The Hague

Grote Markt (Or: A busy thoroughfare)

Posted on April 15, 2012 by Niki

One of the more busy streets in the Hague is Grote Marktstraat, or Great Market street. This is the street where you will find Media Markt (pronounced May-di-ah Markt). That’s the store where Marco bought his fridge and Roger and Marco go almost daily for DVDs (ducks and runs).

sign for Grote Markt

I love the sign above. It looks sort of…damaged, and off-kilter.

Grote Marktstraat

Media Markt is on the right – you can see the red and white pinwheel. The red path is for bikes. The gray paths on either side are for pedestrians.

Of note within this image is the street signs on the left. The top one means “end of walking zone ONLY”, and the bottom one means “bike area”. Personally I would take the top sign to mean “end of walking zone” so no one should be walking there… but that’s just one of the things I have to get used to!

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Art (Or: Three guys walk into a train station…)

Posted on April 10, 2012 by Niki

Sometimes you come across some very interesting street art within the Netherlands. This one is no exception.

Dutch train station art

Yes, that’s three guys – on each others’ shoulders and standing on a ball. At least the guy on the top looks like he is willing to experiment and spread his wings a bit! Perhaps they didn’t have enough money for the train so the one friend suggested that they should all try climbing onto the ball and riding it to their next destination…

In the background the pyramid shaped building is a train station near where Marco works.

Dutch tram in the tunnel

And here’s a picture of a tram in motion within a tunnel. Not sure if this is the underground tunnel in the Hague or not. You can even see a second tram in the background, heading in the other direction.

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Stationsweg (Or: Annoying bridge to Schiphol)

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Niki

One of the few hills in the Hague! (ducks and runs from Marco)

The road, Stationsweg, simply means Station Road. It leads to the Holland Spoor station.

View from a bridge in the Hague, on Stationsweg

Admittedly this is not one of my favorite places to be. All of my memories of crossing this bridge involve me going back to the train station to go to Schiphol and to the States. Usually it’s a pretty quiet walk, with Marco in the lead being the gentleman and dragging my luggage, but not much is said between us. And since I generally have an early morning flight, there are not usually many people around in general.

But writing this post, I realized I won’t have to deal with that scenario again!

Overlooking a canal in the Hague

And here is a picture of the canal beneath the bridge. The water is pretty still and calm.

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Look out (Or: Attack of the giant birds!)

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Niki

Another picture from Madurodam…

Uh oh... watch out for the large bird!

Quite fitting, since I just saw a trailer for The Raven, an Edgar Allan Poe movie. It comes out later this month (or in the latter part of June if you’re over across the ocean!…). It looks interesting. I actually wrote my undergraduate honors thesis on the humor in his work. Though I am sure some of it focused on the more morbid side of the humor.

Miniature building in Madurodam

And here is another view of the building from the other side, although it is currently bird-less. Madurodam was pretty cool. I might have to go back someday, once I have a sense of where most of these buildings are from so I can appreciate them better. Though Keukenhof is high on my list of destinations next Spring. I can’t wait!

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Indecent exposure (Or: Americans are such prudes)

Posted on April 1, 2012 by Niki

(Rejoice! The blog finally switched over to “8 months” from “9 months”. It seems to only update itself on the 1st of each month.)

In yesterday’s post I mentioned that I did not have a picture of the fountain that resides in the Binnenhof. I realized today that that was not technically correct, as I do have a picture of it… from Madurodam (the place where Dutch landmarks are done in miniature).

Binnenhof square at Madurodam

At first I thought this represented Koninginnedag, or Queen’s Day, which will happen later this month – since it is now April after all (!). But it seems this represents a day in September (the 3rd Tuesday of the month) when the Queen gives her annual speech within the Binnenhof. You can see her golden carriage near the church.

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Cobblestone (Or: Church in the Binnenhof)

Posted on March 31, 2012 by Niki

Another post about the Binnenhof. There’s only a few things that I remember about this place. One of them is the beautiful golden fountain in the middle of the square. Another is the entrances you walk through to get to the square itself. The middle entrance is fairly large, or at least large enough for a car or two. There is also an entrance on either side, small enough for a few pedestrians (or more frequently, a bike).

I remember when I went, there was also a parked cop car and some police milling around, though I got the sense that this area was their regular assignment.

Church in the Binnenhof in the Hague

The other thing that I distinctly remember is the cobblestone that the square and surrounding areas are made of. I have a habit of always looking where I am walking (not that it prevents the occasional trip) so I always note the ground itself. Here the cobblestone is actually fairly wide, with a lot of space between each stone. This is somewhat noticeable, since it can get uncomfortable if your foot hits the stone wrong.

All and all, a beautiful if somewhat sparse square.

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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…

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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. 🙂

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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

Productivity (Or: I found some)

Posted on March 1, 2012 by Niki

It’s the first day of March. More importantly, this blog’s counter has decided to shift from 10 months to 9! I actually didn’t notice – Marco mentioned it when we were speaking earlier tonight.

It’s been a nice day for me. I was able to schedule a day off, thanks to most of the college enjoying Spring break. But I didn’t lie around – I managed to get a lot done!

1. Chores: vacuuming and taking out the trash and recycling. Since the recycling bin is right outside the door, this isn’t that impressive, but humor me.

2. I called Direct Loans for confirmation regarding a few tax details for the year 2010. I forgot to include my student loan interest last year, so that means I can amend my taxes and get a bit more money back (hopefully enough to pay for the plane ticket home to Chicago later this year for Thanksgiving!)

3. LOTS of studying Dutch. I think I watched about 7 episodes of Het Klokhuis (they are about 15 minutes each) with the subtitles on. I watched most of the last few week’s episodes, except that I skipped this week’s episode entitled Hoofdluis – head lice. Eww.

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