Daily Dutch living

Experience Spring (Or: Time to watch some bird webcams?)

Posted on February 27, 2023 by Niki

And now for something different…

Dutch bird protection organization Vogelbescherming has set up web cameras in and around various nests in the country. It is part of an event called Beleef de lente or “Experience Spring”. You can check it out at their homepage. If a camera is active it will be marked “live”, otherwise it is marked “Binnenkort” or “soon”. You can also collapse the chat window on each web camera to get a larger picture.

I especially like the Slechtvalk (peregrine falcon) camera as you get a lovely view of Amsterdam in the background. The bird is nesting in the clock tower in the Rijksmuseum. You can also switch the camera at the top left of the feed, choosing either Rijksmuseumrooster (the view of the city) or Rijksmuseumbinnen (the view inside the nest).

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Anyone ready for a heat wave? (Or: Issues with Buienradar)

Posted on October 22, 2022 by Niki

Buienradar.nl is a well-known Dutch website for weather. Buien = showers/rainfall.

A few days ago they had this as a 14 day prediction for The Hague:

In other words, late next week the temperature would go from about 66F to 95F. That sounds nice! But no, it was just an unfortunate bug in the data which has since been fixed. Actually the temperatures will be dropping from 17C to 13C (62F to 55F). It is probably for the best that it isn’t 95F in late October…

See also: Buienradar: in deel Zuid-Holland volgende week 36 graden from omroepwest.nl.

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Transportation (Or: Trains, trams and… shopping carts?)

Posted on August 24, 2022 by Niki

It’s a random news day, I think.

The major train provider (NS) is in the middle of a strike. There are 5 days where workers will strike. Today was day 1, in the north of the country. Friday is this area’s turn (The Hague, Leiden, Rotterdam, etc.). There are three more regions set to strike next week, with national strikes possibly following in September. Hmmm.

Not to be outdone, there was also a news story about Scheveningen getting a new tram depot in a few years. This is needed because the newer Avenio trams (Dutch Wikipedia) are wider and don’t fit in the current depot.

And, as the final form of transportation:

Albert Heijn (a Dutch grocery store chain) has been using a coin deposit system to unlock carts since the mid ’80s. As you might expect, this was to prevent carts from going missing. But this system was suspended in the last few years due to corona and Albert Heijn noticed that even without the system the number of “missing” carts did not go increase. So they decided to scrape it entirely. Personally I am not really affected since I don’t have a car. No car = limited carrying capacity = shopping basket for me.

That was also the rule I lived by in the States, since I didn’t have a car there either. Did you know “never having to learn to drive” was in the “pro” column when we were debating if I move to the Netherlands or if Marco moves to the States, way back when? Yep, I hate driving that much.

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Time to vote (Or: 2022 municipal elections in The Hague)

Posted on March 5, 2022 by Niki

Later this month the 2022 municipal elections will be held throughout The Netherlands. As usual, voting is done with paper and (red) pencil. During last year’s elections voters were allowed to take the red pencils home (nu.nl in Dutch) due to fears about corona, but that probably won’t happen this year. However one corona measure that has persisted is that most voting locations will be open three days (March 14, 15 and 16) instead of only one day, to spread out voters so that no location gets too busy.

A few days ago our voting cards arrived, and today a special “elections newspaper arrived”. As a non-Dutch and non-EU citizen I am allowed to vote in the municipal elections because I have lived in The Netherlands for at least 5 years. This will be my second time voting in the municipal elections. However, only Dutch citizens can vote in the national elections.

Here is a look at page 2 and 3 of the newspaper, and a look at my voting card (with personal information removed). I was pleased to see that page 2 had a large section in English explaining the basics about how to vote for these elections. Not that I need it, but non-Dutch EU citizens don’t have to wait 5 years to vote like I do, so they might not know enough Dutch yet to read the newspaper.

If you want a laugh, check out this 2017 article from the Washington post about how large the ballots are: With 28 parties running, Dutch voters have to use these really huge ballots. The article was about the national elections, but local election ballots are almost as large. It takes longer to unfold the thing than it does to actually vote. And don’t forget the poor volunteer who later needs to unfold all of these ballots and count the votes…

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Pathé movie theatre (Or: Closed due to corona)

Posted on January 9, 2022 by Niki

As noted, everything is closed at the moment due to the lockdown. With the exception of course of supermarkets, pharmacies and other essential stores. It doesn’t seem to help that much though, as the omicron wave has hit the Netherlands (nltimes.nl in English).

Here is a look at the Pathé movie theatre on the Spui:

In the background you can see the escalators leading up to the cashiers and theatres. As I blogged previously, at least we got to see Spiderman the day before lockdown started.

Of special note is the sign in the foreground: “We’ll be back… again and again”.

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At the movies (Or: Christmas tree at Pathé)

Posted on December 20, 2021 by Niki

Marco, Roger and I were able to squeeze in one last movie on Saturday morning before the lockdown arrived on Sunday. We booked the tickets for Spider-Man: No Way Home a week previously, as soon as they went on sale. We even had to wait in a virtual queue for an hour to get them! In the end, Roger was the lucky one who was able to get into the site and book tickets (after some technical difficulties as the website and app kept crashing due to the Spider-Man demand). They were great seats, too.

