Love Is In the Snow {Lando Norris & Max Verstappen}

Chapter Eighty-one - Dutch traditions

Lynn

After Lando and Vera left for their date, Max and I made a shopping list for tomorrow evening. As we are both Dutch, we want to follow national traditions for New Year's Eve. We look up the recipe for oliebollen and Appel beignets. Oliebollen are a fried batter with or without raisins and we eat them with powdered sugar. Appel beignets are apple slices, soaked in the same kind of batter and fried. We top them of with cinnamon sugar. In the Netherlands we can buy all-in packages where all the ingredients are put together. As we are in Monaco, we have to buy all the ingredients separately.

When the whole list is ready, we get our things, and we go downstairs to the garage and get into Max' RV as we will probably get too much food and drinks to carry or to put in Max' two-seater. It is a five-minute drive to the nearest supermarket. We get a trolley and start walking through the store. After we spent one and a half hour on grocery shopping, we are finally done and ready to get back home. I mean Max' apartment of course.

We grab all of the bags and put them in the elevator, so we don't have to go up and down multiple times. The neighbors will probably not like it, but I think everyone here has done this before.

When we are back in the apartment and have put everything in the cabinets and fridge, we sit down to make some lunch.

Max

It has been a busy morning, grocery shopping isn't my biggest hobby, but Lynn makes everything better and thinking about beginning the new year with her, only makes me happier. The only sad thing is that we can't share it with the world. But that moment will come, we only have to wait. "Maxxx??"

"Yes my love?" I respond to Lynn. "Since looking up the recipes for the oliebollen, I have been craving them a lot. Is it an idea to make a sample, to try them before tomorrow?" she asks with puppy eyes. "How could I say no, if you look at me like this" I say with a pout. "Of course, let's get started!" I add to it.

We walk to the kitchen and grab all the necessaries we need. I get the frying pan and put in on the table on the balcony. While Lynn is making the batter in a small amount, I put on some music. Music makes baking more fun; I can say in experience. When the dough is ready, it needs to rise for thirty minutes.

"I have an idea! As you are my girlfriend now, you need to know how Formula One works. So, we are going to watch the Dutch Grand Prix!' I say to her as I pull her towards the couch. "Wasn't that one of the most boring races of the year?" she says teasingly. "You know you are insulting me right? It was the most beautiful weekend with the best crowd! And...... Oh right wait. This is exactly the reaction that you wanted right?" I say as we both start laughing. "You start to get to know me I see" she responds.

I get up and walk to the TV. I search the F1TVPro-app on my smart TV and look for the FORMULA 1 HEINEKEN DUTCH GRAND PRIX 2021. I start the race video and start to explain the basic things. "So, before we are going to watch the actual race I will explain some things first. Since last season we have two kind of race weekends. There is the original form where a Grand Prix weekend starts on Friday. We start with two free practices to try multiple latest updates and settings on the car. On Saturday we have the third training and the qualification. The qualification decides the starting grid for the race on Sunday. The qualification is divided in three parts; Q1 takes up to eighteen minutes, Q2 fifteen minutes and Q3 twelve minutes. After each part, the slowest five drivers will be eliminated. On the sprint weekends, the format is a little different. On Friday we have one training and the qualification for the sprint race. On Saturday we start with another practice, which is useless, and the sprint race. A sprint race is like a race which is held on Sunday, but shorter. The results of the sprint race is the starting grid for the actual race on sunday. For each race weekend, we get three kind of tires, softs, medium and hard. The soft ones are the fastest, but the degradation is much higher. So, now to the race. In the race we have to make at least one pitstop, where we need to change to another set of tires where we started with. For example, if we started on the softs, we have to switch to the mediums or hard tires at least one time.