Foto’s

A view of fishies while you eat (Or: M C Escher)

Posted on February 18, 2015 by Niki

A few weeks ago, Roger, Marco and I went to the café in Marks and Spencer for mid-afternoon coffee and cake. Yum! At some point I looked over Roger’s shoulder and finally noticed what should have been glaringly obvious as soon as we walked in. There was a fish staring back at us!

M C Escher’s Three Worlds; click to see a slightly larger version

It is a lithograph by Dutch artist M C Escher, “Three Worlds” (Wikipedia). Hopefully the picture above gives a good sense of the enormity of this copy – the fish itself is pretty much the size of an adult human!

Here is a close-up:

M C Escher Three Worlds at Marks and Spencer 2

Click for a larger version

The black and white colors blend in nicely with the the rest of the café as well. If you’re in the area (the central part of The Hague) make sure you check it out!

Categories: Culture, The Hague | Tags: Art, Cafes | 2 Comments

New look (Or: Redesign of Hema’s cafe, Grote Markt)

Posted on February 2, 2015 by Niki

Marco and I visited Hema over the weekend to check out the redesign of their cafe. Pretty impressive!

Do you see the image of the cat on the wall, completely made of candy? His face is a pancake, his whiskers red vines candy, smarties (European M&Ms) for ears, etc. It was a bit hard to get a good picture, unfortunately. Maybe next time.

It even comes with a lively plant on each table, new furniture, new chairs, etc. A big improvement in my opinion.

The best part is that the coffee is now self-serve, which helps a lot with the standing in line part. However, there are still only two registers – made slightly worse by the fact that both lines are now right next to each other so you are standing in one massive, unorganized line until the last moment.

Still — self serve coffee! Woohoo!

A small children’s “kitchen” with the Jip and Janneke theme.

Overall a big step forward. When we visited, there did seem to be more workers which meant that the hot food was being served faster. I think it is the same menu, though, with a bit better advertising.

Categories: The Hague | Tags: HEMA | 6 Comments

Gardens (Or: MCH Westeinde, hospital)

Posted on January 26, 2015 by Niki

Today I went with my mother-in-law to the hospital for her scheduled eye operation. It went well, but feel free to leave her well wishes here or on Facebook. 😉 Betenschap!

It was in total about 90 minutes (as there were a few folks before her) and a bit of time in the cafeteria afterwards. I took the time to read a bit. I had charged up the phone and tablet but ended up not needing them at all. Go paper books!

On the way out I took a moment to take a picture of the indoor garden. It is near the entrance, a level below you, but visible as you cross over the bridge.

Pretty! It was just missing the small waterfall…

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

Graffiti of Delft (Or: On the way to Ikea)

Posted on January 22, 2015 by Niki

A few weeks ago, Marco and I went to Ikea in Delft to see if we could buy a bookshelf for me. I originally wanted the narrow, but tall version, in dark wood – but it was way too heavy to carry back on the tram. So we settled for the shorter version which still stores a fair amount.

Of course, I still need to populate it with more than junk (there’s a lot of random papers that I threw in there simply to clear off the nightstand) but it did mean that I was able to set up the earring holder I got for Christmas. Which made me realize I have a lot of blue earrings, but could use some more of other colors…

Some other random news: I started the second half of the B2-C1 Dutch course at Volksuniversiteit. Like the last one, it is 10 weeks and should be done around the third week of March. After that, my Dutch is good enough to sign up for courses (in general, not just at this school) with native speakers. Hmmm…

I’ll leave you with a few pictures of graffiti that I took on the ride over to Ikea. The owl has already made an appearance on this blog, but this picture is a bit better. The other is new.

The graffiti is always more interesting on this side of the pond!

Categories: Daily Dutch living, Delft | Tags: Art, Graffiti, Ikea | 2 Comments

Naga Thai (Or: Ice cream tasting

Posted on January 15, 2015 by Niki

Over the weekend Marco and I went to Naga Thai (you guessed it, a Thai restaurant). I have been there a few times but this was Marco’s first time. We were there for lunch so he was able to try out the lunch menu. I was torn between the two appetizers: a fish cake and a loempia/egg roll — or chicken served in coconut milk with mushrooms. Both are quite good! This time I went for the soup.