I must say the movie theatre itself was definitely doing everything they could to take it a safe experience. You were required to show your CoronaCheck app (vaccinated, tested or recovered) to get in and wear a facemack until you were sitting in your seat. There was also social distancing in the theater; the seats around your group’s purchase were blocked out automatically and not available to purchase.

Since we are Marvel geeks we already had tickets for a second showing for Spider-Man on Sunday morning, but we will unfortunately get an automatic refund for those. We understand how lucky we were to be able to see it on Saturday, even. And Mom, if you’re reading this: what Marco and I told you about Spider-Man was an integral part of the movie! (“Hey Mom, did you know…?”)

Christmas tree at Pathé Spui near the drink/food area. Actually it is right next to the Starbucks coffee machines. And the rooster on the right side is because Pathe’s logo is a rooster.

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Lots of alarms going off (Or: Testing the emergency system)

Posted on December 9, 2021 by Niki

Every first Monday of the month at 12:00, the test system goes off here in The Netherlands. It uses an air raid siren which always reminds me of my childhood. Why, do you ask?

The air raid siren sound that is used is the same sound that was used back in Chicago where I grew up. But there it was the tornado siren, warning of impending doom. Okay, maybe I am exaggerating a bit, but not by much. You don’t ignore tornado sirens in the midwest of the United States.

But the last decade has brought a new sound into the mix during the first Monday of the month at 12:00 — your phone also bleats out a shrill sound about 4 or 5 times. The warning system is called “NL Alert” (crisis.nl in English). “Luckily” the telephones are only tested twice a year, in June and December. Now imagine my phone making that sound, and Marco’s phone, and Marco’s work phone… All. at. the. same. time. BEEEEEEEEEEP!

Oh, and the air siren was still going on outside.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s a very useful system. It was credited for helping save lives during the flooding in July of this year in the southeastern part of The Netherlands. It is also used locally if there is a large fire and nearby residents need to close their windows, etc. It it just so loud at times! And it makes me think there is a tornado coming…

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Anyone up for some Sinterklaas sweets? (Or: Albert Heijn offerings)

Posted on October 9, 2021 by Niki

One of the local Albert Heijns has an entire wall display for Sinterklaas sweets:

Think of things like speculaas with almond filling (cakieshq.com), spiced kruidnoten cookies (thespruceeats.com) and the softer pepernoten cookies (allrecipes.com).

Autumn arrived at the end of September, bringing a lot of rain and cold with it. If you are not paying attention, you will get caught in a sudden downpour that soaks you and then dissipates within 10 minutes. Marco and I also still need to try the yearly traditional of oliebollen, as I mentioned in a previous blog post. Soon!

At least the weather looks a bit drier this week, even if the warmth of summer is gone.

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Hail with a bit of snow (Or: Crazy weather in The Hague)

Posted on April 6, 2021 by Niki

Cold weather is definitely on the menu the last few days. Days after historic warmth, Europe braces for shocking blast of cold, snow from washingtonpost.com.

I wouldn’t call what we got “lots of snow” per se, more a mix of hail and slush. Heavy on the hail part.

It is sort of weird weather where it is dozens of tiny storms flashing across the country, so you might have 2 minutes of hail, then 45 minutes of nothing and grayish skies, 5 minutes of vibrant blue skies and then another 2 minutes of hail. I was woken up early this morning at 03:45 to extremely loud hail smashing against the window. Marco slept through it all, of course!

The cold arctic blast also means that when the clouds disappear, you get to see lovely blue skies. Briefly. For a moment. See also this tweet:

Kind of cool if you ask me.

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Voting in the 2021 Dutch elections (Or: City hall)

Posted on March 18, 2021 by Niki

The 2021 Dutch elections (English Wikipedia) were held yesterday. Marco decided to cast his vote at The Hague’s city hall. Marco took a quick photo for me, aiming more at the ground to avoid getting anyone in the photo.

As you can see, everything was set up according to corona guidelines. Marco said later that it was set up rather well – there were volunteers controlling the lines, there was plenty of space between the voting booths and there was a separate entrance and exit. You entered by the library and then exited on the other side of city hall. (Check out a photo I took of city hall back in 2013, right after I moved to the Netherlands – there is a LOT of space.)

Above is random voting “paraphernalia” that Marco received, including a card with corona related questions and instructions about how to make your visit to the voting location as safe as possible, both for yourself and others. Also, special for this year only: most voters were allowed to keep the red pencil that they used to vote. Usually they are chained to the desk. However not all voters were allowed to keep the pencil. The choice was up to the city since they would have to finance the red pencils with their voting budget. Some cities decided it was more cost effective to clean them between each use instead.

Differences in cities also meant there were differences in pencils – some cities provided short, little pencils like above. Others provided longer red pencils with “Jouw stem telt!” or “Your vote counts!” printed on the side.

In COVID-19 election, Dutch voters ask: Can I keep the pencil? from reuters.com.

And of course the red pencils were already appearing on Markplaats (the Dutch eBay) early yesterday morning. Not that anyone should be surprised by that!

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