Author Archives: Niki

About Niki

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

Mondays (Or: Surrounded by snow and DVDs)

Posted on January 14, 2013 by Niki

So, it started snowing today. Not a lot of course, but something:

Today was definitely a slower day. I went to Albert Heijn to pick up some grocery items. I did pretty good in terms of figuring out the language, even correctly figured out that the cashier was asking if I had an extra 20c piece (truthfully all I heard was ‘twintig’ and I guessed). I was thrown off a bit when she asked for my bonus card, as I did not think I picked up any bonus items or anything on discount. But when I looked over the receipt later I did see some savings, so it is probably best to just present it each time.

I wandered over to the library again but was thrown off by later opening hours on Mondays – the library does not open until 12PM. Marco explained that some stores or other establishments still have later opening hours on Mondays, but that practice goes back to when not many stores were even open on Sundays at all.

A few hours before Marco returned home from work I decided to take a crack at organizing his DVDs again. As he had moved around a lot of stuff in his apartment to make room for me and my items, his DVDs ended up being put back in rather jumbled order. Today I just worked on sorting his blue rays and his wrestling DVDs. I still have TV shows and DVD movies to go (whenever). Those tend to be the two largest sections.

Lastly Marco and I watched the 2009 Star Trek movie, the reboot of the original series. I never watched that TV show, although I understand most of the Kirk/Spock/etc jokes that have entered the culture. Growing up I generally watched Next Generation, Voyager, and DS9. But I never got into the last version, Star Trek Enterprise. Even if it did have Scott Bakula from Quantum Leap…

Categories: The Hague | Tags: Bikes, Weather, Winter | 4 Comments

Apps (Or: Dutch Words – Nederlandse Woorden)

Posted on January 13, 2013 by Niki

This app has been added to the Dutch Apps page.

Dutch Words – Nederlandse Woorden (by Tung Vu) (Apple)

This is a pretty interesting game which requires you to move around letters to find and make a Dutch word. It’s a newer app (Nov. 2012) and is consequently still a bit rough around the edges as it crashes occasionally. It is highly recommended that you read the instructions on the official Apple app website, because they are not repeated in the game itself.

You start with a mostly empty board, with six letters in random places.

Step 1: Tap a letter to select it (image 2).

Step 2: Tap a square to indicate where you want it to move to (image 2). Note: You can only move a letter to that square if there is a clear path for it to get there.

Step 3: Swipe a word to get it to disappear and gain points (image 1). The words can be left to right, right to left, up to down, or down to up.

Note also the magnifying glass – that is a Dutch-English dictionary that shows you the definition for the last legal Dutch word you played.

Also note the three letters at the top left (ATT, AXT). These are the three letters that will appear at the next turn in a random place. You can also press the reset button to reset the board.

As mentioned above, the game crashes occasionally, but not too often. You can leave the game and return to it by pressing the home button with no consequences (for example if you wanted to open a dictionary program which might give you some ideas of what words to look for).

Categories: Apps | Tags: Apps, Dutch language | Leave a comment

Saturdays (Or: Megastores and Warung Mini)

Posted on January 12, 2013 by Niki

Today was a pretty fun-filled Saturday, although I definitely started to drag by the end of it. At 1PM, Marco’s mother dropped by. All three of us went to Megastores in the Hague, which is a larger sized mall. As the temperature has been dropping a bit, it was nice to find that it was an indoor mall. Most of the stores in the mall are furniture stores, although you can also find Dutch staples like Hema, Kruidvat, and Xenos (a thrift store of sorts).

Kind of interesting – this mall uses flat escalators rather than step escalators. It’s a bit of a steeper incline, but otherwise it works.

The first store that we went to was Woon XL, which was an Ikea-like store. Complete with routes to follow (arrows on the floor), various room design displays, pencils to fill out your order card with, a back area to pick up larger items, and a cafeteria at the end. We picked up a nightstand and a medicine cabinet, although we have to figure out how to get the latter up on the bathroom wall.

A crazy looking, huge rug with stuffed animal-like objects stitched onto the top. Good luck finding anything if you drop it in this rug. Seriously… what were they thinking?

Afterwards, the three of us went to a few other stores to look at perspective washing machines and also to McDonald’s to split an order of chicken nuggets.

Just for mom – an from-afar look at an Aldi store (since my parents also have Aldi stores near Chicago where they live). You can even see the carts in the front, presumably also requiring a coin to release them. But I am not sure.

By then it was time to go home. As we walked up to the front entrance of our apartment, we spied Roger who had arrived just before us and was waiting in the foyer by the mailboxes. So the four of us went upstairs together.

