Friday night after work Marco made homemade pizza. With three types of paprika (bell peppers), onions, two types of cheese and jalapeños. On the left side you have sun-dried tomatoes while on the right side you have ham. Lekker!
Author Archives: Niki
Celebrating Thailand (Or: Thailand Grand Festival in The Hague)
At the beginning of the month Marco and I went to the Thailand Grand Festival (Dutch) in the Plein. The highlight was definitely the culinary options – more than half of the festival was taken up by food tents. And everything looked so delicious! But they also had music and dance performances as well.
We ended up going only a few minutes after they opened, but it was already pretty busy. I ended up taking photos from a distance because it was so crowded in the area where the festival was happening.
If only the weather today was as good as that day — today it was just rain, rain, rain. And more rain. Welcome to the Netherlands! 🙂 (just kidding)
Categories: The Hague
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Lightning trip to Paris (Or: Day 2 of 2)
Continuing my previous past about our first day in Paris, here is what Marco and I saw on day 2 of our lightning trip to Paris:
The Fountain of Innocents
Near the beginning of our walk we unexpectedly came across the Fountain of Innocents (or, at least, it was unexpected for me – perhaps it was part of Marco’s master plan all along!).
My favourite picture – taken from the Tuileries Garden
And then my favourite picture, as we walked through the Tuileries Garden.
And here is a view of the Place de la Concorde. I had to get a photo of the duck! (the piece of wood is to help birds get back out of the water)
In the distance you can see the Luxor Obelisk.
One of the fountains at Place de la Concorde
Place de la Concorde has two fountains dedicated to the maritime industry in France.
Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel
We also walked past Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel (not the Arc de Triomphe everyone thinks of, though).
And my last photo is from the shopping mall near the Louvre, as we were walking back to the train station:
The Inverted Pyramid
The Inverted Pyramid. Made even more famous by the Da Vinci Code… 😉 Although it was already famous!
Lightning trip to Paris (Or: Day 1 of 2)
Marco and I visited Paris last week for about 36 hours — 11:00 Wednesday until 19:30 Thursday. A lightning trip! The reason was to meet up with my brother and sister-in-law who were vacationing in the city. Since they live on the west coast of America, it seemed to be an opportunity one does not pass up. The trip was under three hours by high-speed train (Thalys)…
Marco and I splurged a bit for this trip and traveled first class. One unexpected benefit was the use of the first class lounge at Rotterdam Centraal:
Perks of the lounge: fairly quiet, a free drink, and climate controlled.
Our hotel wasn’t far from the train station in Paris (Gare du Nord) – only about a 15 minute walk. After meeting up with my brother and sister-in-law, we retreated to our hotel room to apply vigorous amounts of sunscreen. And why might we do that, you ask?
Because the temperature for both days while we were there was around 36C (97F). Ughhhh! And in those two days Marco and I managed to walk 38km, or about 23 and a half miles. Don’t worry, the next three days we were extremely lazy and rested our poor aching feet.
First we visited the Louvre museum:
Blocks of color (Or: Mondriaan inspired art at The Hague’s train station)
Last month a group of friends and I went to Rotterdam for a WWE wrestling show at Ahoy in Rotterdam (I always have to resist the subconscious urge to call the the place ‘Chips Ahoy‘ after the cookie).
While waiting for a few friends getting coffee at Starbucks I took a photo of the Mondriaan inspired art at the train station; Den Haag Centraal.
And I still love the roof. Which looks even more awesome on a cloudy day.
Indianapolis 500 practice (Or: In the pits)
Another fun story from my Indianapolis trip last month: my dad was able to get tickets from his work to go to a practice session at the Indianapolis 500, an Indy car race (highest level of open wheel racing in North America). The race is a two week spectacle with practices and mini events occurring in the days before the actual race day.
The brickyard finish line. Which I hadn’t realised stretches all the way outside to the parking lot. Pretty cool!
The tickets are usually given to clients at his company but there were a few no-shows at the last minute due to it being a Thursday, so we were able to go!
First we had a look at the garage where they were working on the cars:
The garage of Fernando Alonso. He created quite a sensation when he chose to do the Indy 500 instead of Europe’s Monaco race (Formula 1 series).
Where are you? (Or: Grandcafé Haagse Bluf)
Here’s a random photo I took while out walking early one morning last month:
The text reads “Where are you?? At the most beautiful terrace in The Hague!” This is Grandcafé Haagse Bluf, part of the Haagse Bluf upscale shopping area.
And, yet another iced cappuccino and iced chai latte at Hometown coffee.
What can I say… except that they are delicious!
Vacation photos (Or: The beauty in Central Park)
Here are some of my favourite photos from Central Park…
My favourite photo – the calmness of the park, with the city just behind
Marco and I slowly crossed this field. At this point we saw a sign, which we read and then turned around. We had no idea this view was behind us!
Stroopwafels in Indy (Or: At least my parents have a backup plan!)
Another post about “things that remind me of home in America” – this time Belgian stroopwafels (syrup waffles). This was spotted at a local Walmart I believe. Stroopwafels! Take your pick from original on the left or chocolate covered on the right.
As always, in their original form stroopwafels are great to place over your coffee cup to slowly heat them. Although these minis would probably only fit over an expresso cup… If you don’t drink coffee, try heating them in the microwave in 5 second bursts.
And the chocolate ones are just good all the time.
My last three posts including this one have definitely had a very Belgian theme (the Wafels & Dinges stand in Central Park, the Lotus cookies, which is headquartered in Belgium, and this post). Although at least these bags do label them as “Dutch caramel waffles”.
Check out the story of the founding of the Belgian boys company.
But as the title of this blog post suggests, at least my parents have a backup plan if their stroopwafel supply runs lower. (They were on the lowest shelf in the granola bars section, guys!)
“Europe’s favourite cookie with coffee!” (Or: Biscoff/Lotus cookies)
Continuing the trend of “things that remind me of home while visiting America”, Marco and I were in a drug/convenience store by the name of Duane Reade when we spotted some Lotus cookies. Except in America it looks like they are known as “Biscoff” cookies.
They are pretty good with coffee – fairly light, fairly small, so one is just right.
Life in the Hague 