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…
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. 🙂
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:
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
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
Unfortunately the vacation is now over. But I did come away with some nice photographs! We visited two Dutch cities – Arnhem and Maastricht. One of the places we visited in Maastricht was the caves of St. Pieter – the north caves to be exact. These caves were dug out to extract the limestone (or marl). At its largest it used to have 20,000 corridors and measured 230km. Now it measures about 80km.
Interestingly the first corridors were short enough that most adults would have to crouch to make their way through. As time went on and more limestone was needed, the floor itself was dug out, creating tall corridors that were easily 4-5 meters tall in some places. The guide also showed us ruts in the wall at some corners. The most efficient way to transport the limestone out was by cart and horse and horses tend to take the shortest way possible, which meant that they would push the wheels of the cart against the wall, creating the ruts.
The best part of the tour was when the tour guide asked us if we wanted to walk a bit of the caves in complete darkness. About 30 meters – this stretch had no turns on the left side for you to lose yourself, so all you had to do was keep your left hand on the wall and walk carefully/slowly. Note that this was an option – those who did not want to partake went on ahead with the lanterns and waited for us to arrive. It was incredible (and I humbly admit this was because it was in a controlled environment). I was nervous at a few points though!
Here are some photos of the drawings. Note that these were done in charcoal as that was the only medium that would not decay in this damp, cold environment (10c/50f year round).
It’s not too much longer before the addition to De Passage is open… That is a shopping area that connects a few important shopping streets together. It’s been quite annoying to have it under construction as of late, since that meant having to walk a detour to get where you needed to go.
But as of 18 September, it will be open again! Above you can see someone hard at work on the finishing touches. In the distance is De Bijenkorf (a retail store). I also have a lovely image of De Bijenkorf at Christmas time.
A month after Marco, Roger also turns 40. We celebrated the event by going to Paraplu in The Hague – the first time for me. As usual, I had the kipsaté (chicken on a skewer with peanut sauce). Yum! Also the first time I ever had kroepoek (the white disks) paired with peanuts and peanut shavings directly on top.
As a surprise, a family member had ordered a birthday dessert for Roger (and the table). Quite spectacular:
Good times en lekker eten!
Sorry I have not posted much lately – I’ve been a bit under the weather (though if you happen to be either of my parents reading this, I’m fine. Marco takes good care of me ;p).
But anyway — here’s a picture of a front yard somewhere in The Hague! I can’t even remember where I was anymore, as I took it a few months ago.
Last month or so Marco and I went to Ikea in Delft to look for some random supplies. We ended up purchasing funnels for the kitchen (random) and reading lights for the bedroom (intended).
On the way to Ikea (by bus) we went under an overpass which had some really interesting graffiti…
That’s one aggie bird.
Last month Marco and I were walking past city hall (probably on the way to get coffee at Lebkov) when we spotted something new.
A seal near the entrance to The Hague’s city hall. But when we walked past it yesterday night, it was already gone. All that was left was a pattern of studs that had held up the seal. Did it fall? Was it taken down? Stolen? Who knows…
A few weeks ago Marco and I visited Utrecht. For various reasons it ended up not being quite what I expected but that can be chalked up to two things: the weather wasn’t that great and we went on a Monday, when a lot of things ended up being closed. We mostly stayed in the center of the city and looked at stores (board game stores, comic book stores and similar) rather than doing too many cultural things. I do wish we could have stayed until it got dark, though, as I would have been able to see the Trajectum Lumen. At night certain areas of the city are artistically lit, with guided tours provided on Saturdays.
I did get some good pictures, though. Here are a couple:
Utrecht canal, typical Dutch bike in the photo frame
stares down to the canal level on Oudegracht (a main street in the central area). A lot of restaurants are at canal level, so you take the stairs down to reach them.
close up of some flowers in Utrecht
Items at “It’s a Present” gift store
“It’s a present” was actually a pretty cool gift shop even though we didn’t buy anything. It had some really random items for sale, including what you see above. The only negative was that the shop was small, so they had to expand vertically – there’s technically three small floors, but sometimes the stairs can be a bit tricky to navigate.
Life in the Hague 