Marco and I had a date night tonight – we chose to go see Inside Out at the Pathé movie theater at the Buitenhof. But beforehand I snapped a picture of the flags at half staff at the Buitenhof, commemorating the one year anniversary of the MH17 downing.
Hard to believe it has been a year already.
As a side note I must say that I am proud to be able to spell Scheveningen without having to look it up. It definitely has to do with the weekly visits to Scheveningen to practice my Dutch with my taalcoach from SamenSpraak.
When riding around in a tram this summer I noticed an advertisement for taking the tram to Scheveningen:
The tag line reads: “Have fun at the coast of The Hague”. The two lines underneath say:
What caught my eye was the verb flaneren. I hadn’t seen it before so I had to look it up. There’s a few different English translations like to stroll, to amble, to saunter – all relaxed way of walking. But the Dutch definition suggests a bit more: lopen om gezien te worden, or walking to be seen. There is no compact verb to express the two parts together in English (I think). Maybe “to strut” but that isn’t quite the same.
I thought it was pretty cool. Flaneren!
A while ago Marco and I were at DOK, a cooking store in The Hague. I could not resist taking a picture of this…
The tag read 120cm (about four feet). Yeesh!
I made a quick trip to Albert Heijn to pick up some broccoli. (If you had told me five years ago that I would willingly buy broccoli, I would have laughed. Hard.) Anyway, it was rather busy when I went so I had plenty of time to stare at the items for sale around the cash register, especially the “Congrats! You survived the hell that is school!” cards.
And then I noticed one of them isn’t quite the same as the others. You don’t even need to know Dutch to guess which.
For your information, geslaagd means that you passed. Gezakt, with the sad looking smiley above on the right? Bummer. You failed. I took a peek inside – blank.
Friday night was the annual summer party at work. Like last year, it was held at a beach restaurant in Scheveningen (about 20 minutes by tram from the city center). Coincidentally summer arrived this week with the pastures consistently higher. Some days were around 33-34C (90F+). Perfect beach weather to sit in the sun for a few hours and work on your tan…
Summer drinks at the Scheveningen beach
This has been a very busy weekend in The Hague. Let’s see…
Friday: Shopping night in The Hague. I didn’t take any pictures myself, but the official website posted pictures up on Facebook. The theme for the night was Sand in the City. Although a lot of people (like Marco and I) just walk around, many of the shops are open to midnight. Generally shops in The Hague close around 6pm (maybe 7pm) except on Thursdays where most are open until 9pm.
Saturday: Night at the Park – traditionally the night before Parkpop in the Zuiderpark, this paid entry concert included Duran Duran, UB40, K’s choice and more.
Sunday: Parkpop – a free concert held every year (also Zuiderpark). Some of the names include Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Frans Bauer and more.
Also on Friday the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships began. Games are being held in The Hague as well as in Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Appeldoorn. The Hague will be hosting the finals as well.
Marco and I took a walk this afternoon getting some pictures of the volleyball areas:
Map of various tournament sites around the center of The Hague
Warm up courts at the Spui
One of the courts was actually built in the water of the Hofvijfer by the Buitenhof. Cool!
A look at the courts on in the Hofvijfer, from the other side.
Quite a busy weekend! And it looks like the temperatures will be rising next week (25C/77F or hotter, 31C/87F on Wednesday). Yay!
I still have some more Dublin photos to post but I wanted to take a quick break and post some pictures from places a bit closer to home. I’ve wanted to post these for a while but never got around to it for whatever reason. First is the city hall of Gouda which Marco and I visited back in May (although most of the day was spent in Utrecht):
The second photo was taken by Marco a few months ago as he passed though the Centrum (downtown area) of The Hague. The lights through the church windows at the Nieuwe Kerk (“New church”) caught his eye.
Spuistraat 19-20a used to be a bookstore by the name of De Slegte. Many years ago, that is – Marco used to get his used textbooks there. Then a few years ago it was taken over by another bookstore, Selexyz. Then last year or so it became Paagman’s, yet another bookstore. See a pattern yet? Then Paagman’s moved to Lange Poten… So that particular location seemed rather cursed.
In early May a new store moved in – this time a SoLow, a discount store. It’s pretty decent, with a mix of normal discount items and random items that they just happened to get in stock that month.
XXL is definitely the correct term – it’s pretty large inside. I do recommend giving it a look if you live in The Hague. It is also good to check out for Halloween costumes as well closer to October.
Here’s a bonus picture of the neighbor’s cat napping in the garden:
Marco and I went to Utrecht on Saturday. We had previously gone to Utrecht last year but we made the mistake of visiting on a Monday — most shops tend to be closed or have reduced opening hours on Mondays. Plus the weather was bad and their was construction around the Domplein so it was not quite what we hoped.
This time it worked out for the better. Marco and I had train ticket vouchers (dag weekend vrij / one weekend day free pass) that needed to be used this past weekend. We first stopped at the VVV office (a tourism office) to pick up a €5 walking tour booklet.
Here are some of the pictures we took along the way:
A statue on the Domplein commemorating WWII. Behind is an image against the side of the wall, but it almost creates the illusion that you are looking inside the church itself.
Actually in the place where the statue currently is you could previously find the nave of the church, but that part of it was destroyed back in the 1600s.
(Above) Also in the Domplein, you have the Pandhof, a garden area dating back to the 14th-15th century (restored in the 18th century).
The Domtoren (towers) – from a bit further away. It rises above the city, and if per chance you are standing in a spot where it can not be seen, more than likely it can be heard. The church bells were all but continuous when we were in the area.
Academicgebouw, Utrecht University
Above you have the main academic building of Utrecht University, built in the late 19th century.
If you didn’t know the Tour de France was starting in Utrecht this year, well, now you do. 🙂 Stage 1 and stage 2 will be held in the city.
And finally, Marco’s favorite joke of the day:
“Every time I hear that dirty word exercise I wash my mouth out with beer.” / “Elke keer dat ik hoor dat vies woord ‘exercise’, was ik mijn mond met bier.”
This morning I was met with a sea of orange. There were lots of police officers setting up for a protest around the Binnenhof (parliament offices in The Hague). Reports say that at its height there were 1400 police officers on hand. I even received an email from the American consulate — basically they send out emails to interested citizens about any protest that happens in Amsterdam or The Hague. In this case the police were protesting for better pay (a 3.3% increase) and a lowering of the retirement age which currently stands at 67 years.
The beginnings of the sea of orange – there were of course many more police around the corner by the Binnenhof and Buitenhof
The email also clarified who was wearing what – police wearing an orange vest over their uniform were protesters. Police wearing a red vest over their uniform were protest leaders. And finally you also had active, on-duty police officers wearing just their police uniform.
Here is an article in Dutch and an article in English.
Life in the Hague 