Author Archives: Niki

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About Niki

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

A Christmas ritual (Or: The viewing of Christmas Vacation)

Posted on December 24, 2020 by Niki

Marco and I just finished watching National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (Wikipedia). It is something we do every year, along with A Christmas Story (Wikipedia). You don’t mess with success like that. Luckily Marco was okay with marrying into this ritual. Admittedly, he already had the DVD box set (Vacation, European vacation, Christmas vacation and Vegas vacation).

I love going through the flyers placed into old DVDs like this. Most of the flyers here were about piracy, although there was one flyer listing all of the trailers coming out around the time this DVD set did.

Here are two of the flyers about piracy:

The one on the right talks about how they cried when they saw the poor quality of the bootleg DVD they bought (not really even talking about streaming yet! – just the purchase of a bootleg copy). The one on the left reminds people that bootleg DVDs are usually filmed in the back of the cinema, featuring obscured footage and muffled sound. So yeah, I keep the flyers to be amused year after year.

In other news: if you have some knowledge of Dutch (and are okay with subtitles in The Hague dialect), you should check out this video from two HTM workers sung to the tune of “Oh Oh Den Haag”, talking about how much the workers miss seeing everyone. HTM is The Hague’s public transportation company and as you might expect patronage has dropped drastically this year. As expected, HTM also wishes everyone happy holidays and a happy new year, with good health, love and happiness. Oh, and there is a bit of fake snow…

Ho Ho Den Haag – YouTube

On that note – Enjoy your Christmas Eve.

Categories: Holidays, Transportation | Tags: , | Leave a comment

Chocolate mania (Or: Bonbons by Simon Levelt)

Posted on December 23, 2020 by Niki

Anyone up for some chocolate?

These were the bonbons on offer at Simon Lévelt in De Passage a few weeks back. Saturday, December 12 to be precise, before the lockdown rumors started. I had to stand in line; the store is quite small so only five customers are allowed in at a time. And of course the two people in front of me were a couple who wanted to go in together, probably to look at gifts. They were allowed in but they had to stay in the front of the store, not by the registers.

And why was I there? Lebkoeken!! (English Wikipedia). German Christmas cookies. I had to get them there, considering the Royal Christmas Fair was closed this year…

The store worker managing the line asked what I was looking for. She was able to point me to the display so I didn’t have to wander around looking for them. The line outside the store was only getting longer at that point so it was probably for the best. (Note: Simon Lévelt is open as normal. Since they sell primarily tea, coffee and chocolate they are an essential business.)

Categories: Everyday purchases | Tags: | Leave a comment

Lange Poten on a Friday morning (Or: Lockdown edition)

Posted on December 22, 2020 by Niki

Last Friday I took a photo of the Lange Poten street during lockdown:

As you can see it was pretty quiet. I believe the only store open on this street was Kruidvat, a pharmacy/general store (for those Americans among us, think Walgreens).

If you know a bit of Dutch, check out this YouTube video entitled: “#HoujeHaags – Have a Royal Winter“, about how Haagenaars (people from The Hague) have kept strong during 2020.

Christmas card boom, as PostNL processes 14 million cards a day from dutchnews.nl. On a normal day they process about 7 million cards. Crazy! I would like to think I helped out a bit with that surge.

Dutch scientists help find way to predict serious coronavirus cases, also from dutchnews.nl.

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

Lost chances (Or: Coupon for Restaurant SET in The Hague)

Posted on December 21, 2020 by Niki

Back when the first wave started in the spring, Marco, Roger and I ordered bento box take out from Restaurant SET here in The Hague. It was yummmmmy. We received two €10 coupons for use later in 2020:

It was an unexpected surprise! The coupons are valid for dine-in (everything except High Tea) through 31 December 2020.

Hmph. 31 December 2020? Opps. I guess we waited a bit too long there, since restaurants aren’t allowed to be open for dine-in at the moment. Regardless, the branches in The Hague and Rotterdam are completely closed anyway, with a potential date of reopening set for 19 January, if the lockdown ends on that date as scheduled.

Here is a look at the ice cream I ordered last year for my birthday:

Tell me you don’t think that is the cutest thing ever.

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

Library services during the lockdown (Or: Delivery and pickup)

Posted on December 20, 2020 by Niki

The Hague’s library system has limited options for alternative service during the lockdown which will last until (at least) 19 January.

Patrons who are aged 70 or older can request a one-off delivery of up to 6 chosen titles (including up to 1 DVD). The books will come from the Central Library and the patron can also request a genre instead of specific titles or write ‘no preference’ in the title field. There is a message in fine print saying the library understands that filling out a form online is not always the easiest thing for this age group to do, but they hope that relatives might be able to help out with filling in the form.

All library patrons can fill out a form to request a bag of 5 books. In this case it is based on genre, not specific titles. Perhaps you might find an unexpectedly awesome book this way. The patron can then pick up the bag at one of the neighborhood libraries (but not at the Central Library). The books will come from the same library where the pickup will occur.

The library also offers some online activities via a service called Bieb070@Home. (Bieb = Library. 070 = area code for The Hague.) The list of upcoming events includes a video of an online Christmas concert by the group “On The Jazz”, an interview in January with the city’s archeologist (yes, we have an archeologist) and more.

The Hague’s library system has also been heavily promoting the option of checking out e-books and audio books as well via their recently renewed Online Bibliotheek or “Online library” app. The only downside is that most of the books are in Dutch, but I found it pretty easy to use when I looked at it a few months back.

