Imagine the thrill of being a race car driver: Slamming your foot on the gas, going hundreds of miles per hour, whipping around turns, hearing the non-existent roar of the engine. Wait, what? This isn't Formula One, it's Formula Zero.
The new race series is the world's first international championship for hydrogen fuel cell-powered cars. Held in Rotterdam August 22-23, it features teams of university students that will put their zero-emissions cars head-to-head in a race to the finish line.
A warning: Formula Zero may not be as hair raising as NASCAR. Although drivers will be zooming around Rotterdam's city center, they'll only be going 30 mph. Cut them some slack, though: It may not be death defying, but it is the cutting edge of clean technology.
Who knew that bullfighting was popular in India? Well, we didn't, but we do now know that after a few alcohol problems (drunk bullfighters and drunk bulls, too), authorities started breathalyzing both before fights, and injuries decreased rapidly. Just how you persuade a bull to blow in the bag is a mystery to us, but it seems to be working.
But what these Indian bullfighters could try is a new product from the Netherlands: beer brewed especially for dogs. The part that fixes our Indian problem is that it's non-alcholic. Kwispelbier is also fit for human consumption, but save it for the dogs or the bulls--it costs four times as much as a Heineken.
When someone comes back from a holiday, complaints about bad service or impolite people are often louder than stories about fascinating museums or picturesque landscapes. Luckily, the Dutch have brought us a Politeness Scale after a recent De Telegraaf survey.
According to all those windmill-and-cheese-lovers, Switzerland, anywhere in Scandinavia and Belgium are Europe's most polite nations. And where shouldn't we go on holidays? Russia and France are on the impolite list, along with--self-selected--the Netherlands! One Dutchman surveyed suggested that they are "too many people living in just a little country", and they just don't have the tolerance for Ps and Qs. So go chew on some Gouda and think about how to avoid your Amsterdam trip.
Did you know it's just 60 days until the end of the windmill season in the Netherlands? Not only that, the second week of September is the time for Mills in Floodlight in Kinderdijk, our number one recommended town for windmill watching.
And it's not as lame as it sounds. In Kinderdijk, near Rotterdam, they have not just 3 or 4, but in fact 19 windmills all within sight of each other along the river, dating from--well, it depends who you believe--either the 1500s or 1740. Let's not split hairs, they're still old, they're beautiful, and they're still kind of cool. Apparently they each cost about $50,000 a year to maintain, and there are only 1000 of them left in Holland: If your math is good that means nearly 2% of them are here in the one spot; and they need a fair wad of cash to keep them lookin' good. Wonder how much it takes to keep a red-light-district worker in Amsterdam looking that good?
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by Dan Gould
