Foto’s

Keeping an eye out (Or: Alleyway in The Hague)

Posted on July 30, 2020 by Niki

Today’s photo comes from Oog in ‘t Zeilstraat which literally translates to “Eye in the sail street”. A lot of Dutch phrases find their origin in the sea. Eye in the sail refers to the sailor up in the crow’s nest – their job is to “keep an eye out” for any trouble.

According to indebuurt.nl, though, the street is named after a house in 1654 which had the name Oog in ‘t Zeilstraat. Perhaps the house was named after the phrase? And of course it is partially hidden, but you do see a least one bicycle in the photo.

After the press conference yesterday, Amsterdam and Rotterdam decided to require face masks in parts of the city (article at nltimes.nl) from 5 August. Local intervention does seem more useful than country-wide intervention – Amsterdam and Rotterdam reported 76 and 68 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, while there were almost no cases reported in other parts of the country.

On to the weekend (and great temperatures tomorrow)!

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Gray clouds above, flowers below (Or: Buitenhof scenes)

Posted on July 29, 2020 by Niki

Earlier this week Marco took this photo of the Buitenhof for me. What do you think?

Of course you probably notice the flowers first, but the clouds above do deserve a glance as well. A touch of gray.

There was a press conference earlier this evening. The main topic was whether or not there be a country-wide requirement to wear a face mask at all times when outside. At the moment you are only required to wear a face mask when using public transportation.

The government announced that there will no national requirement to wear one, although regions will have more power to take action locally (article from nltimes.nl). The government also looked into whether or not the quarantine policy for holiday travellers should be strengthened if they were returning from an area with a high number of coronavirus cases.

And another article, this one from Omroep West: Terrassen mogen uur langer open tijdens warme Haagse nachten. It’s an article about how terraces can stay open longer during the summer if the temperature is over 25C/77F Thursday through Sunday. The city government will look at the upcoming weekend’s temperature every Thursday and announce if terraces can be open longer that weekend. ☀️

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Bring out your gold (Or: Inspection house in the Binnenhof)

Posted on July 28, 2020 by Niki

One or the lesser known sites of the Binnenhof is the Goudsmids Keurhuis, which is a fancy way of saying Goldsmith inspection house.

The building was built in the first part of the 17th century (Dutch Wikipedia). All that remains is the facade you see in the photo; behind is office spaces. There is a bit of an embarrassment from centuries ago: the gold text has a typo. it reads t’ Goutsmits Keur Huys but even back then the apostrophe should come before the t, as an abbreviation for het or “the”. If you look at the photo on the linked Wikipedia page you can see just how cramped this building is, surrounded by buildings constructed in the 20th century.

In other news: if all goes well there will be a brief feeling of sun on your skin this weekend. Temperatures on Thursday, Friday and Saturday will be between 25-29C or 77-84F. I know, I know, that sounds positively cool compared to some cities out there. But we take what we can get.

I also received an email from the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (the National Library) that they have released a beta version of their new e-book/audio book app. Some of the main improvements over the old app are:

  • you can check out a book directly from within the app
  • the same app is contains both e-books and audio books
  • other advantages are listed on their website (note: page is in Dutch)

Google Play link: online Bibliotheek BETA

Apple app store link: online Bibliotheek

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Stone work (Or: A socially distanced Turfmarkt)

Posted on July 27, 2020 by Niki

Today’s photo is of the newly installed social distancing measures in the Turfmarkt area. It extends from The Hague Centraal Station, down the Turfmarkt, to the beginning of the Spuiplein.

Keep in mind this photo was taken on Sunday morning when it is relatively quiet. Normally this place is bustling with visitors walking from the train station to the city centre and back. However since the corona crisis most of the ministry workers in the nearby buildings are working from home, so that has helped a bit with limiting the foot traffic.

What are your thoughts on the stone work in general? I personally like the diagonal lines. So much of The Hague is covered in brick – it is weird going to vacation in the United States and coming back to this. But I like it.

Did you hear about the red Ferrari that was salvaged from the bottom of the IJ? (article from dutchnews.nl). The IJ, pronounced “Eye”, is a major body of water in Amsterdam (Wikipedia). It’s right outside Amsterdam Centraal Station, so it’s hard to miss… if you take the right exit, that is.

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Skateboarders and muses (Or: Muzentoren in The Hague)

Posted on July 26, 2020 by Niki

Today’s photo is of the Muzentoren in The Hague, about a five minute walk from The Hague’s Centraal Station. Muzentoren translates roughly to “Muses’ Tower”. It’s a relatively new building, made in 2001 according to the Dutch Wikipedia page.

The statue in front also has an interesting meaning, although my photo only shows half of it. It is called “Light and darkness”. The side you see is the light – standing up straight, looking straight ahead. On the other side is darkness (see this image from indebuurt.nl) where the other half sags down, looking dejected.

In other news… did you know it was a year ago yesterday that the Netherlands broke the record for the hottest temperature ever recorded? A city in the south of the Netherlands reached 40.7C or 105F. Yikes! Yesterday the average was around 17C or 63F. That’s a bit of a difference…

I still remember La Salle, a local French restaurant, putting out free water for anyone (including pets) that week.

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Terrace of green (Or: Grand Café at the Haagse Bluf)

Posted on July 25, 2020 by Niki

Today’s photo is from the terrace at the Grand Café at the Haagse Bluf, where some colleagues and I had some socially distanced drinks recently.

It’s not the best photo in the world, but I didn’t want to get anyone in the photo. The restaurant/terrace is actually above the Haagse Bluf shopping area, so you’re looking down into it. It’s a pretty nice terrace and larger than you would expect considering its location in the city centre. Everywhere you look you see green – bushes, plants, wall vines, you name it.

