Author Archives: Niki

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About Niki

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

New toys (Or: A flood of widgets)

Posted on July 17, 2012 by Niki

The title of this blog post is sort of a play on words, since it deals with flooding at the Centraal Station in the Hague, but also some new widget options that WordPress is offering.

First off, Marco sent me a link to a video of the flooding at the Centraal Station. It’s a short 15 second clip. Basically, they have been renovating this station for about two years — it was a mess the last time I was there. They removed the roof this weekend to continue their refurbishing, but forgot that they were in the Netherlands.

There was heavy rain over the weekend. And a building without a roof. Eek. Thankfully it’s mostly concrete floors.

Second, I was pleased to see that WordPress has added some new widgets. Inclding one that I have already implemented called “Blogs I Follow”. You can show a list/grid of images of the most recent blogs you followed.

Things I noticed:

1.) Since it is ordered the most recent blog you followed first, it makes more sense to keep the number low (depending on how many blogs you follow every day and how often old blogs drop off the list). I would much prefer if this was a random list so that refreshing the page would show new blogs. I was really looking forward to going to my favorite blogs and hitting refresh a lot…

2.) It seems to bleed into my Milestone widget (the 5 months countdown). But I will leave it be for now and see if anyone else notices.

3.) It’s prettier than I expected, and the images are slightly larger than I expected as well.

There are more widgets mentioned so go take a peek!

 

Categories: The Hague | Tags: | Leave a comment

To the Netherlands! (Or: Immigration forms and apostilles)

Posted on July 16, 2012 by Niki

So I have made progress since posting the previous blog post about forms and apostilles, specifically for birth certificates and “certificate of single status” (i.e. I am not currently married).

Here is what the “Application Residence Permit without MVV or change of purpose or stay” has to say:

Any official foreign documents about persons that are required for the
application must have been legalised or provided with an Apostille
stamp by the competent authorities of the issuing country. This may
relate to documents such as birth certificates, certificates of unmarried
status (not older than 6 months), marriage certificates, and court decisions regarding adoption and guardianship.

[Note: Some countries require the MVV first, but it is not required of United States citizens.]

Here is what I learned for my situation (for birth certificates and the certificate of single status, both documents with apostilles):

Continue reading →

Categories: Forms, etc. | Tags: , | 14 Comments

Sundays (Or: The start of another week)

Posted on July 15, 2012 by Niki

Random: Trying to cross a four lane highway when the stoplights were not working properly (the main highway gets a flashing yellow light to be cautious, and the road I was on had a full red for you to come to a complete stop). It’s not that hard when you’re in a car, because you can move quickly… but when you’re on foot, it all but requires you sprint across. Which I eventually did, after finding a sufficient gap in traffic.

Nice: Reading page four/five of Het Geheim van de Verliefde Hulpkok with Marco during a videochat session. (I am on page 8 or so myself… need to get cracking to stay ahead.)

To do: Get back on track with the Dutchgrammar.com lessons. I have finished the other “Other Conjugations” section, and will soon be moving into the “Irregular Verbs” section. Oh boy!

Blog posts that I found interesting:

Ice cube coffee, by Trpana… Cool idea for a hot summer day (ice cubes made of coffee).

Dutch cats in Amsterdam, by Katriniella… That first cat definitely looks like he owns the place!

Categories: Learning Dutch | Tags: | Leave a comment

De Bogaard fountain (Or: Closed for cleaning)

Posted on July 14, 2012 by Niki

Perhaps someone in charge over at Rijswijk read my last post about the fountain being… well, erm… groen (green) and realized a cleaning might be in order.

Dive in…

We shall see. If it holds true to form, it will be back to green within 48 hours of being refilled anyway.

I fear that I will have to zero out my ‘studying Dutch for # straight days‘ counter, as I didn’t officially do anything yesterday. (Well, besides listen to Gers Pardoel and Lange Frans a fair amount.) But the Dutch reading sessions with Marco are going strong, with one on Wednesday, a short one on Thursday, and another scheduled tomorrow.

* * * * *

Just looked up after watching the end of a Mets game and saw the box score. Apparently they have a player with a last name of Nieuwenhuis (~new house) though he was born in California. Interesting.

 

Categories: Rijswijk | 2 Comments

Friday movies (Or: Tornadoes and transitions)

Posted on July 13, 2012 by Niki

So tonight I was happy to find that the movie Twister was on TBS. A perfect movie to relax to on a Friday night. All I can think about when watching this movie is my time as an undergraduate college student: it would rile up the meteorology students so much if you even mentioned this movie, due to it being so inaccurate. (I just remember them talking about exactly what happens to your body if you are inside a F5 tornado, tied down or not…)

Continue reading →

Categories: Moving | Tags: , | 4 Comments

Black dogs (Or: A ‘fraidy cat)

Posted on July 12, 2012 by Niki

One of my landlord’s older kids (in his 20s) purchased a dog named Smokey for his birthday back in November or so. Lately they have been letting the dog outside more to let him run around, which means that sometimes he is at the gate to greet me when I come home. This works out nicely since the entrance to my place is right near the gate.

It feels like just last month, he wasn’t tall enough to get his head over the gate. It barely came over…

At this point the poor dog realized iTouches are scary things. He wouldn’t come close after this picture. Boo! Hopefully I haven’t scarred him for life. I would miss my little greetings when I come back home.

