Author Archives: Niki

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About Niki

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

Fun in the sun (Or: Eating on the terrace)

On Sunday Marco and I spontaneously booked a reservation for FOAM restaurant here in The Hague. That’s the same restaurant where we get FOAM at home meals on Fridays. I had resisted making an appointment earlier in the week as it was forecasted to rain, but the sun was out in full force Sunday morning so I said we should give it a try. We got a seat on the terrace outside at the front of the restaurant. (Here in the Netherlands you are currently only allowed to eat outside on a restaurant terrace, not inside the restaurant.)

Of course even with beautiful blue skies we managed to get a short burst of rain twice. We looked up and realized there was a tiny grey cloud amidst a sea of blue and white. It was pretty strange. Luckily everything was dry again after a few minutes.

I just loved the ‘this table is reserved’ spoon so I had to take a picture of that:

I decided to have a flatbread with white bean hummus, parsley pesto, red cabbage, eggplant and more. Here is a look before I snapped up the last bite:

And Marco had a ‘no queso quesadilla’ with black beans, sweet potato and a spicy tomato jam:

I do think that might be the next thing I try on the lunch menu. The next time the sun decides to show itself!

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Plein 1813 (Or: A lovely view from tram 1)

Plein 1813 is a monument commemorating the victory over Napoleon (denhaag.com, in English) and the end of the French era in the Netherlands. It’s a beautiful monument, surrounded by seasonal flowers that are replanted throughout the year in different colors. Traffic flows around both sides of the monument, providing a lovely view if you are taking tram 1 to Scheveningen.

Here is how it looks from Google Maps:

You have to love the symmetry.

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Early morning shopping (Or: It still feels weird)

Early morning shopping was on the menu today. Early morning being in the city centre around 09:00, when shops were just opening and practically deserted. I didn’t go to any “popular” stores as that would be the epitome of silly. For example, here was the line at Primark around 09:30:

Note that this is a double line that starts on the left side, goes to the right, snakes down the side of the building and wraps back around to the entrance (the door directly in the picture is the exit in corona times). But it won’t be the first or last time I take a photo of the line outside of Primark. It is always crazy long.

I went to Blokker and Xenos – both were practically empty. I then went to Hema, which was a bit busy but doable. I did take a photo of the smartphone cases at Hema as I thought it was a cute display idea:

Those hands would also make for great models for drawing.

I did end up buying a few minor things – a few dish cloths, a new loofah, a spicy ginger tea and a small bag of jelly beans for Marco – but nothing too special. But still, it was weird to be back in “non-essential” stores again. Oh, and I randomly saw a coworker who I’ve spoken with once (!) in the last year. That was strange too. We had a short conversation in Dutch and then parted ways again.

Categories: Everyday purchases, Shopping, The Hague | Tags: , | Leave a comment

Navigational failures (Or: Scheveningen’s pier mistaken for the harbor)

A few days ago a German speaking man accidentally rammed his yacht into the pier at Scheningen. In the dead of night he accidentally mistook the brightly lit pier for the harbor. Opps? The ship is most likely total loss. When he rammed into the pier it also knocked over some of the fencing above. Oh, and he is responsible for getting it towed.

And in other news:

Happy Friday, everyone.

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Orange, orange, orange (Or: Cheese and nuts for King’s Day)

Over the weekend the intercom unexpectedly buzzed. It turned out to be a surprise package from work. Inside were gifts to celebrate King’s Day with.

Think of things like a toxically orange lei (you can just see it hidden behind the orange ballons), nuts, cheese blocks, Valencian orange tonic water, and a game of tic tac toe with wooden blocks. Oh, and an elderberry syrup mixture to stir into your water.

The two drinks were Aperol Spritz, an Italian drink (aperol, sparkling water and prosecco). They actually weren’t part of the package. I still had leftover aperol spritz from last year when I celebrated King’s Day with my coworkers! Virtually, of course. Luckily the bottle is now empty. It’s an okay drink… once a year?

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Way more people than usual (Or: Even Google can’t handle it)

Today was the first day of relaxations for corona measures. Think of things like:

  • The curfew has been lifted.
  • Restaurant terraces are allowed to open from 12:00-18:00 daily.
  • Appointments are no longer required for shopping at non-essential stores.

Some stores (especially Ikea and Primark) have been bombed with an influx of clients due to the restrictions being lifted today. Primark is a discount clothing store – it is quite easy to find a T-shirt there for €2-3.

