FEC or Frieslandhal

Today I was in Leeuwarden, the capital of Friesland, a province of Holland. In Leeuwarden you find one of the oldest and biggest animalmarkets of Holland. The big halls are also used for fairs and other markets. Its also traditionaly the startingplace of the famous "elfstedentocht", the skating tour through Friesland that visits 11 old villages in almost 220 kilometers. I witnessed 3 starts, and its amazing to see almost 16.000 people on skates coming out these halls. The first 300 skaters that take part on the race start at 5.30 in the morning. It was realy smashing to see them coming out of the dark with incredible speed in Sneek at the first check point. A stupid wiseguy has got the idea to rename the famous Frieslandhal into Frisian Expo Centre (FEC). Its a shame to steal such a well known and people owned good, as the Friesland hal was, from the people of Friesland. I visited the Boot Holland. The Friesian people seem to be ashame to be Fries, otherwise they would have called it Boot Friesland.