For the main course we both had finely chopped chicken with basiculum and red peppers. It was pretty good, but not as good as the non-chopped version in my opinion.

Dessert was three types of ice cream: lycee, coconut and mango ice cream, with a sliver of chocolate on top. Yum! We rounded that off with a small (Dutch size) cup of coffee.

And for randomness’ sake, here is a photo of a discount Christmas item that they were selling at V&D last week. I like it enough to upload it in a larger size, even if I didn’t buy it!

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

New Years in The Hague (Or: Lines for oliebollen)

Posted on December 31, 2014 by Niki

On the way through Centrum this afternoon, I just had to stop and take a photo of the line of people waiting to buy oliebollen, which is sort of like a doughnut. (Actually the Wikipedia article for oliebollen says that it was the inspiration for doughnuts, so there you go.) They are usually covered in powdered (confectioner’s) sugar.

Now that is a long line! When I left for work this morning I wondered why they needed five people working this stand. Now I know why!

Marco and I are now at Roger’s to spend the night. There are basically fireworks going off every second somewhere… It it also important to get to where you need to be a bit early, as the trains have their last run at 8pm and the buses/trams around 8:30 due to how crazy it can get with fireworks in this country. Oh and yeah maybe the transport workers want a holiday too. 😉

Categories: Food, Holidays, The Hague | Tags: Fireworks, New Year's Eve, Oliebollen | 2 Comments

Back again (Or: Christmas tree in The Hague)

Posted on December 14, 2014 by Niki

Marco and I were walking through the Passage yesterday and noticed that the Christmas tree was back again this year. This is sort of a surprise because when Apple moved into the spot a few years ago, they stated in their contract that the Christmas tree (which had been there for years) was no longer allowed. The first and second years the Christmas tree did appear because the Apple store wasn’t open yet. However, the Apple store opened over the summer, so no more Christmas tree, right?

Wrong!

You can see the Apple store behind the tree.

Happy holidays!

Categories: Holidays, The Hague | Tags: Apple, Christmas, De Passage | Leave a comment

Holiday decorations (Or: It’s that time again)

Posted on November 3, 2014 by Niki

In the last week I’ve seen various holiday decorations. It seems a bit early but Bijenkorf, a store, was busy putting up their winter lights:

(Here’s what Bijenkorf’s lights looked like last year.)

And here are some Halloween decorations:

Haven’t seen any Thanksgiving decorations yet…

Categories: Holidays, The Hague | Tags: Christmas | 3 Comments

Curious to see what is being built? (Or: Peek here)

Posted on October 20, 2014 by Niki

Near Central Station they are currently working on revamping a new building. This of course means half of the path being blocked off and unusable to commuters and locals for months. Of course, I’m exaggerating a little bit. Of course, they do provide little windows of sorts to see what its going on on the other side…

The words above the image say “Curious? Take a quick peek behind the walls!”

Of course, I did not take a picture of what was actually behind the wall, but I am sure you can guess what it looked like. 🙂

Categories: The Hague | 2 Comments

Sand sculptures (Or: Art in The Hague)

Posted on October 2, 2014 by Niki

A few days ago I came across another opportunity to do a sand-related post! The Hague has been celebrating Prinsjesdag this summer. One way they have been doing this is by creating a temporary sand art tourist attraction (read more in Dutch). This is quite similar to the photos I was able to grab in 2010 while here on vacation.

This year there were three sculptures done:

landing of Prince of Orange sand art The Hague

a sculpture capturing the arrival (“aankomst”) of William I in Scheveningen in 1813.

a sculpture of Willem I, with the older look on the left and a slightly more modern full body view on the right

200 jaar koninkrik sand art in The Hague

sand sculpture about Prinsjesdag 2014, with the golden carriage in the front and the modern skyline of The Hague behind (words below are “200 jaar koninkrijk” or a celebration of the Netherlands being a kingdom for 200 years).

a sideways look at all three sculptures together

Categories: The Hague | Tags: Art, Sculptures, Tourist attraction | 2 Comments