we ever get our furniture up those freighting
stairs? But the ingenious Dutch have that figured out as well. On the front of
some homes are hooks or hijsbalk that pull the furniture up and through the
windows. Several things in our first house had to go through the back up and
over a balcony and through a double door. I have no clue how they got my
daughter’s furniture to the attic floor. I just decided they knew what they
were doing and went to unpack boxes. Sometimes it’s best not to look.
Over the years now, I’ve been up and down many Dutch stairs.
My favorite have been the stairs at the Anne Frank home in Amsterdam. You are
so overwhelmed by the history that you forget that you are practically scaling
a small mountain.
And of course I loved climbing up and down my husband’s man
cave apartment stairs when he first moved here to The Netherlands. I literally
had to hold the stairs in front of me and climb up like a ladder.
If you’re not climbing up and trying to not have a heart
attack or ask for an oxygen mask at the high altitude levels, then you are on
your way back down and trying to figure out how to position your feet as not to
scrape the back of your heel or fall flat on your face.
Four weeks later and no medal in hand, I’m finally ready to
tackle those Dutch stairs!! After the thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat.. I'm ready to try again!!! Oh and by the way... I didn't drop my camera!
Victory is mine!
