Yesterday Marco and I had a quick look at the Rrrollend food truck festival at the Lange Voorhout (next to Buitenhof).
The first thing you see when you enter the festival is stacks of books, which caught my eye enough to take a few photos of them:
And Buitenhof above:
And just the books:
As I mentioned in my last blog post, Thursday was a holiday here in the Netherlands – Ascension Day (40 days after Easter). It was also Liberation Day (Dutch | English). For most people, that is only an official holiday every 5 years (2015, 2020, …) so most people had the day off because of Ascension Day.
But the reason Thursday was so great was the weather – 18c, or low 60s. A great day of sun that almost everyone got to enjoy. Since Friday we’ve been in the 70s.
Marco and I went to Hometown Coffee where I again ordered my iced mocha coffee. Yum! Marco got a blended cappuccino. Due to the good weather we decided to take a walk. Somewhere along the way we decided to go to the Palace Garden (Paleistuin in Dutch) where we found a bench to soak up some sun and watch the kids play on the playground.
And that’s the thing – good weather is precious here in the Netherlands and something to enjoy. The city comes alive in this time, with the outdoor cafés crowded, every table in the sun taken. It’s a great time!
(And here is a shoutout to my mom on this Mother’s Day!)
Marco and I recently had coffee at Hema, splitting a slice of apple pie. On the way out, we noticed some of Hema‘s famous sausage:
Except that this was in the candy aisle. The sausage was made of marzipan! (Marzipan is apparently rather popular over here, but not so much in America).
I also noticed some chocolate bars which say “You are sweet” and “Thank you”. The problem with this is I have some good memories of the chocolate bar when it used to be in Dutch (“Ik vind je lief“) so it is a bit odd to see it in English. For example, the first time Marco gave me one when I still lived in America…
And finally, a what the heck? kind of image. Check out this Kit Kat flavor Marco and I saw at the Asian store:
That’s right – if you look at the pricing card underneath you will see it is sweet potato flavor… All right-y then.
Special to you for your Monday morning:
This is Roxy (Roxie?), a friend’s new cat. She is quite bendy. She’s actually lying in a basket attached to a “cat playing structure”, but contently hanging over the edge. For the record, she was already doing that for some time before I walked over to take the photo.
Happy Monday, everyone! (Of course, if you’re in the Netherlands you’re probably at least partially comforted by the fact that you have Thursday off for Ascension Day — at least, I hope you get it off.)
King’s day was on Wednesday this year, which meant that the Life I Live festival took place the night before. In short, the night before the holiday the center of the city closes down for the festival, with various music stages set up around the area. Most of the major genres are represented – jazz, rock, blues, covers and more.
Problem is the weather was pretty horrible, especially later in the night. It was also apparently the coldest festival ever. So it was pretty hard to stay out longer than an hour!
Here is a look at two of the street art pieces that were created during the festival from scratch. Street art #1:
Street art #2:
Street art #2, another angle:
Here’s a look at the newly installed lights on the Grote Markt. They alternatively glowed orange …
and the colors of the Dutch flag:
You can also see photos from the 2013 Queen’s night, which has better photos of the stage and the actual event itself.
(Public service announcements, or PSAs. Basically messages that are freely distributed to the public because they are in their best interest.)
Trams rule! I never realized this while growing up in the US because there wasn’t much public transportation around. Or when there was, it was just buses, and I am not as big a fan of those.
Here’s the birthday card Roger made for me. Front cover – a look at the Avenio trams, the newest model. Some of the tram lines have started to use them (2 and 11) with 1, 9 and 17 next. You can just make out the top of the tram where he edited the sign to say “Niki’s birthday”.
Inside you can see a map of The Hague (at the very bottom), and then a tram service schedule on the left side, with a picture of an older, yellow tram sign you would find at a stop on the right. Roger even added a picture of gourmetten in the middle since that’s what we ate on my birthday. Finally, in the middle you have a look at the tram lines throughout The Hague.
And a look at the two books that I currently have checked out from the library:
The larger book is a photographic history of trams in The Hague since 1945 (until 2011). The smaller one is a non-fiction book written by a journalist who spent a year working as a tram conductor in Amsterdam.