Dinner was from Warung Mini, a Surinamese/Indonesian restaurant. I had Rijst kerrie lams groenten – which was a large container of lamb in curry sauce, with vegetables, and a large container of white rice. The lamb in curry sauce was so good – perfectly spiced (but not spicy). Dessert was a baked banana (bakabana).

Categories: Food, Shopping, The Hague | Tags: Malls | 3 Comments

Afspraken (Or: A visit to the IND)

Posted on January 11, 2013 by Niki

Today Marco and I went to our scheduled appointment (afspraak) with the IND to set up my VVR (permanent residency). This also included a meeting with the GBA (…Gemeentelijke Basisadministratie persoonsgegevens!), otherwise known as the department who keeps tabs on every single citizen of the Hague. You are required to register.

The appointment was at 9AM, so we left the apartment around 8AM and took tram 17 to the Statenplein tram stop. (The street we wanted was Stadhoudersplantsoen, 24. Yeah. Who needs to use the space bar.)

gemeente museum in the Hague, near our appointment building. (gemeente = municipality)

The appointment went rather smoothly – as mentioned, we first met with an official from the GBA and I turned over one of the official copies of my birth certificate (don’t worry mom – a long version, not the fragile original version!). Then we waited a few minutes for the IND appointment and got that sorted. I had my fingerprint taken digitally, which was interesting because the machine was rather finicky. Eventually they ended up just trying the index finger on my left hand instead of my right, and it worked a bit quicker.

Then my fingerprint was taken again at a different window, and then it was done. The VVR should arrive in 6 to 7 weeks. I hope!

Continue reading →

Categories: Forms, etc., The Hague | Tags: Expat, Graffiti, HEMA | 5 Comments

Welkom (Or: A visit to the Hague’s International Centre)

Posted on January 10, 2013 by Niki

Today I visited the International Centre in the Hague’s City Hall. It’s on the first floor, but if you use the main entrance (near the library entrance) it is clear on the other side of the building. Their main website is thehague.com.

Here are some images of the space:

I received an information booklet on the city hall and it stated that the city hall had been used in the film Ocean’s Twelve (in the movie it was the Europol headquarters).

I feel a bit far from “home” now (New York). Just kidding.

Here was the welcome package I received:

And the items inside:

Here is a list:

– flyer on what to do with household waste (garbage and recycling)

– information on the next upcoming information session and tour for new residents, February 18

– information on an organization called “The Hague Midtown”

– copy of a newspaper called The Local Expat

– thehagueonline.com winter 2012-2013 magazine (lists events)

– The International Correspondent magazine

– “Freebee Map” to Den Haag and Scheveningen

– promotion for “The Guest Card” with a free 1 year membership (discount, events type card)

– Expactia Expat Survival Guide, 2013

– healthcare brochure

– ‘The Hague thinks ahead’ disaster planning flyer

– Expat Events Calendar flyer (www.expatevents.com)

– Access brochure

– “City in One: The Expat Guide of the Hague”, 2013

– brochure on the city hall, with historical information

– bike path map

– guide to Scheveningen

– HTM bus, tram, and train map

– HTM guide on what to take to go shopping, to the beach, to the region, etc

– and an actual hardcover book, just under 200 pages. ‘Manners in the Netherlands’

Categories: Daily Dutch living, The Hague | Tags: Expat | Leave a comment

65 pages (Or: Example of “makkelijk lezen”)

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Niki

Today I went back to the Hague public library and decided to sit down and read one of the makkelijk lezen (easier reading) books. The series I picked up is called “Fast Lane” and the particular book I had was In Het Donker – In the Darkness. As you can see below, the format of the lines is definitely different than a regular book, with short lines that can’t even really be called paragraphs:

The book was about 65 pages long, but as you can see there wasn’t much text per page. Some of the pages were grouped with half a picture, and some of the pages were entirely a picture with no text. I managed to finish the entire book in about an hour and a half or so.

This particular book was rather formulaic in its vampire theme, but nonetheless I enjoyed reading it. I used the Google Translate app and the Dict Box app which has multiple dictionaries for NL-EN and EN-NL. You can also customize which dictionaries show up (I quickly removed the image dictionary as it was only for English words).

Categories: Apps, Reading | Tags: Books, Dutch language, Libraries | 5 Comments

Makkelijk lezen (Of: Bibliotheek Den Haag)

Posted on January 8, 2013 by Niki

Easier Reading (Or: The Hague Library)

So my latest adventure in the last two days was visiting the central library of the Hague. I went there yesterday with Marco’s mother as I had read that they had a Nederlands leren section on the fourth floor. (That’s really the 5th floor for us Americans.)

