As you know, the Netherlands is notorious for having a lot of bikes in its country. Unfortunately, this one has since been cannibalized – it is (was) a bike right outside where Marco works.
The wheel has been outside for at least three or four months. Apparently the owner didn’t even care about taking his lock when he realized his bike was stolen. So the leaves just keep building up underneath…
From Marco…
When Niki was in the Netherlands in summer 2010, she asked if we’d have traditional Dutch food. I kind of told her no, since a lot of Dutch food is winter food.
So when she was was here in December of that year, she asked again.
And again I told her we probably shouldn’t. Though of course we did introduce her to ‘oliebollen’.
The reason of course is that one of the most typical types of Dutch food are ‘stamppot’ (mash pot) which is usually potatoes mashed with some sort of vegetable. Personally I’m not a big fan of them, and I sort of doubt if Niki is. But who knows? (Note from Niki: yeah… he knows I don’t like mixing different foods together…)
The one type of stamppot that I do like is with sauerkraut.
My mom made some this week (because it’s getting colder, so it’s time for winter food!) and brought it over yesterday. Good times!
Now, probably each family has their own little customs when it comes to these dishes. But one of the most common traditions is to put it on your plate, make a large indent in the middle, and then pour gravy in there. Also, there has to be ‘rookworst’ (smoked sausage).
Definitely got to have smoked sausage.
I’m sure at some point Niki will be introduced to these kind of Dutchie foods.
I wonder if she’s going to enjoy it….
Marco took this picture on his way to the airport to catch his flight to the States. As you can tell, he was up early to make sure he did not miss his flight! I believe the art is/was near the public library (Openbare Bibliotheek Den Haag).
From Marco…
Wednesday we got to go vote for a new parliament/house of representatives and cabinet. A few months ago the coalition that formed our cabinet fell apart, forcing new elections.
First of all, let me explain how it works here. There are 150 spots in the parliament (or as we call it “tweede kamer” – second chamber) We go vote for one of the many parties that are vying for these seats or chairs as we often refer to them. There were 21 parties this time around iirc, but only 10 of them got a seat.
Translation: Polling place entrance. (Lit: Entrance Polling Place)
To be able to form the cabinet (the group of ministers/secretaries and prime-minister) you usually need to have at least 75 of the seats. It’s nearly impossible for one party to get this.
So they form coalitions. Which is not always easy, several parties have to try and come together, try to form a coherent plan etcetera. Last time around that took ’em six months or something. And well.. yeah the coalition fell apart after two years.
So we voted again yesterday. Interesting to me was that one party, the SP (socialist party) was doing great in the polls up until about three weeks ago. Since then they’ve gone from the predicted 30+ seats to 15, which is the same they had in 2010. It seemed that while their plans were alright, the party leader just wasn’t able to bring it across.
Compare that to the PvdA (partij van de arbeid, labor party) who did the complete opposite. They were around 15-20 seats a few weeks ago and soared to 38 in the end. Though I do think that they ended up with a lot of ‘strategic votes’.. Just like the SP they are (slightly) left wing.
From the get go it was obvious that the VVD (liberal party so slightly to the right) was going to be one of the two largest parties this time. So in the end, when the SP was in the ropes and the PvdA was a few seats behind the VVD..it makes sense to vote for the PvdA to make sure at least one of the left parties is close to them in size.
Anyways, they’ll start with the talks to form a coalition now.
We’ll see how that goes. It’s not always a foregone conclusion that the biggest parties end up working together.
Anyways II, yes when I went to vote I did think “Last time I vote without Niki here. I wonder if she’s allowed to vote here at some point”
I’m not 100% sure actually. I sort of assume that you’re allowed to vote here after spending X number of years in the country. But again, I’m not sure. I guess we’ll have to look it up at some point. 😉
From Marco…
At work we have a large candy jar that we fill occassionally.
The past week I noticed at the supermarket near work that they had ‘kruidnootjes’ already.
So I bought them to put them in the jar. Several coworkers raised an eyebrow. “kruidnootjes in september?”
That’s exactly the reason I bought them to be honest. It makes for fun conversation material, and a good blog post. 🙂 Sinterklaas snacks and candy showing up in stores earlier and earlier. September 1st is the earliest I’ve seen them.
There’s people who claim they cannot do sell them at this point, have to wait until November or something like that. Because these things aren’t summer-food but are tied in to the Sinterklaas thing. It’s not like they’re flooding the stores already (which they do in late November) but there’s a small section already. And they put it in a noticable spot so a lot of people see it (and despite all the complaints pick up some stuff)
Yet the funny thing is, I don’t really understand why they don’t sell things like kruidnootjes all year around. They’re pretty delicious and there’s still plenty of other Sinterklaas candy that can be seasonal. Like chocolate letters (haven’t seen those yet) and ‘gevulde speculaas’ which is a soft type of speculaas filled with almond paste. Very sweet but very good.
