Culture

“Chance of a lifetime” Vermeer exhibition (Or: On display at the Rijksmuseum)

Posted on February 5, 2023 by Niki

If you enjoy the paintings by Johannes Vermeer, then you should consider going to the Rijksmuseum to see the latest exhibition. It will run from 10 February through 4 June. What makes this exhibition special, you might ask? It will feature 28 of Vermeer’s paintings. Considering he only has about 40 paintings credited to him, this is a lot of Vermeer in one museum. The Rijksmuseum was able to get other museums to lend their paintings for the exhibition. For example, it will feature the “Girl with the Pearl Earring” which is normally in The Hague’s Mauritshuis. It will be on loan through the end of March. Other paintings include “Girl Reading a Letter at the Open Window” from Dresden and “The Mistress and the Maid” from the Frick collection in New York. Paintings are also on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Louvre.

If you want to book tickets, see the Rijksmuseum website. You need to pick a date and start time.

See also ‘Chance of a lifetime’ Vermeer exhibition to open in Amsterdam at theguardian.com.

Above: Girl reading a letter by an open window. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_Reading_a_Letter_at_an_Open_Window

Categories: Culture | Tags: , | Leave a comment

A new Dutch reading board (Or: This one is a bit tastier)

Posted on January 7, 2023 by Niki

At some point last month Marco and I were at a store and spotted a different type of reading board. Dutch reading boards have been used for over a century to teach kids how to read. It shows all of the commonly used consonants, vowels and diphthongs in the Dutch language, with words and pictures like aap, noot or mies (ape, nut, word for a woman or kat). See also the photos at this Dutch Wikipedia page. You can also read more about the history of Dutch reading boards (link in English).

Or you can just admire the reading board that Marco and I spotted that is crafted especially for men, apparently:

Leesplank voor kerels = reading board for men.

And here is a random link of the day: in 51 places in The Hague you can take an umbrella / leave an umbrella for free (article in Dutch at denhaag.nl).

Categories: Culture, Everyday purchases, Reading | Tags: , | Leave a comment

Sweet treats (Or: Van Delft store in The Hague)

Posted on December 27, 2022 by Niki

Earlier this month Marco and I visited the Van Delft store in The Hague. They are well-known for their stroopwafels, kruidnoten and pepernoten.

Here is a look at their store setup this year:

Above: a look at some of the kruidnoten flavors they have on sale.

A close up look. Think of flavors like intense orange, disco dip, white chocolate, dark roasted coffee, etc. I bought a bag of the dark roasted coffee flavor. Yum! Of course, kruidnoten are a treat for Sinterklaas (5 December) so they aren’t being sold at the moment.

In other news

Categories: Culture, Holidays, The Hague | Tags: , | Leave a comment

Up, up and away (Or: The Art of DC comics exhibition in Groningen)

Posted on September 26, 2022 by Niki

While in Groningen Marco and I also visited the Art of DC comics exhibition (official website in English) at Forum Groningen. The forum is a multipurpose building which includes exhibition space, a cinema, a library, a café and more. It’s not a good place if you’re afraid of heights, though. It has about 7-8 floors and lots of escalators. And of course the escalators aren’t on top of each other, so when you’re on floor 5 going to floor 6, there’s 5 floors of nothingness directly below you. Hmph. You can get an idea of what I mean by checking this link (alamy.com, it’s an image bank site).

Here are some pictures of the costumes. You can see the difference in suits as the years pass – at first quite basic, and then more intricate suits as the years go by (actually, this image doesn’t even show the first superman suit they had on display).

Continue reading →
Categories: Culture, Marco&Niki | Leave a comment

The Streets of Chuck Deely (Or: The 2022 edition)

Posted on August 27, 2022 by Niki

Chuck Deely was an American street musician who played in The Hague’s city centre for years. He was such a fixture that the mayor of The Hague gave him a ‘street license for life’ to play music in the city centre back in 2008. Unfortunately he passed away in early 2017 (previous blog post).

Tomorrow (Sunday afternoon) is The Streets of Chuck Deely festival (official website in Dutch) in The Hague’s city centre, from 13:00 to 17:00. Check out the band line up. There are 10 mini stages set up around the city centre. Most bands will perform twice.

Mini stature of Chuck Deely (near The Hague Central Station)
Categories: Culture, The Hague | Tags: | Leave a comment

Chapeau! (Or: Hats exhibition in De Passage)

Posted on August 21, 2022 by Niki

Look up in De Passage (The Passage) and you will see a few thousand hats floating above you.

The Hat Exhibition Chapeau! is being held in De Passage until mid-October (depassage.nl, article in English). As the story goes, a few years ago about 3,000 hats were found in a vacant space above the Ladies Paradise shop in De Passage. The shop itself closed around 1998-2000. The designer Pink Steenvoorden came up with the idea of hanging most of them from the ceiling for visitors to photograph.

You can view a picture of the interior of the shop at The Hague’s city archive.

If you will be around for Prinsjesdag, you can also take part in The Hague Hat Stroll 2022 on September 17. For more information see prinsjesfestival.nl (in Dutch). Everyone is asked to wear their prettiest hat. If you don’t have one, you can borrow one for the event from the supply of hats found in De Passage. The walk will go through The Hague’s Museumkwartier (the Museum Quarter [in English]).