When we arrived on the fourth floor we found the taal section (languages / 800’s) section fairly easily. As Marco’s mother also likes to practice her English, we went to the Engels section first. Near the beginning of the English section we found some thin books which were about various classics (Treasure Island, Dickens, etc) or about certain themes. She took a book with five Canterbury Tales and a book on short ghost/scary stories.

After that we proceeded to the Dutch section, which was easily the largest section (probably 6 or 7 times the books that English had). But I found it rather frustrating to not be able to read the titles easily, and I also found it frustrating to have all the books mixed together and have academic (read: stuffy, hard to read books) on the Dutch language next to books about grammar. So eventually I gave up for the day and told her I would return tomorrow (that is today).

I returned to same place today on my own, but did not have much luck at all. As I was leaving, I took a bit of a detour and stopped to read the directional signs that were placed near the escalators. As I turned around, I realized that I had missed the Nederlands leren section completely, and really was in the wrong place. It’s right next to the escalators, near the windows. It’s quite possible I had found the section previously with Marco but just forgot about it, as I had not visited the library in a year and a half.

The Nederlands leren section does seem more my speed – they have a lot of course books, exam books (NT2, Kennis samenleving, etc) and of course fiction books to read. The fiction books included a LOT of picture books and etc for the basic level, but also thankfully some harder books that were a bit longer.

Apparently they are marked as “makkelijk lezen” or easier reading. So the theme is a bit more adult (sometimes) than the amount of pages would suggest.

Categories: Reading | Tags: Books, Dutch language, Libraries | Leave a comment

Dutch apps (Or: Words Maker Pro and 9292)

Posted on January 7, 2013 by Niki

Two new apps have been added to the Dutch page. I have my iPhone registered to the Dutch store, and my iTouch is still registered to American store, so hopefully this way I can find more Dutch games. (It’s not as easy as I had hoped!)

Dutch apps

Words Maker Pro (Apple)

This app is available in English, Dutch, German, French, and Spanish. You can either play against the computer in varying difficulty levels or you can play a multiplayer game if you and your friend have a game center account.

Initially you are given 25 letters, and from those letters you must make a word that is between 3 and 7 letters long. You drag each letter down from the playing board to the “rack” to make a word. On each round, you have two squares which are double letter and one square which is triple letter, for a higher score. The game ends when all 100 letters are used or when both players ‘pass’ on their turn.

This is a fun game to play if you are learning Dutch, as it really tests you to find words to play. The trick is to play it while also using a Dutch-English dictionary, so that you learn new vocabulary when the computer plays a word you do not know.

9292 (Apple | Android)

This public transportation app is all but essential if you don’t have a car in the Netherlands. It shows routes and times for the tram, train, bus, subway and ferry from point A to B. You can also create an account and save locations to your device so you don’t have to enter them each time.

Categories: Apps | Tags: Apps | 2 Comments

365 days of blog posts

Posted on January 6, 2013 by Niki

I started this blog back on January 7, 2012. I have written a blog post a day detailing various things – though not all of them were about the Netherlands or related to the Dutch. A lot of New York themed posts seemed to slip in as well…

Here are some of my more highly visited posts which are Dutch related:

1. With the highest amount of views: Dutch gourmetten (Or: An exercise in hungry patience)

2. Albert Heijn (Or: Glad I don’t need to ship yellow mustard in)

3. Browsing (Or: European and American shoe sized compared)

4. Speculoos (Or: Chopped Grill Masters)

5. Colonization (Or: Dutch is the best choice!)

6. Streets (Or: Wandering through the Hague)

7. Dutch televisie (Or: Soaking up some Dutch)

And I will leave you with a picture of a freshly baked stroopwafel:

Note. I will no longer post every day. Probably. Maybe. ;p

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Stroopwafels | 2 Comments

19th day (Or: Hot chocolate and birthdays)

Posted on January 5, 2013 by Niki

Last night Marco and I made hot chocolate. But not just ANY hot chocolate, nope! Friday night hot chocolate!

First off, you have the cup, an awesome little Christmas present. Inside the drink is hot chocolate (of course), Bailey’s liquor, a large marshmallow torn into small bits, and a peppermint candy cane for flavorful stirring. On the side you have a stroopwafel (sorry to make you drool, Mom). And then an awesome little ceramic spoon on the side.

Yummm.

Speaking of Mom, today is her birthday.

Happy birthday, Mom!

Categories: Marco&Niki | Tags: Birthdays | 1 Comment