Foto’s

Laziness (Or: Pigeons who refuse to move)

Posted on October 22, 2013 by Niki

A few days ago I had to make a trip to Albert Heijn to get some groceries. On the way there I saw a flock of pigeons just lounging around listlessly. One of them was even lying down, not caring at all that people were walking only a few feet away from it.

The birds have a pretty good life in this city. Plenty of food and not many predators. We also have a lot of seagulls that hang around in The Hague. At first I thought they come over from the nearby beach in Scheveningen but they seem to hang around in The Hague year-round. I once saw 20-30 seagulls screeching loudly at some point across the street and dive bombing the area, only to realize after a few seconds that some woman had dumped a lot of old stale bread over the railing down to the street below. That bread was completely gone, with the exception of crumbs, in less than 30 seconds.

Of course, on the way back, the same pigeon pictured above was there, still not moving…

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

Advertisements and drawings (Or: McDonald’s and Starbucks)

Posted on October 21, 2013 by Niki

Yesterday Marco and I took a bus from Central Station in The Hague to Wassenaar, a nearby suburb of The Hague, for the birthday party of a friend’s kid. While we were waiting at the bus platform I decided to take a picture of a McDonald’s advertisement that seems to have sprung up everywhere in the last few days. (In actuality, most advertising spaces seem to go to the same advertisement, and the advertisements change every week. So you are usually bombarded by the same advertisement over and over.)

It’s a picture of a sundae (available in chocolate or caramel) with the tagline “ook lekker op Mondae”. Also tasty on Monday. While most of the tagline is in Dutch, they did not change the name of the day from the English Monday to the Dutch maandag for the joke, as that would kill the joke a bit.

Of course we did not stop at McDonald’s before going to Wassenaar, but we did stop at Starbucks in Central Station and split a vanilla latte. Yum. I can still vividly remember how excited Marco was when the first Starbucks arrived in Schiphol airport. Of course that worked well for him because he was constantly visiting America for the yearly Wrestlemania trip or the other 3-4 trips to see me.

It wasn’t much longer after that (a year or so) before the Starbucks opened in The Hague in the Central Station. But then it wasn’t as special, because you could just walk there to get a good coffee. You no longer needed to hop on a plane. ;p

Categories: Everyday purchases, The Hague | Tags: Advertisements, McDonald's, Starbucks | Leave a comment

Wet newspapers (Or: Scenes from Delft)

Posted on October 2, 2013 by Niki

Here are a few random pictures that I took while my family and I were walking through Delft on the way to the churches. I just could not pass up the lonely looking newspaper stuck in the canal…

Nearby was a residence overlooking the water:

It was a nice day to walk through Delft – still jacket weather, but warm enough. Relaxing.

Categories: Delft | Tags: Canals | Leave a comment

Fountains (Or: A lovely day in Scheveningen)

Posted on September 18, 2013 by Niki

Here’s a picture from a month or two ago when Marco, Roger and I went to Rodizio in Scheveningen – a city name which I still cannot spell for the life of me.

I do remember that the huge building on the left is a casino, and is also shaped like a cruise ship (being that it is right next to the beach). Unfortunately the weather is a bit colder now, so the beach isn’t as nice as it was over the summer.

Categories: Scheveningen | Tags: Beach | 1 Comment

Blue (Or: Across from Noordeinde Palace)

Posted on September 13, 2013 by Niki

Here’s some pictures of The Hague that I took over the last few weeks. The first one is a building across from the Noordeinde Palace, one of the three palaces for the royal family. Of course, I mostly took the picture because the window covers were a lovely shade of blue!

I also ended up taking a picture of a canal, though I forget where it was at or where I was going at the time. The flowers dominate the photograph, almost hiding the water completely:

Of course, as I already mentioned this is from a few weeks ago, before the weather went all cold and rainy!

Categories: The Hague | Tags: Flowers, Tourist attraction | Leave a comment

Parades (Or: Veteran’s Day in The Hague)

Posted on June 30, 2013 by Niki

Yesterday was Veteran’s Day in the Netherlands. Marco and I went and checked out the local parade after hearing dozens of helicopters flying over on their way to Maliveld (where they had a lot of activities going on – we ended up not going there).

‘Veteranen, ingezet in dienst van de vrede’ – veterans deployed in the service of peace

People standing on benches trying to get a better view (it’s normally a well populated bus stop)

Categories: Holidays, News, The Hague | 3 Comments

Shopping Night (Or: Shop ’til you drop in The Hague)

Posted on June 28, 2013 by Niki

Last night Marco and I went to Shopping Night in the Hague downtown area. The shops are usually open late until 9PM on Thurday nights in this part of The Hague. But for this special event, the shops were open until midnight. In addition, some stores were offering discounts which got higher each hour that passed, with the steepest discounts between 11PM and midnight.

Though Marco and I just went for the experience and the fresh air – we didn’t end up buying anything in the end.

The front page of the website says:

Ik had een favoriet jasje, knalkleuren en lekker gek, totdat ik op de tv zag dat een minister hetzelfde jasje droeg…

I had a favorite jacket, bright colors and quirky, until I saw on the tv that government official wore the same jacket…

crowds gathering in the main shopping areas

“Bus stop Glam bus” – free restyling. If you put your in the list for a certain time and waited, you could get a free restyling. Not sure what company was offering it.

just a pretty picture as night falls

In the main walking area, they set up a fashion stage. Models would come out and display the latest fashions that were available for purchase.

Shop ’til you drop!

Categories: Shopping, The Hague | Leave a comment

Window paintings (Or: Dutch children’s library)

Posted on June 27, 2013 by Niki

I decided to take a few photos of the windows at the library where I work. It’s a small library staffed by volunteers, after the much larger neighborhood library had to close due to budgetary reasons. But at least this way the children have somewhere close by to check out books.

It is a bit hard to see from this angle, but in the right window you have a large green ‘B’ (since the word for library in Dutch is bibliotheek). The B is made up of lots of smaller Bs – look at the top to see it best.

A few random Dutch words I learned today:

coloring page = kleurplaat

glitter = glitter (spelled the same, but with the hardcore ‘g’ guttural sound)

I must also admit that the window above does not convey the prettiness of the yards (tuinen) outside the window. Very green!

Categories: The Hague, Working & Volunteering | Tags: Art, Libraries | Leave a comment

The Hague (Or: Central Station’s roof)

Posted on June 16, 2013 by Niki

Yesterday Marco and I were at Central Station in The Hague to drop off a friend who had visited for a few days. He was leaving The Netherlands to head to the next leg of his journey – Munich, Germany.

Marco pointed out the roof above us and I decided to snap a picture. Central Station has been the site of a few long-lasting construction projects, including some that are not yet done. But at least the finished product in this area looked really good.

More on the roof’s construction (now finished).

Categories: The Hague | Leave a comment

Unexpected (Or: Marching band in The Hague)

Posted on June 10, 2013 by Niki

Yesterday Marco and I were taking a walk and actually saw a marching band walking through the center of The Hague, playing music! How random and unexpected. It’s likely that it was part of the Ut Hague Notûh festival that took place yesterday afternoon, which was much larger.

The two songs they played while we stood around and watched were “Walking on Sunshine” and “Let it Be” from the Beatles.

The other amusing thing was that the entire thing seemed unofficial – technically they were marching on the main biking path (the red bit), so a lot of bikers had to go around.

There was also a bag pipe group which we heard first, but they were already further up the road and not the direction we wanted to go in. Perhaps next year!

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