I love trams. No interest whatsoever in driving them, but I love reading the latest news. Try htmfoto.net or HaagsOVforum.nl. The first one includes way more than just tram stuff, or even HTM stuff. There’s a lot of old pictures of the city to lose yourself in.
Amazingly my birthday celebrations are still going strong a week and a half later! My taalcoach (language coach, Den Haag SamenSpraak) invited Marco and I to dinner at the Mezze, an Arabic/Moroccan tapas bar in Schveningen. It’s actually right next to the Kurhaus, on the side facing away from the beach.
The food was great – we did the all you can eat buffet which meant everyone could choose what they wanted. And go back multiple times for the same item, in my case… Below is a look at some of my food (bottom plate) and Marco’s food (top plate). A mix of cold and warm items.
Quite simple but the thing I kept going back for was the soup and bread. Did I ever mention I love bread? Yum. Actually, in the picture above you also see the bread (the slightly darker pieces on the plate itself) – it’s just been cooked for another day and is much crispier. I prefer the softer bread at the far right above or in the picture below, though.
The area where we ate was in the glass enclosed terrace. Even though it was a cold day outside, it was warm enough inside, thanks to a healthy fire in the middle of the table.
The restaurant also has belly dancers on the weekends. I didn’t get a picture of it, but she had a very pretty navel piercing – a blue jewel.
And because I just like colorful plates, here’s a look at the choices for the soup bowls. One of these does not belong…
Afterwards we had dessert and coffee back at their house. Check out the desserts! Of course I went for the chocolate one. 🙂
But check out the design at the bottom of this one. Very cool!
Last week I celebrated another birthday. Here’s a look at some (but unfortunately not all) of the highlights…
First, a bouquet of paper flowers made by my father-in-law and his wife. Still wrapped:
Unwrapped:
A close up of the butterfly. Do you see what the roses are made of? Wrapped chocolate and the best paper you could make flowers out of — 5 euro notes!
Yesterday was my birthday. Fun times were had all around, between sharing a beer with Marco after work (we went to the Plein) to doing gourmetten with Roger that night.
I will have a few other photos later, but for now check out what Marco did:
Sticky notes!
In the morning I woke up to sticky notes everywhere. My favorite hiding place was on the toilet paper roll (not visible until you use it) and in my jacket sleeve, so that when I put my jacket on it popped out. There are 34 notes in all — numbered, thankfully — which read:
“Mijn lieve Niki, weet je dat het jouw drie-en-dertigste verjaardag is vandaag? Ik ben blij dat wij dat samen vieren want ik hou echt heel veel van jou! Je rare man – Marco (34 alvast voor het jaar dat nu begint).”
“My lovely Niki, do you know that it is your 33rd birthday today? I am happy that we can celebrate it together because I love you very much! Your silly husband – Marco (34 in advance for the year that now begins).”
Awww!
Marco and I went to a voting center in the neighborhood to vote on the Ukraine referendum (ABC news – English). Well, he voted – I can’t yet. The weather turned pretty bad in the late afternoon, with pouring rain at times, but luckily it had mostly died by the time we went out.
I’m not a very political person, but basically the referendum is about a trade agreement between the EU and Ukraine, with some opponents saying it is really a thinly veiled stepping stone towards Ukraine asking for EU membership.
Voting card (or “Stempas” in Dutch)
In the end there wasn’t much to report on – while we had gone to a voting place which should have been a rather popular choice, there was no one else around voting at the time. (Which was to be expected – it remains to be seen if the Netherlands will get the 30% of voters needed to make this vote count, whatever the result is. But if they mange that, it would be “just barely”). Marco says the voting card only asked one question – to state if you were for or against the referendum. It was over before we knew it!
“Your behavior in the voting area” – The images are probably enough, but 1) Have your voting card and ID card ready 2) Don’t block the view of the voting bureau workers 3) Only one person per booth
Interestingly, the voting card said that voters only needed to have an government-issued ID that was valid through April 6, 2011 – that is, 5 years ago. And no, it wasn’t a typo.
Marco says he will take me along for next year’s vote, for the Dutch elections. That should prove to be more lively.
Life in the Hague 