{"id":633,"date":"2010-06-07T00:00:29","date_gmt":"2010-06-07T00:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/?p=633"},"modified":"2010-05-12T19:21:37","modified_gmt":"2010-05-12T19:21:37","slug":"those-lovely-dutch-monday-air-raid-sirens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/those-lovely-dutch-monday-air-raid-sirens\/","title":{"rendered":"Those Lovely Dutch Monday Air Raid Sirens"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you have never been in the Netherlands on the first Monday of any  given month, you have managed to miss out on a real treat.\u00a0 I can  remember my first Monday of the month like it was yesterday.\u00a0 I had been  in the Netherlands for about a week and a half, it was a lovely summer  day, birds in the sky, sun shining, and me enjoying my new city by  sleeping in late and enjoying a cup of coffee.\u00a0 Ahhh&#8230;what a day.<\/p>\n<p>And  then, there it was.\u00a0 The noise that shook my walls and rattled my brain  because I am lucky enough to live between three loudspeakers.\u00a0 If you  don&#8217;t know what I&#8217;m talking about, have a quick listen here:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"rotterdam air raid siren\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QMuMFu5RBDs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Terrible  isn&#8217;t it?\u00a0 Well, poor newly-arrived me had no idea what on earth was  going on.\u00a0 Should I jump under the table?\u00a0 Should I run around  screaming?\u00a0 Was the apocalypse upon me?\u00a0 I ran outside to verify the  level of chaos, and what did I see?\u00a0 People just going about their  business as though nothing was happening.\u00a0 Children playing in the  park.\u00a0 Flocks of disrupted but otherwise unharmed birds circling  overhead.\u00a0 No chaos.\u00a0 No destruction.\u00a0 But for the ear-splitting sound,  barely any disturbance at all.\u00a0 Now, I had heard that Amsterdam was a  relaxed city, but this seemed like a bit TOO relaxed to me.\u00a0 Would you  be relaxed with this in the background?<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Air raid alarm Haarlem\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/iwfeAbxlS-0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>After  a quick phone call I discover that, indeed, this is completely normal,  if and ONLY if it is precisely 12 noon on the first Monday of the  month.\u00a0 But that begs the question, doesn&#8217;t it?\u00a0 What happens if there  actually is an emergency at precisely 12 noon on the first Monday of the  month?\u00a0 What happens then?!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you have never been in the Netherlands on the first Monday of any given month, you have managed to miss out on a real treat.\u00a0 I can remember my first Monday of the month like it was yesterday.\u00a0 I had been in the Netherlands for about a week and a half, it was a&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/those-lovely-dutch-monday-air-raid-sirens\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3590],"tags":[8805,3,2155],"class_list":["post-633","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-dutch-language","tag-air-raid-sirens","tag-culture","tag-funny"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3486,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633\/revisions\/3486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}