Author Archives: Niki

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About Niki

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

Weekends (Or: Flower filled Fridays)

Posted on July 20, 2012 by Niki

I would take a picture of the flowers outside of my NY apartment, but they have been scorched due to the heat and no longer resemble anything with vibrant color. (However, I feel like doing a cheer… it’s been over a month, but tonight the apartment is finally cooler than 80F/26C.)

So instead, here are some colorful pictures from Madurodam. It’s been a while since I showed any Madurodam photos!

The landscaping of Madurodam is its own reason to visit, in my mind.

Above, a typical kid doing the balance beam routine. It reminds me of the thing children liked to do when I was a kid: don’t step on a sidewalk crack, or you’ll break your grandmother’s back. I like to think I did this perfectly – as no harm ever came to her back.

Categories: The Hague | Tags: , | 3 Comments

Snow (Or: I wish)

Posted on July 19, 2012 by Niki

Maybe if I post a picture of snow, it will snow tomorrow. (Yes, Marco. I understand that in the winter I want summer and in the summer I want winter.)

You know you live in the  boondocks when there is only one train track for both directions… January 2012

Maybe this is what the train station will look like in December when we leave for the Netherlands!

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , | 2 Comments

More Dutch (Or: Order within irregular verbs)

Posted on July 18, 2012 by Niki

It seems that I have moved out of the “Other conjugations” section of dutchgrammar.com and into the irregular verbs section. Eek!

At first I was a bit concerned, since you are hit with a longgg list of irregular verbs which never seems to end. But then the following page showed the conjugation patterns, which helped to put things into like groups. So far I worked on two groups: e-ie-o and ie-oo-o.

It just goes on, and on, and…

The verb on the left is the infinitive (i.e. helpen = to help). The next column is for the singular past form, and the following columns (not shown) are for the plural past and the past participle. Those are the main things you need to memorize – single past, plural past, and past participle – since generally the present form is regular and there are only two forms in the simple past (singular and plural).

So basically, the past tense is the culprit. What dutchgrammar.com does is group like verbs together. So helpen, sterven, and werpen are in the same group: e – ie – o.

Infinitive: helpen, sterven, and werpen

Singular past: hielp, stierf*, and wierp

Plural past: hielpen, stierven, and wierpen

Past participle: geholpen, gestorven, and geworpen

* = in this form, v becomes f.

Next step – make flash cards for each group. But not tonight, so maybe this weekend.

Categories: Learning Dutch | Tags: | 11 Comments

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

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