Author Archives: Niki

About Niki

I run the blog http://www.lifeinthehague.com

Sinterklaas parade 2013 (Or: The Hague version)

Posted on November 17, 2013 by Niki

Yesterday, Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet arrived from Spain. Their boat arrived in Scheveningen. To mark this occasion, The Hague had a parade throughout the city streets. It was a rather long parade as it started in Scheveningen itself at 12:30 and ended at 4:10.

There are only three things you need to know about the Sinterklaas parades:

1. 99% of the participants are dressed up as Zwarte Piet (Sinterklaas’ helper)

2. One person is dressed up as Sinterklaas

3. Zwarte Piet passes out kruidnoten, a small, hard ginger cookie, to children.

Oh… and sometimes if you have kids, they will beg you to run from one street to the next in an attempt to get more candy. At least that is what Marco’s mom said he wanted!

cute donkey… probably one of the few things that wasn’t freezing during this parade!

one of the more enthusiastic floats, with a conductor in front (in red)

As you can see, most floats still had advertising. It helps pay for the parade. But then of course you also have more obvious advertising…

There are also some Zwarte Piet who really got into the act, either riding past on roller skates (hard to do on cobblestone streets!) or in general just having fun like these Piets:

Sinterklaas parade mugging for the camera Den haag 2013

the guy in the black jacket was previously just an onlooker, but is now immortalized forever!

Here is Sinterklaas near the end of the parade (and some Spanish noblemen):

All in all a fun parade, though it was weird to be watching another parade so soon after returning from Disneyland Paris, where extravagant on-the-hour parades seem to be a specialty.

It is now officially the holiday season in the Netherlands! And it will be that much harder to resist gevulde speculaas…

Categories: Holidays | Tags: Sinterklaas | Leave a comment

Time for Dessert (Or: Athene Palace in The Hague)

Posted on November 15, 2013 by Niki

And now for something not Disney related….

Last Sunday Marco and I went to Athene Palace, a Greek restaurant in The Hague. You are served a shot of ouzo shortly after arriving. It’s a Greek, anise-flavored alcohol. I usually order a variety dish that contains a bit of french fries and rice, along with various meats like suflaki, suzuki, gyros, and chicken. Good stuff!

Another person in the party ordered this dessert:

I forget the exact flavor, but if you like whipped cream this is definitely the dessert for you. I’m more of the dame blanche type. My favorite way to eat that ice cream dessert is to ration out the fudge sauce so there is still some sauce left even near the end of the dessert.

The only drawback to this restaurant is that it can be hard to signal a waiter to bring the check. However that is true of lot of restaurants in this country it seems. Others might say they are just giving you enough time to converse afterwards without being bothered, so it really depends on your viewpoint.

Categories: Food | Tags: Desserts, Restaurants | Leave a comment

A magical place (Or: Disneyland Paris)

Posted on November 14, 2013 by Niki

Above: Tower of Terror ride as seen from Toyland (aka Toy Story – you can see the green army man overlooking a ride).

Marco and I have been here for a few days now. It’s been pretty cool, especially as I have crossed the two most worrisome rides off my list – Thunder Mountain and the Tower of Terror.

Thunder Mountain wasn’t horrible and there is a chance I would do it again. The ride has three fast sections (including some spots in pitch black) and a few slow down moments. I survived.

Tower of Terror wasn’t quite what I remembered – the story bit after you are in the ride was only about 45 seconds and then they started to drop you. Two or so floors at first, and then rushed back up again for four or five floors. The ‘finale’ was about 160 feet (12 or so floors) back to back – two drops. They open the doors at the top so you can look over the park briefly. Of course my eyes were closed and my face buried in Marco’s arm so I only saw a brief glimmer of sunlight against my eyelids. The one in Disney World has a bit more story to it, and the chance to be dropped a random amount of times (2-4?). I won’t be doing this one again. 😛

Yesterday we hit a lot of tv smaller rides in the park including ‘It’s a small world’. It’s more bearable during the Christmas season as it is half Christmas music and half ‘It’s a small world’ music.
We also rode the tram around the Disney Parks, though it wasn’t quite what Marco remembered – there was not much stuff to look at. Unfortunately we missed the ‘Behind the Magic’ tram your for Disney studios as it was only open Monday and Tuesday and we didn’t realize. They do publish the scheduled closings months ahead of time, so that is nice. There’s also a few things that are only open Thursday and Friday, like an ‘Armageddon’ (the movie) special effects show.

Above: Dutch Sinterklaas in ‘It’s a small world’.

Categories: Marco&Niki | Tags: Paris, Vacation | Leave a comment

Disneyland Paris (Or: Honeymoons)

Posted on November 12, 2013 by Niki

Marco and I are currently visiting Disneyland Paris for our honeymoon. We are lucky to have good weather, although it is definitely a bit chilly!