Funny thing, I like ‘pepernoten’ better. Haven’t seen them yet. Once I do I’ll get some of those for sure. To erhm write about it in a blog post of course. Yup, that’s the only reason..I swear 🙂
(Note by Niki: yes, Mom & Dad. This is the addictive snack that Marco brought over last Christmas for you guys, which disappeared in about 24 hours.)
Roger was gracious enough to send me some pictures of Amsterdam’s in-water boat show which starts today, September 4, and runs through Sunday, September 9. He has been watching the construction of the marina over the past few months, which will house all of the boats this week. Apparently most of the marina will stay after the boat show wraps up, which is nice.
Location: Amsterdam Marina, NDSM Shipyard; Werfstraat 4, 1033 SN Amsterdam
Of course, it does mean there will be more traffic in the area, which hopefully won’t put a damper on Roger’s commute to and from work each day. It’s only four days, at least! Here’s a floor plan of the boat show so you can see the amount of boats that will be docked there. As Roger noted, it is kind of weird to see “Manoeuvreren voor vrouwen” in the lower left of the floor plan (maneuvering for women)… as if men don’t need any help, or all women need help. (I would!)
You can also see a list of activities broken down by day — though it seems like a lot of activities happen on all of the days.
There will be 200 exhibitors and 300 boats. You can read more about the facts & figures of this event by going to the press section of their website.
Random picture of the day. Here is the replacement bike that Roger bought last month:
Here’s hoping this one doesn’t “wander off” for many, many years!
Here is a random sign found at a bar in the Hague.
We sell no alcohol to minors under 16.
We sell no hard liquor (spirits) to minors under 18.
Other fun facts: minors can drink at home, under parental supervision. Minors can only enter a shop if are with someone over the age of 21. Supermarkets don’t sell hard liquor – only beer, wine, and similar with an alcohol content below 14 percent.
And thus ends my random Wednesday blog post. Here’s a post about the day Wednesday from Juno in Holland.
A few pages into the aforementioned Dutch children’s book, I was reading along and found something slightly unexpected, at least for a kid’s book. Look at the first paragraph. Two bullies (having been thwarted by the victim’s older brother) jump on their bikes and bike away. Once they get a safe distance away, they turn around and give their retort.
Basically their response is Vuile hufter! (dirty bastard!). And then it says terwijl ze hun middelvinger opsteken. … (while they raised their middle fingers.) They then go on to talk about the kid’s dirty filthy clothes.
A bit unexpected for a book written for 10 year olds (or so). Though I realized a while ago that Americans tend to be a bit more… reserved in some instances. It was interesting to work at the public library shortly after And Tango Makes Three was published. This book is about two male penguins who seemed to have a relationship, and exhibited nesting tendencies. Eventually they were given an egg to “mother” and they did a great job of it. (Of course, penguins tend to have different sexual habits, and eventually they “broke up” when one of them doted on a female penguin.)
Someone in town complained about the book being in the picture book section, so all copies were moved to the parenting section. Though I can understand this – parents like to let the children roam and pick out what they want to read. Unknowingly bringing that book home could lead to some awkward discussions before the parent wants to bring them up.
But in the Dutch book – it’s not the only example of “real world” actions of kids that age. On page 1 the older sister was admonishing her brother to keep up when he whined he couldn’t get up the hill*: “niet lullen maar fietsen!’ which is basically “less bs’ing, more biking!”.
* = must have been man-made, since I haven’t seen any hills yet!
But hey, at least it makes the book more interesting to read. I am just used to children’s books being slightly more censored. I was reading a lot of them between 2006-2007 for the library job so I don’t think I am THAT out of touch.
Today’s amusement: More camp counselors got on the bus today to go to the Palisades Center. There were about 7 or 8 of them, and most of them seemed to be from the UK.
After seeing that the price was $2.10, the first girl asked “That’s a dime. Which one is a dime again?” as she quickly scanned the change in her palm. A helpful counselor behind her piped up, “Just look for the smallest one!”
How much can you get for €10, $.25 (quarter), and $.10 (dime)? Not a lot, but it’s a start.
Of course I breathed a sigh of relief, since I at least know the euro coins carry the denomination printed right on them.
While I am talking about money, what’s the point of Dutch ATMs dispensing €50 instead of €20? If you ask for €60, you get €50 and €10. I would hate to be the poor shopkeeper that had to make change for that (but I guess some just refuse).
Number of days (straight) I have studied Dutch: 4.
Yesterday’s lesson: Verbs: future perfect.
Life in the Hague 