Autumn arrived at the end of September, bringing a lot of rain and cold with it. If you are not paying attention, you will get caught in a sudden downpour that soaks you and then dissipates within 10 minutes. Marco and I also still need to try the yearly traditional of oliebollen, as I mentioned in a previous blog post. Soon!
At least the weather looks a bit drier this week, even if the warmth of summer is gone.
First, here is a photo of a statue on the side of the building. I know it is somewhere in the city centre, and somewhere in the Chinatown part of the city, but I can’t quite make out the street name on the photo. Nevertheless, it is an interesting piece of art:
And here is a fountain near the main entrance of Vondelpark:
Unfortunately this weekend trip we took already feels like it was a few months ago, even though it was only last month. Oh well – on to the next trip!
Last year it was a huge decision to let the oliebollen stands open a month earlier, on 1 October, due to missed income (no festivals were being held, etc.). This year they also opened a month earlier, from yesterday. But this was more of a surprise as it wasn’t splashed everywhere on the news. The stands are usually allowed to be open between 1 November and mid-to-late January as oliebollen is a treat for Christmas and New Years.
But it is good news to see that the stand is back in the city centre, at the end of the Grote Markt shopping street (across from the public library). And perhaps they will be allowed to stay here; they moved to this spot some years back due to the construction around the Amare building. But construction of the Amare building is complete (previous blog post) so that is a good sign for the oliebollen stand.
In case you have no clue what oliebollen are, here is the page on English Wikipedia. Just try and read that without drooling.
Last week I received a surprise box of sweets from my office:
The box was put together by a company called Daniëlle kookt & zo (roughly translated as Daniëlle cooks and etc). One of their specialities is filled letters and numbers, each filled with either sweet or savory treats.
Mine is filled with brownies, macaroons, fudge, mini cookies, meringue and more. Delicious!
This gift is to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of our office opening in The Hague, as well as the reopening of the office on 20 September. Since March 2020 the office was closed; before you travelled to the office you needed to secure permission. Since last week the office is open Monday through Thursday and closed on Fridays for cleaning. We are using hot desking and have a desk reservation system to ensure that social distancing is adhered to. (Although today is also the day that the 1.5 meters rule is abolished in most places; in exchange you need to show your coronapas (corona pass) if you want to sit inside a restaurant or go to the movies, etc. Read more at dutchnews.nl in English.)
At the moment going back to the office is optional. Personally I plan on going back later in the year. Next year, in the new form of hybrid working, each department can determine how often its workers need to be in the office. The department I work has asked for us to be in the office at least 4 days a month, but which days those are are determined by each team and the individual worker. My employer has been very lenient in that regard.
I do miss the commute so I do plan on going in more often than the minimum requirement. Although there is something to be said for the quick commute from the bed to the desk…
When Marco and I arrived this weekend in Amsterdam, we decided to have coffee and lunch at a Bagels & Beans not far from the hotel. The location was on the river IJ, which meant beautiful views.
The empty seat in the photo would soon be filled by a father and his young daughter, though they hadn’t arrived yet. She was super cute (although at the age where she knew exactly what she wanted and wasn’t afraid to say it). One of things she wanted to do was blow bubbles in her juice, no matter what her father said. Unfortunately that fun stopped when she accidentally knocked the glass on the ground, shattering it. She was fine, not even crying, but she definitely quieted down after that.
On the way to Bagels & Beans we saw a plane flying past in the distance. Imagine my surprise when I saw the message:
“Stop the Corona hoax!”. Crazy. I suspect this is quite normal for Amsterdam, though. Maybe The Hague would have the same, but planes don’t fly over due to the government buildings.
On Saturday we visited Vondelpark (English Wikipedia). I had never been there, knowing it only as the park that was frequently closed during the corona crisis due to it being way too busy. It was definitely busy on the day we went, although there was enough room for everyone.
(Of course I found the greenest, most landscape-y part of the park to take a photo.)
Marco and I celebrated our wedding anniversary over the weekend. We booked two nights at the hotel Jakarta in Amsterdam:
It is a lovely 4 star hotel a few kilometers from Central Station. It is walkable, although after the initial walk we decided to take tram 26 back and forth (2 stops). As you can tell, most rooms had a balcony, which was definitely one of the highlights for me. I sunned outside for almost an hour the first day. Even the floor was nice and warm. It turned out to be a good choice, since there was definitely less sun on the second day.
In the distance you can see the Jan Schaeferbrug (bridge). It has quite an interesting design. You can read about it over on Wikipedia in Dutch (link). It has stairs on either side of the bridge and either side of the river, and a sloped ramp for pedestrians and cyclists on 3 out of the 4 sides. The 4th side doesn’t have a ramp, only stairs, since the construction literally goes through an old monument building, the Pakhuis de Zwijger (Dutch Wikipedia). You can also see more photos at bruggenvanamsterdam.nl (Bridges of Amsterdam).
Here is the bridge at night. The photo credit goes to Marco. His night photos are always better than mine! Although the photo makes the lighting look even more gorgeous than it was in real life.
After a long workday (one more day until the weekend!) I logged off around 17:00, glad to close the computer and rest my brain for a bit. Turns out it could be worse: there are no trains running at the moment in the country. There is a disruption with the train communication system. That means traffic controllers can’t speak with the conductors. This is deemed a safety risk so all trains have been stopped.
The crazy thing is that this is not the first time this happened this year. It also happened back in May (also nltimes.nl in English). It makes me glad that I don’t need to grab the train today – good luck to everyone who does!
Marco, Roger and I decided to have lunch by Little V over the weekend. Little V is a Vietnamese restaurant in The Hague’s city centre. Thanks to corona we’ve only had takeout once, a temporary option they put in place when restaurants were forced to close last year. I forgot how much I missed the food!
Little V is well known for their cocktails, both alcohol and, in this case, non-alcoholic. Marco had a “spiced lemon and rose”, a spicy lemonade with rose petals, red peppers and spices. Roger had a “ginger breeze”, with fresh ginger, lychee juice and jasmine tea. I had a “Little T Mix”, a mix of ginger, lemongrass and jasmine tea. Yum.
Some of our appetizers were fish cakes (on the left) and chicken spring rolls (on the right). We were pleasantly surprised that even though the menu says that some items are two pieces, you can ask for three. No sharing necessary!
And our lunches (which sort of replaced our dinners as well). I had a delicious, delicious, delicious bánh mì sandwich with chicken. It was spicy, packed with red peppers, but also sour, packed with pickled vegetables. It really hit the spot – I am a huge fan of spicy sourness. The Vietnamese bread itself was also perfect. As usual, my only alternation was removing some of the coriander stems (but keeping the coriander leaves themselves).
Roger’s dish on the left was Bun Bo Xao, with beef tenderloin, while Marco had Bun Heo, with roasted pork belly. Both also received rave reviews from the boys.
I am drooling a bit thinking about the next time I can order that sandwich again. Good stuff!
Imagine my surprise when the mascot at Albert Heijn (one of the local grocery stores) was staring at me creepily while I was choosing which sparkling water to purchase. I don’t know; maybe it was the wide open eyes staring back at me? Also slightly creepy is the very realistic pink nose with wrinkles..
But that will never top the satirical video that made fun of stockpiling (YouTube) last March at the height of the corona craziness. It used images from a movie, with the Albert Heijn jingle slowed down and creepy sounding on top of it. Twitch.
Dutch lesson: 2e gratis = second (item) free.
2 = twee, second = tweede, which frequently gets abbreviated to 2e.