This dog is so cute. Not that it means I want a dog of my own. This way I get all of the loving with none of the responsibility.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: | 6 Comments

Translations (Or: Facebook and Dutch statuses)

Posted on July 11, 2012 by Niki

Over the last few days, it seems I have found another benefit to reading Dutch – suddenly I find that I can translate (most) Facebook status updates to some degree. I have a handful of Marco’s relatives on my friends list, so the amount of Dutch on my Facebook page is slowly creeping up.

Previously I found it a bit hard to log into Facebook and see lots of Dutch, as it just reminded me that I was moving in 7-8 months and still hadn’t gotten as far with the language as I wanted. I first started staring at Dutch books about two years ago, after Marco gave me some Dutch instructional texts. When you do not know the language, it is like staring into an unforgiving wall. Good luck.

The last few days have been a lot better, however. Yesterday was the first day where I was able to translate a decent-sized update completely by myself (and then doublecheck it, of course!) And that begs the question: how long has Facebook had a built-in translate option, anyway?

Of course, I can’t tell you what each and every word means yet, but I get the overall concept behind the sentences. It’s somewhere around picking out the important words, plus understanding some of the prepositions. That’s what gets me through!

Categories: Learning Dutch, Reading | Tags: | 3 Comments

Note taking (Or: Deciphering Dutch verbs

Posted on July 10, 2012 by Niki

Here are some of the notes I took last night for the daily Dutch lesson. This page was talking about gerunds (verbs acting as nouns). In English this is generally verbs that act like nouns and end in –ing (the singing was horrible).

The “issue” with Dutch is they use the infinitive in this case (to sing), so it still looks like a verb. At least to me. 😉 But at least I know what to look for when I am trying to translate items.

Note taking at its finest…

The rest of the page is actually a summary of all verb types learned in that particular section. The thing that I remember most about the imperative (commands) section is that the English phrase “Let’s” (Let us…) is actually “Let we…” in Dutch. Laten we zingen. Let’s sing. (Rather than Laten ons zingen).

I generally transcribe most of what dutchgrammar.com says for each section; I don’t leave out much. That is because I tend to learn best by writing it out myself, rather than constantly referring back to the original source. But each person is different!

Categories: Learning Dutch | Tags: | 2 Comments

Odd photo (Or: Busted gas station sign)

Posted on July 9, 2012 by Niki

Sunday morning I went to Shoprite to pick up some necessary supplies. I returned sweating and pretty tired. Silly heat!

But on the way, I came across an odd sight:

I really have no idea what ran into this sign, as I couldn’t find any news piece about it. However, I did find it interesting that the top of the pole was bent slightly to the right. Perhaps something came and hit the top of the sign but did not manage to damage the bottom of the pole that much.

To me it kind of looks like someone put a small bomb inside the sign and set it off.

Number of days (straight) I have studied Dutch: 9. Time flies when you’re having fun!

I did find out that the Internet Polygot app (Apple | Android) does have a small quirk: there are lessons available to learn vocabulary, like dieren (animals). However, only the lessons that you have opened previously while you had an active Internet connection will work if you find yourself without an Internet connection. So I spent a few minutes opening up all of the lessons to make sure I have access to all of them later on, since I use an iTouch. (Note: after re-reading the app’s page, I do see that they mentioned this.)

Categories: Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Unexpected surprises (Or: Dutch kids’ books)

Posted on July 8, 2012 by Niki

A few pages into the aforementioned Dutch children’s book, I was reading along and found something slightly unexpected, at least for a kid’s book. Look at the first paragraph. Two bullies (having been thwarted by the victim’s older brother) jump on their bikes and bike away. Once they get a safe distance away, they turn around and give their retort.

Basically their response is Vuile hufter! (dirty bastard!). And then it says terwijl ze hun middelvinger opsteken. … (while they raised their middle fingers.) They then go on to talk about the kid’s dirty filthy clothes.

A bit unexpected for a book written for 10 year olds (or so). Though I realized a while ago that Americans tend to be a bit more… reserved in some instances. It was interesting to work at the public library shortly after And Tango Makes Three was published. This book is about two male penguins who seemed to have a relationship, and exhibited nesting tendencies. Eventually they were given an egg to “mother” and they did a great job of it. (Of course, penguins tend to have different sexual habits, and eventually they “broke up” when one of them doted on a female penguin.)

Someone in town complained about the book being in the picture book section, so all copies were moved to the parenting section. Though I can understand this – parents like to let the children roam and pick out what they want to read. Unknowingly bringing that book home could lead to some awkward discussions before the parent wants to bring them up.

But in the Dutch book – it’s not the only example of “real world” actions of kids that age. On page 1 the older sister was admonishing her brother to keep up when he whined he couldn’t get up the hill*: “niet lullen maar fietsen!’ which is basically “less bs’ing, more biking!”.

* = must have been man-made, since I haven’t seen any hills yet!

But hey, at least it makes the book more interesting to read. I am just used to children’s books being slightly more censored. I was reading a lot of them between 2006-2007 for the library job so I don’t think I am THAT out of touch.

Categories: Culture, Learning Dutch, Reading | Tags: | 9 Comments

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