Categories: Culture, The Hague | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

Graffiti by Amare (Or: Color in the city centre)

Posted on August 16, 2022 by Niki

Here is a look at some of the latest graffiti to pop up nearby the Amare cultural complex. This part of the area in front of the building is still under construction. (Amare is off to the left – you can just barely see the edge of it in the photo below.)

In other news:

  • Speaking of Amare, parts of the building are sinking by a few millimeters (dutchnews.nl), as first reported back in April of this year. The five concert halls each have their own foundation to prevent vibrations from concerts dragging down the whole structure. But a few of the halls are sinking enough that the doors no longer close properly (!). A construction company is currently working on raising the theatres by two centimeters (official website, in Dutch). The work is taking place during the summer break, with performances scheduled to resume in September.
  • The food court in Scheveningen is beta testing a new ‘order from the beach‘ option. You can order and pay with your phone. You will receive a text message once the food is ready. According to this indebuurt.nl news article (in Dutch), the system isn’t quite perfect yet.
  • De Lange Poten (a street in the city centre, where the American book centre is) is still being worked on since my last blog post. Apparently it will be even more closed off next week Monday through Friday, with the street completely closed on Tuesday. See also this indebuurt.nl article. Although I don’t see how you can completely close down a shopping street, so we’ll see.
  • The warm-for-the-Netherlands weather is almost gone. Hopefully we get some rain tomorrow to mark the occasion and help with our drought, but the rain estimates go down each day.
Categories: Culture | Tags: | Leave a comment

Vroom vroom (Or: Louwman museum in The Hague)

Posted on August 6, 2022 by Niki

Today Marco and I visited the Louwman museum in The Hague. I scheduled this as a surprise for Marco a few weeks back. Consider it a late birthday present. The museum’s collection started in 1934 and the museum has been in its current location since 2010.

On the one hand, it is kind of funny that I wanted to go to a car museum as 1) I don’t have a driver’s license 2) I don’t like riding in cars, even as a passenger 3) if I hear someone got a new car the first (and only) thing I ask is “What color is it?”.

The museum starts with horse drawn carriages and old cars like the one above. Otherwise known as death traps. An honorable mention not pictured in this blog is the Sunbeam-Mabley Motor Sociable. The driver sat in the back (on the right side of the photo) and the passengers sat in front of him (!), but facing sideways. The wheels were also deliberately not aligned, which made skidding less of a risk but falling over more of a risk. Hmmmm.

The car above is the reason why we visited the museum. They have an F1 legends exhibition on the ground floor. On its own I don’t think the exhibition was worth visiting (it features 8 cars on loan) but coupled with a visit to the museum itself it is worth it. The cars on display took part in the Dutch Grand Prix between 1948 and 1970. The exhibit runs through September 4, coincidentally the day of the 2022 Dutch Grand Prix in Zandvoort. The car above is Jim Clark’s Lotus 33 which won the Dutch Grand Prix in 1965.

The museum also had a display of car related toys (above). They also have a sizable display of art, including posters, sculptures, cigarette cases, miniatures and other memorabilia.

Here is a lovely blue car with wicker seats, because why not? Read more here. Another wacky example is the swan car and the boat car (not seaworthy, unfortunately).

Above is a 1965 Ferrari owned by the Dutch Prince Bernhard. The prince specifically requested the metallic paint color “Verde Pino”. It is a beautiful color, and apparently the car goes fast too (the name of the car being Superfast Speziale).

You can browse through the rest of the cars by checking out their online car collection.

Categories: Culture, The Hague, Transportation | Tags: | Leave a comment

200 year anniversary (Or: Tulips by the Mauritshuis)

Posted on May 9, 2022 by Niki

This year the Mauritshuis museum (official website) in The Hague’s city centre is celebrating their 200 year anniversary. This spring they are celebrating with flowers, both inside and out.

The front of the museum is decorated in flowers, as you can see above. There are also large flower pots out in the front with tulips on display (see the crowd milling around by the front door). The “In Full Bloom” exhibit runs through 6 June. In Pictures: A Luscious Floral Art Show Is Blooming at the Mauritshuis Museum, Inside and Out from artnet.com.

Categories: Culture | Tags: , | Leave a comment

The Life I Live festival 2022 (Or: King’s Night in The Hague)

Posted on April 26, 2022 by Niki

Tonight is the 10th anniversary of The Life I Live festival. Note: their website is definitely experiencing server capacity issues, so it is a bit hit or miss to visit it right now.

The last edition was of course in 2019. It is held in The Hague’s city centre, with musical acts spread out over about 8-10 stages. The opener this year was the Ukrainian band Go_A. Last year they participated in the Eurovision Song festival held in Rotterdam. This year the band got special permission from the Ukrainian government to travel to The Hague to perform (as technically Ukrainian men are not supposed to leave Ukraine right now).

This stage was at the Lange Voorhout not far from the Escher museum and Hotel Des Indes.

This smaller stage was on the opposite end of the Lange Voorhout, featuring the band Kuzko. I didn’t stay long, but they really brought the bass! It was a weird feeling to feel the bass after not going to any concerts the last two years.

King’s Night (and more accurately King’s Day) is a holiday to celebrate the birth of the Dutch King Willem Alexander who turns 55 tomorrow. The joke “Max komt misschien later…” is a joke that Max Verstappen, the 2021 F1 world champion, might stop by here later. Hmm.

(Man, I still remember when it was weird to see Willem Alexander with a beard!)

Continue reading →
Categories: Culture, Holidays, The Hague | Tags: , , , | 1 Comment

Blog at WordPress.com.