Pretty huh?

We took it mostly easy today, arriving around 1pm at the park. The first thing we ended up seeing was the Christmas parade (yes, Christmas season started Sunday at Disney). Of course there was some technical difficulty with one of the floats (we guess) but as they say the show must go on. The performers kept doing their act for over 10 minutes while waiting for the signal to start again.

Marco and I had a lot of fun but we are both sore from all of the walking. The oddest thing is that everyone starts leaving the park around 6pm even though it closes at 9pm. As we were walking back to the park from the hotel, it was a bit strange, like trying to get through one of the zombie hordes on Walking Dead unscathed.

Since most people leave, most of the bigger restaurants close around 6pm too so we had to improvise on where to get food (see next paragraph). It’s somewhat dangerous to walk around later at night in the late fall season because their lightning isn’t that great in some areas of the park.

But of course we had a lot of fun. One recommendation: try Earl of Sandwich if you have it at your Disney park. It was tasty! I had the Earl’s Club sandwich. We are going to go back later in the week to try out one of their wraps. It helps that it’s only a short walk from our hotel…

Until next post!

Categories: Marco&Niki | Tags: Paris, Vacation | Leave a comment

Movie theater candy (Or: Thor time!)

Posted on November 11, 2013 by Niki

Last Sunday morning Marco, Roger and I went to the movie theater in town to see the new Thor movie, Thor: The Dark World. As sometimes happens, this movie was released in the Netherlands a full week before it was released in America.

The movie was pretty good – the pacing was pretty nice and I didn’t feel that the middle or the end of the movies dragged too much. It was nice to see more character development with the side characters (including Darcy) and of course Thor as eye candy is always good. They have a shirtless scene near the beginning for Thor-approving fans!

Before the movie I took a quick moment to take a picture of the candy options, although it’s not really something I would ever purchase (even ignoring the insane movie theater prices):

As you can see it is not that much different from the setup of a typical American movie theater – similar candy is offered there as well. The one thing I was tempted by were the sour bears on the left side of the 2nd picture, near the bottom. Yum, sour candy!

Categories: Daily Dutch living | Tags: Candy, Pathe | Leave a comment

Eurodisney (Or: It’s now Disneyland Paris, right?)

Posted on November 9, 2013 by Niki

This coming week Marco and I are headed off on our honeymoon, which will be at Eurodisney. Of course, it is now called Disneyland Paris and I have heard that is not been called ‘Eurodisney’ for years.

We took advantage of the 20th anniversary deal to score 5 days and 4 nights at the park. Perhaps too much – it is a small park after all – but it will be more relaxing than if we only had a few days.

The only thing that Marco’s mother asked for was a Winnie the Pooh stuffed doll, somewhat similar to the stuffed Tigger she already has:

Yes, my foot is being used for a quick and dirty size comparison!

Categories: Marco&Niki | Tags: Paris, Vacation | 3 Comments

Colorful chalkboards (Or: At the Cheesecake Company)

Posted on November 7, 2013 by Niki

On Sunday Marco and I visited the Cheesecake Company in The Hague, over on Torenstraat. This is also what we had at our wedding – two strawberry cheesecakes, one chocolate cheesecake, and a smaller white chocolate cappuccino cake for Marco and I (the one that we symbolically cut together).

This time we had their stroopwafel cheesecake. It was delicious.

cheesecake at the Cheesecake Company in The Hague

stroopwafel cheesecake

Near where we were sitting is also a board you can write on with chalk:

And another picture:

Of course, once we were done we asked for some razma-limey (raspberry and lime) cheesecake to go, for later. That is definitely one of my favorites.

Categories: Food | Tags: Cheesecake company, Desserts | 2 Comments

A Comparison of Weather (Or: Dutch class 18 by ROC Mondriaan)

Posted on November 7, 2013 by Niki

NOTE: There will be no class postings next week (#19 and #20) as Marco and I off are off on our honeymoon. Yay!

This lesson covered two things – weather (a short, spontaneous topic at the beginning) and comparisons. Of course, weather was the topic of the day because it was raining again. This year is the 5th wettest autumn so far (link in Dutch) and it seems to have no signs of stopping. We covered the various forms of weather, much like we did last month:

Het miezert = It rains (just a little bit).

Het regent = It rains.

Het giet OR Het stortregent = It rains (a lot).

Het sneeuwt = It snows. Did I mention the -eeu(w) vowel group doesn’t really exist in English? It is pronounced something like s-nay-out, but quicker: snayout.

Het waait = It is windy.

Het vriest = It freezes.

Het stormt = It is (very) windy.

De zon schijnt = The sun shines. Note the exception in grammatical construction.

