Foto’s

Tongue-tied (Or: William the Silent statues)

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Niki

I was digging through my photos from my various trips to the Netherlands and came across more touristy-type photos. I found one that was in reference to William the Silent (just like a previous statue post about him). I have no idea why he was called William the Silent, but internet research (hi Wikipedia!) seems to suggest it was because he never spoke up regarding controversial topics.

statue of William the Silent in the Hague on a horse

I must admit I also like the deep blue window coverings behind the actual statue. Too bad the flowers can’t be that color as well!

Speaking of red flowers…

Continue reading →

Categories: The Hague | Tags: , | 2 Comments

Cold & wind (Or: Where did Spring go?)

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Niki

I knew I was going to be in trouble when I left work this afternoon as my earrings were basically horizontal against the wind gusts. Forget keeping the hair somewhat decent-looking – pieces of it were flying out of my hairband with every hard-fought step.

I think the hardest thing about this brief weather transition is the short taste of Spring we were given. But here I am again, zipping up the liner back into the coat and pulling out my hat and gloves for tomorrow’s use. The wind gusts will continue into tomorrow, albeit abated. After that, the temperatures will rise again, though not to their previous levels.

On the plus side, I did manage to take some pictures of the trees and flowers on campus where I work, for a future blog post. This was partially because I am not sure how many plants will survive tomorrow’s sudden temperature shock. …I am not sure I will!

In the mean time, here is another picture of the Royal Palace of Amsterdam, my favorite painting:

Painting in the Royal Palace of Amsterdam

I love the use of the wall to divide the painting into two from the ceiling on down. The white is a good contrast to the paintings themselves which really makes it stand out against the art.

 

Categories: Amsterdam | Tags: | 1 Comment

Beef briskets (Or: Grocery shopping mania)

Posted on March 17, 2012 by Niki

Today has been a slightly productive, somewhat lazy day, depending on how you look at it. I did manage to take out the trash and the recycling, do the grocery shopping, take a shower, and clean up the place a little bit. (I’m still ignoring a bit of the dust that I see here and there… sue me!)

It seems like the town has gone full-blown Irish overnight. The grocery store was a sea of people wearing green attempting to buy mass quantities of beer and food for parties tonight, all of it shoved into their overflowing carts. One of the workers in the meat department spent most of her time shoveling packages of beef briskets from her work cart into the freezers for folks to snap up by the armful. And then there was the Irish diddy that kept playing on loop over and over again on the store speakers. (Even some of the workers were muttering about it to each other!)

My random purchase of the day was pork loin chops. I have never cooked those before, so it should be interesting, though I might wait and have them for dinner tomorrow.

Thankfully I never get much due to having to carry it all on the walk home, so I could go into the express lanes. The person in front of me was trying to buy a single can of beer, and it was ringing through as if it were from a 6-pack even though the person got it from a cooler. This reminded me of shopping at Albert Heijn in the Hague. You are allowed to pull an item from its pack (say a 6 pack of beer) and pay for it separately without the cashier batting an eyelash. That is a foreign concept over here!

Today’s picture comes from the Oude Kerk in Delft. Another stained glass window. It amuses me how it is called “Old Church” and yet it looks so vibrant and new, especially compared to the Nieuwe Kerk (New Church). Perhaps it is the white walls and the bright, welcoming atmosphere.

Stained glass window, Oude Kerk

Categories: Delft | 1 Comment

Paleistuin (Or: Quiet gardens to relax within)

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Niki

During my last visit to the Hague, Marco took me someplace in the Hague that I had never been to before. (Not hard considering I have only been there three times!) But it was a garden area – Paleistuin to be exact, or the Palace Gardens.

Paleis Noordeinde - one of the working palaces of Queen Beatrix

The garden is open from sunrise to sunset. It is a very relaxing place to be, usually. Since it is so close to the Noordeinde Palace, you will come across police officers every once in a while. Who of course can be fascinating to stare at for a few minutes, except that you don’t want to stick out and get into trouble… I do remember there was a pair guarding the entrance to the palace as we walked past it.

Playground area for the little ones

Here is a playground area within the garden. One of my memories of this park was a little girl, maybe 3 or so years old. She was very independent, and was frequently far away from her parents (even at times out of their line of sight). They seemed oddly okay with this fact. But she was quite happy, skipping along the path and running this way and that.

a pond within the Paleistuin

verboden te vissen – Fishing is forbidden

verboden te zwemmen – Swimming is forbidden

…Just in case you were getting any ideas.

I also remember sitting on some steps with Marco, just resting for a while and staring at the pond above. Watching the ducks swim around, looking for handouts from unsuspecting humans.

Definitely a place to visit again. With Marco. 🙂

Categories: The Hague | Tags: | 5 Comments

Rules (Or: Learning Dutch is fun… for an English major)

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Niki

I have discovered over the last few months that my favorite part of Dutch is the grammar rules. Weird, I know, but I suppose that is the English major in me. I will admit to taking a sort of sick pleasure in making Marco’s eyes glaze over.

For example, take the noun bazen – bosses. To get the singular you technically have to do the following:

1. Subtract the -en, leaving just the stem.You are left with baz.

2. Since bazen included a long vowel (ba-zen), where a vowel is at the of a syllable, than the vowel should be kept long in the singular form as well. However, baz is short (since the vowel is surrounded by consonants).

