Here is a quick photo taken outside of the local Asian store, Amazing Oriental. Sometimes it is busy enough that you just gotta social distance yourself. There are small bits of caution tape along the wall letting you know where to stand.
Kudos to the store for keeping a manageable amount of people inside at the one time – you’re only able to enter when the worker brings back a free shopping cart. It was also a relatively fast moving line as the average wait was only two or three minutes.
This photo is from last Tuesday, April 7. I just had to take a photo of this much toilet paper together in one spot (who knew that would be an important photo):
There’s some things to note with this photograph:
Otherwise I would say most things are back – maybe pasta and rice are still a bit low, but they are definitely always at least half stocked. Pasta sauce is still a bit hit or miss, as noted in a previous post.
What is your local grocery store still missing in these coronavirus times?
Marco came home today with a surprise: our Albert Heijn has their spicy pasta sauce base in stock again!
The last time I saw this item was before the big coronavirus scare. Let’s see – that means it has been almost a month.
Check out the photo I took of Albert Heijn’s pasta section on 17 March:
Marco would proceed to joke for the next month that only expensive items were left on the shelfs, since Dutchies are still Dutchies after all.
Interestingly enough I saw toilet paper for the first time a few weeks back already. The rice section is still fairly low, but they were able to start re-stocking that a few weeks ago as well.
It feels like a lifetime ago, but a few weeks ago (13 March) I was browsing in Hema. I could not resist snapping a few photos of their chocolate egg collection:
Some of the flavors included dark chocolate banana cream, white chocolate matcha lemon, milk chocolate cookies and cream (that one was almost empty), milk chocolate orange, milk chocolate coconut, milk chocolate peanut butter… I definitely learned that everyone’s favorite flavor is milk chocolate, not dark chocolate.
There was also a display near one of the entrances.
But the best (and most Dutch) flavor was…
You guessed it… Stroopwafel flavored chocolate eggs!
Traveling through the city centre of The Hague means you always see interesting promotions, especially on the Grote Markstraat (in Dutch), one of the larger shopping areas of the city.
Today’s promotion: Milka. Milka is a German company specializing in chocolate confections. You can vote on which of the four cows you like the best (link also in Dutch). The top prize is a trip to the Alps, with smaller prizes including chocolate packages or Milka-branded mugs.
The most interesting thing about the photo is on the left: one worker is helping another put on their cow head for the costume.
And no, I didn’t vote. They were still setting up and there’s no way I could choose who was my favorite cow: Marisa, Lotta, Lola or Katja (heh).
I will also mention that all of the names end in a… is there no love for a Sophie or Zoe?
Over the weekend Marco and I went to the Coolblue store in The Hague. Coolblue specializes in consumer electronics and only had an online presence — that is, until a few years ago when they started opening a few physical stores in The Netherlands.
I would describe it like an electronics store crossed with an Apple store – sure, they sell stuff but they also want to show off their stuff and let you browse around. The store has a minimalist feel, with a lot of empty space. And you can even get free tea and coffee. Generally I go to the online store to browse, and I only visit the physical store if I know exactly what I want. I haven’t tried the free tea or coffee quite yet. If I do I’ll let you know how it tastes.
But last weekend I had to take a photo of the floor.
Yeah – you heard me, the floor.
In the television department they have guides showing you how large each tv size is. They even thoughtfully provided a centimeter guide as well (which is logical since televisions are of course listed in cm here). I’m not quite sure how helpful the guidelines are—I think it would have been better to put each measurement next to each other and start from the same spot—but the thought is there.
I can just imagine someone grabbing a television off the display and dragging it to the guide area to double check that the television they were looking at was indeed 50 inches. Leaving scratch marks in the floor along the way…
Last week at Albert Heijn I spotted a Tony’s Chocolonely display filled with Easter eggs. The company’s mission is to make fair trade chocolate. (The company’s slogan is: “Crazy about chocolate, serious about people“.)
The cutest thing was these mini egg cartons:
And of course the Easter candy started popping up a few weeks ago already. You can never be too early!
A new grocery store is moving in to the city centre! A Jumbo City grocery store will be opening on the Grote Marktstraat on 4 December, which means competition for the local Albert Heijn. A little competition never hurt anyone, though…
For the non-Dutch speaking among us: it’s pronounced Yumbo, not Jumbo.
The store will be opening in what was previously the Marks & Spencer was (which I still miss for its food options – never cared about the clothing lines).
One cool thing: the inside of the flyer had a map of the store layout. You don’t see that too often, since stores prefer you wander around and see everything.
Hopefully it lasts. It’s not bad to have more grocery store options in the city centre. Although there is also a Jumbo by the Holland Spoor train station already, it is quite small and didn’t have the same inventory as other Jumbos do.
Spotted at the local Albert Heijn a few weeks back:
Neither Marco nor I wanted to try the flavor, as it does sound a bit weird. But I always enjoy taking photos of the weird drink flavors companies up with (or weird potato chip flavors, in the case of Lay’s).
Marco and I are now guinea pigs!
As of a few days ago, Disney+ is available in the Netherlands as a free trial. (Yay!) Officially it launches in the US, Canada and the Netherlands on 12 November, but Dutchies are able to sign up for free to test out the service for two months. Of course, the catch is that if you don’t unsubscribe before 12 November you pay the subscription fee automatically. Either €6,99/month or €70/year.
Marco and I signed up today. We first tried to sign up on our Apple TV, however the payment options were limited (only iTunes?) and there was no option to choose a yearly subscription. Therefore we instead completed the account setup via the website and then simply logged in on the Apple TV after the account was set up.
Since it is a free trial all of the extra “releasing on 12 November” type content isn’t there yet, however there is plenty of existing content from Disney, Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars and National Geographic to choose from. Way more than I could name here, except I’ll list some nostalgic films: Cool Runnings, Three Musketeers, Escape to Witch Mountain, Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey. Dad told me I wore out my VHS tape with that last one… I can see that.
There was one thing I noticed while watching some Pixar shorts (5-6 minutes each): anything with written words was translated into Dutch. See here:
The banner across the front door says Welkom Eerstejaars! or in English: Welcome Freshmen! The short was about a college party with the Monsters’ Inc. crew. There were no subtitles and no Dutch in the credits at the end, but there was still Dutch in this scene. I think it is a Pixar thing though – I can remember that Finding Dory also translated the signs in the movie into Dutch. I find it amusing for sure.
Otherwise: how cool is it to have all of this cool content at our fingertips? And to be the first country to get it? Ha!
Life in the Hague 