I can’t believe we’re almost at Christmas already… insane!

Categories: Reading | Tags: | Leave a comment

Rotating girls with pearl earrings (Or: Mauritshuis at Christmas time)

Posted on December 19, 2020 by Niki

I was able to get a few photos of the Mauritshuis museum during a short walk this week. What do you think of the Christmas tree?

Mauritshuis is most known for Vermeer’s The Girl with a Pearl Earring. You can see a homage to this behind the right pillar in the image – but it is not exactly the painting, either. It is a digital display where the head and outfit change slightly every few seconds.

As you can see above, now the photo is of someone else with a blue cap instead of a headscarf.

You can also visit the museum virtually via this link (it is like Google Map’s Street View).

And a fun bit of news, an article from indebuurt.nl about the many face masks The Hague’s new mayor wears: De vele verschillende mondkapjes van de Haagse burgemeester Jan van Zanen.

Page 1: a face mask with The Hague’s yellow and green colors. Page 2: a face mask with a The Girl with a Pearl Earring design. Page 3: a face mask from Museon, a science and culture museum in The Hague. Page 4: a face mask from HTM, The Hague’s public transportation company. Page 5: a face mask from a local soccer club. Page 6: a face mask with a depiction of Haagse Harry. Page 7: no idea, really.

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

The Passage during lockdown (Or: Christmas tree, 2020 edition)

Posted on December 18, 2020 by Niki

On my way to the grocery store this morning I took some photos of this year’s Christmas tree in the Passage:

A new detail this year is the plants down the middle, to help remind people to stay on the right side while walking. It will be interesting to see if the plants are still around next year at this time, or if they really were just temporary during the Covid-19 crisis…

And here is a close up look. I found it a bit weird to be walking past stores today. For the most part everything was closed, but it felt more like a Sunday rather than closed for five weeks. Most of the stores had their lights on and there were not many signs in the windows saying they would be closed for a longer period of time.

Strangely enough when I walked past Peek & Cloppenburg (a clothing store), they did seem to be open. However maybe I saw incorrectly. The lights were on, the doors were wide open, and there were a few people going through the sweaters… so who knows.

Happy Friday, everyone!

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

Lockdown, before and after (Or: Photos of The Hague’s city centre)

Posted on December 17, 2020 by Niki

The Dutch website indebuurt.nl (in the neighborhood) usually has a photo series called Toen & Nu or Then & Now. Today’s photo series only showed a difference of four days, but it was an important four days: 13 December and 16 December. In other words, before and after the five week lockdown came into effect.

Toen & Nu: Foto’s van het Haagse centrum voor en tijdens de lockdown

Is it bad that my first thought was “Oh! Glad to see the oliebollenkraam is still open.”? Maybe a bit.

Above is one of our Christmas decorations – the hanging gingerbread men. It was another Royal Christmas Fair purchase from a few years ago.

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

Essential? Non-essential? (Or: What are we again?)

Posted on December 16, 2020 by Niki

The discussion about who can stay open during the lockdown and who must close continued today. Hema, a general merchandise retail store, decided to open today. Only essential items like food, baby clothes and toiletries were available. The original government ruling said that if it at least 30% of the items sold were essential, then that part of the store with essential items could remain open. The rest of the inventory would be unavailable for sale. (If the store sold at least 70% essential items the entire store could remain open.) Because at least 30% of what Hema sells is essential they decided to open yesterday. Problem is, other chains including Action and Wibra then decided they would re-open from tomorrow. And those stores’ stock is even less essential than Hema’s in my opinion.

That meant the Dutch cabinet went back into discussions last night and this morning. The end result: the 30% ruling is now gone, so you need to sell at least 70% essential items to stay open.

Some large non-essential stores open despite lockdown; government to intervene from nltimes.nl

and then Tighter rules around essential stores that can open in lockdown, also from nltimes.nl.

Fotoseries: Stil in Den Haag op de eerste dag van de lockdown, or Photos: Silence in The Hague on the first day of the lockdown [Tuesday]. Photos 9 and 11 are a bit political, since the pink ‘soon available for renting’ signs have the Dutch prime minister and the Health minister’s name listed as the realtor (Rutte and De Jonge).

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

Van Dale’s Word of the year (Or: Anderhalvemetersamenleving)

Posted on December 15, 2020 by Niki

Only the Germans like their words longer…

Anderhalvemetersamenleving or 1-and-a-half-meters-society is Van Dale’s word of the year for 2020 (article from dutchnews.nl). Van Dale is a Dutch dictionary company. Anderhalvemetersamenleving took 30% of the vote, with 12,000 votes cast.

Here are a few interesting articles about the lockdown that are available in Dutch from nos.nl:

Hoe een telefoontje van Van Dissel alles veranderde – How a phone call from Van Dissel [Dutch virologist] changed everything. It’s an article about how we went from the press conference on the 8th to the hard lockdown announced last night. That’s less then a week if you are counting.

Niet-essentiële winkel mag open als die ten minste 30 procent essentiële artikelen verkocht – Non-essential stores can open if 30% of their items are essential. In that scenario they can only sell those essential items. If a store sells at least 70% essential items then they can sell everything. But that is, of course, a game of percentages…

Above is a picture taken in De Passage (a covered shopping area) in The Hague last weekend. I thought it was cute to see the stockings hiding behind the windows on the second floor, which isn’t accessible to shoppers.

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

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