The other thing of note was comparison, with two different models:

verschillend: is … …er dan …

hetzelfde: … is even … als …

difference: is … …er than …

the same: … is just as …. as ….

Jumbo is goedkoeper dan Albert Heijn. (Jumbo is cheaper than Albert Heijn – both are grocery stores.)

De morgen is even lang als de middag. (The morning is just as long as the afternoon.)

And there you have it – weather and comparisons!

Categories: Courses | Tags: Dutch language | 1 Comment

Turning sentences around (Or: Dutch class 17 by ROC Mondriaan)z

Posted on November 5, 2013 by Niki

One of the grammatical things that we covered in last night’s class was the placement of the verb in main clauses (I did not go to school) and subordinate clauses (because I was sick). In Dutch they are called the hoofdzin and the bijzin, respectively.

In Dutch (and German) the verb in the bijzin goes to the end of the clause in most cases. You have some special conjugations that do not affect the placement of the verb, but there are only a few. They are en (and), of (or), want (because), maar (but), and dus (thus). The rest of the conjunctions affect the placement of the verb.

Ik ga niet naar school want ik was ziek. I did not go to school because I was sick. (“want” does not require the verb “was” to go to the end of the sentence.)

Ik ga niet naar school omdat ik ziek was. I did not go to school because I was sick. (“omdat”, another way to say because, forces the verb “was” to the end of the clause.)

Zij gaat direct werken nadat ze voor de opleiding geslaagd is. She will work after she has passed her education (course).

If you use one of the special connectors that affect the placement of the verb, you can also begin with the subordinate clause and end with the main clause. You then need to have inversion of the subject and the verb in the main clause. This has the awesome effect (if you like grammar like I do) of placing the two conjugated verbs next to each other with only a comma in the middle.

Omdat ik ziek was, ga ik niet naar school. Move the subordinate clause in front, and invert ‘ik’ and ‘ga’ (subject and verb). Then you have the two conjugated verbs (‘was’, ‘ga’) next to each other with only a comma in between.

Nadat ze voor de opleiding geslaagd is, gaat zij direct werken.

The normal connectors — en (and), of (or), want (because), maar (but), and dus (thus) — cannot be put at the front of the sentence.

While it is annoying in the beginning to change verbs around like this, it does get easier with a lot of practice. I definitely have Marco to thank for that as he has helped correct a lot of my mistakes! But practice, practice, practice.

Categories: Courses | Tags: Dutch language | Leave a comment

Kleine Klaas (Or: Children’s TV)

Posted on November 4, 2013 by Niki

When I turned the television on this morning I switched to Nick, Jr. For most of the summer I used to watch only children’s tv programming when I was alone, though these days I only watch one program: Timmy Tijd (Wiki: English) on that channel. What can I say – the animation is for this little preschool sheep is cute. It uses the same animation as Wallace & Gromit. I don’t even watch it for the language as there are no words! After watching Timmy Tijd I switch over to Comedy Central for episodes of Sam Sam, Het Zoonetje in Huis, and Kees & Co – all Dutch comedy shows.

But I noticed this morning that the show after Timmy Tijd was something different – a show by the name of Kleine Klaas. The description reads:

Deze oude, wijze man die elk jaar op 5 december cadeautjes uitdeelt, was ooit natuurlijk een kleine jongen. This wise, old man who gives out gifts every year on December 5 was also of course once a small boy.

Van wie heeft hij eigenlijk die stoomboot gekregen? Waarom kan hij zo goed gedichten schrijven? En waarom stopt hij zomaar cadeautjes in je schoen? Kortom, hoe werd hij Sinterklaas? Je ontdekt het door het kijken van deze leuke filmpjes. Who did he actually receive the steamboat from? Why can he write such good poems? And why does he put gifts in your shoe? How did he become Sinterklaas? You can discover this by looking at these fun videos.

Sinterklaas arrives in the Netherlands on November 17 this year (usually he arrives on a Saturday). There will be a parade in The Hague. And of course he does not arrive alone – Zwarte Piet (black Pete) comes along as well. This year the discussions of racism seem to have intensified, with even the United Nations briefly involved before retreating and dropping the case. The controversy with the character is that the actor uses “black face” as decoration, although this is used regardless of your skin tone.

Of course, Sinterklaas (celebrated on December 5) is not the same as Santa Clause (celebrated on December 25 in America and other countries). Sinterklaas leaves gifts in your shoe and is real in a child’s mind. Santa Clause is not celebrated as such in the Netherlands – the gifts you get on December 25 (and 26!) are known to be from your parents. The idea of Santa Clause actually originated from Sinterklaas – which I found a bit odd as an American!

Categories: Holidays | Tags: Christmas, Sinterklaas | 3 Comments