Luckily Albert Heijn still sells my favorite Christmas cookies ever. These are dark chocolate butter cookies with red and green sprinkles on top. Plus they are nice and big, as the name suggests (Kerst kransen = Christmas wreaths). This year I think I bought 3 packages. A few years back I think I bought 5 or 6 in the end and was still eating them in May.
And here is a photo of some other Christmas cookies because I thought the idea was pretty smart. It is cookies of all difference sizes which you can stack to make it look like a Christmas tree. And then someone starts eating them 2 minutes later.
Looking at the picture on the right, I am not sure that I believe that the smallest cookie can be placed on its side to form a star. I feel like it would fall over right away. Maybe I should buy the cookies to test that theory… Hmmm.
Here are a few more Christmas trees for you. While at city hall Marco was able to snag this photo for me:
The Hague’s city hall is a really interesting building. It is nicknamed the ice palace because it is all white. Over on the official denhaag.com website there are a few pictures of the atrium if you want to see more.
And here is a photo of this year’s Christmas tree by Bijenkorf. Normally I take the photo from one of the higher levels, but this time I took the photo from the ground floor looking up. Note: the Christmas tree is hanging in the air, starting from the first floor – or the second floor for my American readers – so it is a bit tinier than the photo’s perspective may make you think. But it is fun to have a look each year and see what design they went with.
I decided to go to the Mall of the Netherlands yesterday (the Saturday right before Christmas), but at least I was smart enough to go right when they opened at 10:00. I also left around 13:00, around the time it was really starting to get busy.
Here are some of the Christmas-y photos I took. First, a photo of the Disney Christmas tree for my parents (although we don’t actually have a Disney store in the Netherlands):
Here was a photo of another Christmas tree, with less theming this time:
And here was a pretty cool decoration of a reindeer hanging in the air:
It was pretty festive all and all. And did I mention it was busy? The photos don’t do it justice, but I took those right after the mall opened. But I consider it a successful trip as I was able to get a few more small gifts.
The Manneken Pis statue has been all dressed up for the holidays in Brussels. The photo is courtesy of Roger who was in Brussels earlier in December.
The statue’s name is a reference to the fact that he is well, urinating into the fountain. And if you think that is a modern crude joke, I’m hear to tell you that the statue most likely dates from the 15th century and it’s current version was added in either 1618 or 1619 (Wikipedia). It does get stolen a lot though, so the current version on display at the fountain has been a replica since the 1960s. The original is stored in the Brussels city museum.
But at least he won’t catch a cold – he is wearing some clothes for once!
In the Zeeheldenkwartier (literally “Sea Heroes Quarter”) neighborhood they have set up a really nice looking Christmas tree. The color and pattern of the lights alternates often – some days it is all blue, some days it is blue and white, and some days it is red and white.
The tree stands in the middle of a larger rotunda with trams and cars whizzing past on either side. At least, during busier times of the day then what is captured above…
There are also a few stone sea turtles near the base of the tree which you can just barely make out. Here is a previous post I did about the turtles.
Something interesting that I spotted in the Amazing Oriental on the Grote Marktstraat – a hot snack machine. The machine is sometimes called an automatiek (English Wikipedia).
For the moment the only option looks to be a bag of 10 mini spring rolls for €1.60. You can either pay with coins – exact change only – or with your debit card. Here’s hoping they start offering a bit more variety!
Today (December 3) is the Netherlands’ first day of snow. We won’t get a lot – somewhere between a good dusting to about an inch. It’ll probably disappear tomorrow as there is rain predicted tomorrow. Still, it does make for a white world, especially outside of the city. Although the snow didn’t start until after the sun went down so I don’t have any good photos this time around.
Here’s another photo of the Christmas decorations in De Passage lit up:
And here are a few articles I thought were interesting reads in the last week:
‘How do you reduce a national dish to a powder?’: the weird, secretive world of crisp flavours from theguardian.com. I thought it was a great read, although it doesn’t have that much to do with the Netherlands. But there is one reference: “Once the computers have done their job, the data makes its way to Wood. If she’s lucky, she can repurpose an existing flavour. In 2010, Lay’s launched Patatje Joppie in the Netherlands because of the nation’s love of Joppiesaus, a curried mayonnaise. Wood says the same flavour exists as Honey Mustard in other parts of the world. ‘We can play with the naming, because what you call something has a really big bearing on what people think it is.'” Admittedly, I have never tried that particularly flavor. It’s still going strong, though. Oh, and they say Germany loves the paprika (bell pepper) flavor. I am here to tell you that the Netherlands loves it just as much.
Another article I liked was over at Omroep West, although it’s in Dutch so Google Translate is your friend here. It talks about all of the weird, silly things that happened at voting locations in The Hague during the national elections a few weeks ago: Stempas van overleden vrouw en bijdehante fotograaf, gekke dingen tijdens verkiezingen in Den Haag, or, Voting ballot from deceased woman and wisecracking photographer, crazy occurrences during the elections in The Hague.
The Christmas tree in De Passage has arrived! As always, its home is at the center of De Passage (the old part of the shopping area, at least) since that part forms a sort of Y. You can thus see the tree from everywhere in De Passage.
And here is a close up of the decorations for this year:
Marco and I just got back from a trip to London for a week. We had a blast! While I visited London back in 2010, that was only for a day and a half so I didn’t remember much.
Here are some of the photos I took over the last week:
Above: a display at the British Museum. As you can tell, I am a fan of blue things.
Above: Westminster Abbey
Trafalgar square includes an area with four lions. You can read more about the square and lions at visitlondon.com. I took this photo because I was way too amused by the warning in the foreground…
Above: Big Ben. I am charmed by the statue in front.
Above: London Eye ferris wheel, from a distance. Apparently it takes 30 minutes for one full revolution.
All in all, it was a lovely trip. And I didn’t even show any of the awesome food we ate…
(If you came across this blog post after a Google search and you need help with this puzzle, skip to the end of this post.)
Marco gave me a puzzle for Christmas—it might have been Christmas 2021, even!—that has proven challenging to say the least. I worked on it for months, off and on. This puzzle was one of the main reasons I bought a pair of reading glasses. A lot of pieces look like each other. Even though you can see two shades of brown below, if you put the pieces next to each other it was hard to tell what shade it was. It reminded me of the dress color controversy (Wikipedia).
As you can see, it doesn’t even fit in my Portapuzzle (see also bol.com) because it is much wider than it is tall. The puzzle measures 35 by 13 inches (89 by 33 cm). The official store where you can buy it is at Noble Collection.
Here’s a close up:
Along with the odd dimensions, another problem is that the puzzle doesn’t come with an extra piece of paper showing the puzzle at a larger size to help you put it together. It does come in a very awesome box, though. And don’t get me wrong. This was a great gift and definitely worth the money Marco spent.
Here are the two links I used to help me solve this puzzle:
Noble Collection’s UK website – if you click on the first box at the bottom of the page, you’ll see a close up of the puzzle. Click on it again to zoom it.
This Reddit image from user jnfranne. Note: click on the picture to zoom in further. This image was extremely helpful as you could see the lines of the puzzle pieces. It was also amusing to see that the puzzle I got was about 1mm off from that user’s – in my puzzle everything was a bit further to right. The image came from this post over at the Reddit “jigsawpuzzles” community.
Life in the Hague 