Check out this article I read this morning from The Guardian: ‘We were the luckiest people in the world’: our month on the last lockdown cruise. Spoiler: no one gets corona on this cruise ship and the supplies don’t run out, so it’s more about how people spend their time on the ship, especially when some ports on their agenda do not allow them to dock. It is about how the last remaining group of passengers begin to band together to find news ways to pass the time.

For the most part it is a relaxing atmosphere, somewhat free of the pandemic raging around them. Example: a few days before they finally docked, they were reminded they should get their hair cut or their nails done on the ship, because who knows when they would be able to do so once they were back on dry land. Of course, the pandemic is still there, a slight tinge to everything going on around them on the ship. But it’s also outside of their world, for a time.

Anyway, I enjoyed the read. Have a good Saturday, everyone!

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The Hague’s Grote Markt (Or: Rootz and bikes)

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Niki

Today’s photo is of the Rootz restaurant on the Grote Markt, in the heart of The Hague’s city centre:

What do I always notice first? The red and white shutters as they are very European looking. The signs at the bottom of the photo point to the entrance (ingang) and the telephone number for reservations (reserveren?). The restaurant is quite careful to say that you don’t need a reservation for the terrace and (if there is space available) you don’t need a reservation to sit in the restaurant inside. After passing all of the health questions, of course.

I’ve never ate at this Rootz, only at the Scheveningen location near the beach. Unfortunately that location closed some years back. It was a great place for beer choices, though the menu itself didn’t have a lot of options that appealed to me.

Speaking of the Grote Markt, I read an article at Omroep West: Fietsers niet meer welkom in groot deel centrum Den Haag (bicyclists won’t be welcome in a big part of The Hague’s city centre). However this change doesn’t go into effect until October and doesn’t cover the Grote Markt street itself quite yet. There’s a separate review about what to do with the largest shopping street. Starting from October, most of the smaller streets will be closed to bicyclists from 11:30 until shops close. There are still a few streets that will always welcome bicyclists, though.

The streets marked with dark blue and yellow lines will still allow bike traffic 24/7. All other streets in the shaded green area will be closed to bicyclists from 11:30 in the morning.

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Willem II on horseback (Or: A statue reborn?)

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Niki

Today’s photo is of the Willem II statue by the Buitenhof:

There’s some interesting tidbits with this statue.

  • Before 1924 a different statue of Willem II was in this spot (link to Dutch Wikipedia). For unknown reasons The Hague government wanted to instead install a replica of a statue found in Luxemborg: still Willem II, but on horseback. The original statue at the Buitenhof was sold to Tilburg for 1000 gulden (the equivalent of about 7,500 to 8,000 euros today). This replacement is recorded at the base of the statue in the photo above.
  • In the early 1990’s The Hague government wanted to install a “freedom carillon” to commemorate the 50th anniversary of World War II. The bells would have either been placed quite close to the statue or in the statue’s very spot. Part of the problem was that the bells would have been 25 meters (82 feet) high, which might have been too jarring in that area. Momumentenzorg Den Haag has some scans of news articles from the 1990’s covering the situation, if you speak Dutch. But in the end the plans for the “freedom carillon” were thrown out (article from cobouw.nl).

As expected, the weekly coronavirus numbers from the RIVM were a bit high: about twice as many cases as last week (987 compared to 534), 19 hospitalizations and 7 deaths. But not all of those were numbers from the past 7 days, at least.

Outside of that, it’s mainly keeping on top of work during the day and relaxing at night. But the work days do go by quick, at least!

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Watching over the city (Or: Statue of Haagse Harry)

Posted on July 18, 2020 by Niki

The weather today is just as good as predicted! Lots of sun, lots of warmth. I decided to take a photo of the Haagse Harry statue over by the Grote Markt plaza:

We don’t have any big plans this weekend, which has been great after a long week of work. In addition to enjoying some sun earlier I also played around with Affinity Designer a bit this morning, working on some isometric designs.

I’m also in the middle of reading My Year of Rest and Relaxation in Dutch but I have to admit some of the humor is either too dark or gross for me. Not enough to stop reading, but definitely enough to ask myself “What the heck?” sometimes.

In other news:

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Former glory (Or: Repainting of the Chinatown gate in The Hague)

Posted on July 14, 2020 by Niki

The Chinatown gate in The Hague’s city centre has been repainted, a task first mentioned in a blog post from June. Here is the end result:

This is the Chinatown gate near Bijenkorf. Unfortunately the other one is not scheduled to be repainted at this time. Perhaps because that would require closing a street to cars? Not sure.

There was also a small crisis averted yesterday: Marco and I were almost out of coffee, with only one pack left. Luckily Albert Heijn had a deal: buy 2 packs, get 2 packs free. Score! Coffee is one of those things I can’t imagine paying full price for, since we’ve now gotten into a pattern of stocking up just enough until the next good sale.

In other news:

  • It’s Tuesday, so the Dutch health ministry released the weekly COVID-19 statistics (from nltimes.nl). There were 8 deaths and 16 hospitalizations reported in the last week, although some might have occurred before last week. A slight worrying point is the rise in positive cases: 534 compared to 432 last week.
  • Another addition at a Dutch zoo, this time a red panda (complete with short video), from nltimes.nl. If you can read Dutch or your Google translate is up for the task, there’s also an article on nu.nl about possible names for the giant panda baby born a few months ago.
  • Here is a picture from Reddit of the Neowise comet, taken in the east of the Netherlands. Bonus: it also features a windmill.
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