Enter Google trying to tell you exactly how busy it was by the Ikea in Delft (screenshot was around lunchtime):

Check out that red bar on the left. It can’t even fit on the graph. I checked 10 minutes before they closed and it still looked like that, although it didn’t dip quite as far below the graph. But that could be because they were closing in 10 minutes…

Categories: Everyday purchases, Shopping | Tags: , | Leave a comment

King’s Day 2021 (Or: A sea of orange)

When Marco and I took a walk this afternoon we spotted these flowers by the Hofvijver (English Wikipedia):

Fitting, since today is King’s Day (also Wikipedia), a Dutch national holiday.

Who else remembers that Koningsdag (=King’s Day) was called Woningsdag last year? Woning = home, so it was a play on King’s Day reminding people to celebrate from home due to the pandemic.

Categories: Culture, Holidays, The Hague | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

Beautiful flowers (Or: Here’s hoping they last)

Marco received a surprise bouquet of flowers this afternoon from work. He and others from his group were recognized for the work they had done on a big project which is wrapping up.

Marco and I were pretty lucky. We actually threw out our few remaining vases late last year, planning to replace them at some point. Of course we never got around to it. (Neither of us really have a green thumb so we don’t usually have flowers around. I’ll be happy if it survives the week!) After some pondering, I noticed we had an empty lemonade dispenser with a tap (this one, from xenos.nl), so I quickly rinsed it out and used that. And it works perfectly! And it looks a bit cute if I say so myself.

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Books and coffee (Or: 5 months later)

More than 5 months after the Netherlands went into a lockdown in mid-December (government.nl, in English) I was finally able to return the two books that I still had on my account when the lockdown was suddenly announced. Well, perhaps I can’t describe it as sudden – you felt it coming as the shopping crowds just kept building after Black Friday. (Yes, the Netherlands celebrates that as a shopping holiday now as well.)

At the end of November and the first two weeks of December I started to return each book as soon as I finished it, just in case. That left only two books that I wasn’t done with yet. One was Stephen King’s The Outsider in English and the other was a Japanese novel translated into Dutch, Nakano’s handel in oude rommel (=The Nakano Thrift Shop). Since Monday, 19 April patrons have been allowed to return library books at any library in The Hague, 12:00-17:00 Monday through Saturday (link in Dutch). Patrons also have the option of requesting a bag of five books in a specific genre (this option has been available for the last few months).

Speaking of books: Prominent Dutch authors to reopen country’s bookstores on April 28 from nltimes.nl. There will be at least one author present in each province.

Starbucks in the city centre, waiting in line

Random photo above from the interior of the Starbucks in The Hague city centre. I haven’t had Starbucks in a few years, but on a whim Marco and I decided to grab a drink. I went for a vanilla Frappuccino. That was also on a whim; I spent most of my time in line thinking I was going for a caramel Frappuccino. Let me tell you: I don’t regret my change of heart. Or taste buds.

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Orange sugar (Or: King’s Day in the Netherlands)

King’s Day is next Tuesday which means a lovely day off. That’s about the only advantage these days, since the usual King’s Night parties (the evening before) and the King’s Day market can’t take place this year due to the pandemic. But who am I kidding? I probably haven’t gone to a King’s Night party in the last 5 years (back when it used to be Queen’s Night, before she abdicated and gave the throne to her son).

It also means you see a lot of toxic orange baked goods at the grocery stores.

On the left in the back you have soesjes (profiterole according to the English Wikipedia). Those are pastries filled with cream. In the middle you have tompouce, which is just called tompouce over at the English Wikipedia because it is a Dutch/Belgium pastry. My sweet tooth doesn’t usually show itself so I don’t eat this kind of stuff that often anymore. The best tompouce I ever had was from Hema with a lime flavor, putting it a bit more on the sour spectrum than the sweet spectrum. But tompouces are tricky to eat, more like overstuffed hamburgers. If you bite wrong the cream in the middle squirts out in the back.

On the right you have a schnitte. I had no idea what this was. I told Marco and Roger this and they looked at me a bit incredulously. Apparently its a two or three layer cake with whipped cream between the layers, or sometimes jam. Marco said that Viennetta ice cream (English Wikipedia) could also be an example of an ice cream schnitte.

Viennetta was actually a possibility last week for celebrating my birthday, but we went for cheesecake instead. I will always consider Viennetta a luxury, since that is how I viewed it as a kid. With the commercial where the group would enjoy the ice cream in clear, tall glasses (obligatory YouTube link)…

Categories: Culture, Food, Holidays | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

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