Some days I feel like I should have a blog which just documents bike photos. Some other bike photos include: Bikes in Delft and Amsterdam || Bikes along a Utrecht canal || So many bikes by Holland Spoor (train station) || All that remains: A lone bike wheel || Beads along bike spokes
Yesterday I came across a purple bike, although the paint was chipping. Looks like it used to be an orange color.
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Here is a close up:
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See? Orange paint!
As mentioned in a previous blog post, Paagman has officially opened on Lange Poten. Lange Poten 41 was previously a film house, a store called Liefhertje, and a Mercendes Benz store.
There are two levels. Like the previous Paagman, the secondhand books are on the upper floor.
The roof is rather stunning – so let’s show another picture.
And below is a view from the second floor, overlooking the entrance.
Of course, if you’re visiting this bookstore, don’t forget to stop in at the American Book Center a few shops down!
Here are more photos of the new bookstore (article in Dutch).
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:
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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!
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.
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…
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!
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. 😉
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!
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. 🙂
Life in the Hague 