3. To make the vowel long we add an extra a: baaz.

4. Finally, no Dutch word ends in -z, so you need to change the z to an s – baas. (Like a boss!)

The nice thing for learners of Dutch is that the language has a lot of clear cut rules for spelling. Of course it means that it takes a few extra seconds to remember the rule, but it does help. And then you get used to seeing the word in such a way and any other way looks wrong. At that point you can mostly ditch the spelling rules and go from your gut.

The nice thing for Dutch speakers is that they don’t really need to know any of this.

…Unless they have an American girlfriend about to move there.

Cheese market in Madurodam, within the Hague

And now for something completely different – a kaas (cheese) market in Madurodam, the miniature town set up in a 1:25 scale. Look close – some of the figurines look quite drunk on the cheese already!

 

Categories: Learning Dutch, The Hague | Tags: | 4 Comments

Fridays (Or: The end of another week)

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Niki

Het is vrijdag. I say that a lot, but I do mean it. Of course there’s a fairly small chance I might have to go in tomorrow as well – but it’s quite unlikely. Here’s hoping my phone doesn’t ring!

I can’t say much about today except that my brain has effectively turned off at this point. About all I have managed to do tonight is get a grocery list set for tomorrow. On the plus side, it’s under 4 weeks until I see Marco and Roger again — they will be visiting me and nearby New York City for about 10 days.

To celebrate the weekend, here’s a random picture of a plaza in Delft:

Delft plaza

As is usual for Dutch buildings, they are narrow and wedged in against one another. Reminds me of Amsterdam… with much less people milling around.

 

 

Categories: Delft | Leave a comment

The coming Spring (Or: Who needs a jacket?)

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Niki

It was nice not to have to wear my jacket on the way home from work today. We’re in the midst of small heat wave of sorts, with tomorrow hitting the high 60s. This morning was also nice, although colder.

But the walk into work has been interesting this week. You see, they are filming scenes from HBO’s Mildred Pierce near where I work (multiple organizations use our campus). It’s not the first time they have filmed there for that show. I’ve never seen the series myself, but they seem to like the building — it’s large and fairly old but in a good kind of way.

When I was leaving work in the afternoon they were still filming, and had special lights trained on the front of the building. I thought about taking a picture for the blog but I figured that would be way too obvious as there was about twenty people milling around outside. My apologies!

In honor of the nice warm weather today and tomorrow I am posting a few more pictures from the Scheveningen beach:

Cold feet at Scheveningen

Catching some rays at Scheveningen

 

 

Categories: Scheveningen | Tags: | Leave a comment

60 posts (Or: 2 months down)

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Niki

So this is the 60th day that I have been writing blog posts regarding the Netherlands (and all its various things to love). But to get to the Netherlands, there are a lot of things to be done. Marco and I have a Google Docs document for “stuff to buy and do” — for things to do before I get there and things to buy after I do.

Some highlights of random things on my mind:

  • figuring out how to fit everything into a limited number of suitcases – primarily so I know if I have to ship anything through the mail
  • forms I need from the United States (including, apparently, a form that says I am not yet married, for the upcoming wedding next summer)
  • forms I need to figure out for the Netherlands – residency permit, etc
  • stare at ind.nl’s residence wizard (IND = Dutch Immigration)
  • learning Dutch on a daily basis, more than just 3x a week as it stands now

I am also moving forward with trying to finalize Friday, December 14th as my last work date (rather than Friday the 21st). That would be the last day of finals for the students, as the following week only the administration and staff are on campus. I have to do this now-ish because the yearly administrator work contracts will be sent out in April. Normally we work a yearly August 15 – August 14 type contact but I already told them I will be moving after the fall semester.

Morale of the story: it’s going to be an interesting year!

Here’s a random picture of Amsterdam, though I have no idea where I was when I took it. But it looks like a relaxing activity!

Paddle boats in Amsterdam

Here’s to a lot more posts in the coming months!

Categories: Amsterdam | Tags: | 4 Comments

Crazy things (Or: Pianos and frozen surfers)

Posted on March 5, 2012 by Niki

The wind is howling outside.

It feels colder than I think it should be in March. However, I am looking forward to the odd 65ish degrees temperature later this week.

In honor of the brisk weather I decided to post a few more pictures of Scheveningen, from the December trip. The first was an interesting light covered “tree” that I took pictures of. It was only today that I realized there was a surfer in the picture:

Scheveningen tree of lights

Continue reading →

Categories: Scheveningen | Tags: | 2 Comments

Zondagen (Or: Spending the day inside a church)

Posted on March 4, 2012 by Niki

Zondagen… Sundays. An apt day to post about churches.

But first, I spent a remarkably short time at the Palisades mall again today — just long enough to pick up my engagement ring, which was successfully resized. I managed to get the same bus both ways, having arrived at 3:45 and getting back outside in time for the 4:10 route back out.

While I was waiting at the bus stop to go back home, I heard a large rapping on the glass divider separating the different benches of the bus shelter. I looked over and it was a young child. He peered at me briefly, grinned, and then hid his face behind the metal framework in the middle. Ah, so it’s peek-a-boo you want. I quickly peered around the left edge. He grinned. I waited a moment and looked around the right edge. He laughed. We continued for a bit longer. Just a quick harmless game that reminds me of my own childhood, way back when.

Back to churches…

Another Delft site that we visited was Nieuwe Kerk, which began construction in 1396. It’s a Protestant church used as a burial site for many of the royal families. There was even a grave site there for a child who was born in May of 1822 and died in October of the same year.

Continue reading →

Categories: Culture, Delft | Tags: | 4 Comments

Blog at WordPress.com.