Everyday purchases

Adjusted hours at Albert Heijn (Or: Day #1 of the curfew)

Posted on January 23, 2021 by Niki

Today is the first day of the recently announced curfew in the Netherlands. The curfew is from 21:00 to 04:30 every day until at least 9 February. If you are outside without a valid reason and official form then you face a €95 fine. You can download the official form at rijksoverheid.nl, with the form currently available in Dutch, Frisian and English. See also: What you need to know about curfew in the Netherlands from nltimes.nl.

This of course means that grocery stores and late-night convenience stores need to closer earlier:

“Our opening hours are temporarily adjusted because of the curfew”

Curfew will not affect starting times of football matches from nltimes.nl. Which makes sense – this way at least people have something to watch on television while they are stuck at home.

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Christmas men made of bread? (Or: More breakfast fun)

Posted on December 30, 2020 by Niki

Here is another breakfast item Marco bought at the local supermarket, Albert Heijn:

We decided to be funny and bake some bacon as well. That way they would have a scarf to keep their necks warm. What do you think? This bread was not that much different from the bread shaped like a Christmas tree we had earlier in the week. (Which, if I must admit, was a bit tastier. These weren’t bad, though.)

And yay, I have a day off tomorrow! I am quite looking forward to sleeping in. And later in the day Marco and I will be going to Roger’s for New Year’s Eve. It is hard to believe I haven’t been to his place since March (!).

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Christmas trees made of bread (Or: Breakfast time)

Posted on December 28, 2020 by Niki

On the second day of Christmas (December 26), Marco and I had a Christmas tree for breakfast:

A Christmas tree made of bread, that is! Marco found it at Albert Heijn, one of the local grocery stores. We ate it with the usual hagelslag (chocolate sprinkles) and speculoos paste.

In other news: you can legally turn in fireworks today and tomorrow in The Hague (omroepwest.nl, article in Dutch). Today 207 kilos (457 pounds) was turned in. You can turn in up to 25 kilos of fireworks, even fireworks that are usually in the ‘illegal category’, without being fined.

The reason the city is organizing this is because it is illegal to possess fireworks outside of the few days around the New Year’s Eve holiday (those are also the only days you can legally possess fireworks). This year The Hague said that setting off fireworks would be illegal to keep hospital visits low.

You don’t legally have a reason to have them in your house and you can’t legally set them off, so unless you want to illegally store them for a year, turning them in now is your best option.

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Chocolate mania (Or: Bonbons by Simon Levelt)

Posted on December 23, 2020 by Niki

Anyone up for some chocolate?

These were the bonbons on offer at Simon Lévelt in De Passage a few weeks back. Saturday, December 12 to be precise, before the lockdown rumors started. I had to stand in line; the store is quite small so only five customers are allowed in at a time. And of course the two people in front of me were a couple who wanted to go in together, probably to look at gifts. They were allowed in but they had to stay in the front of the store, not by the registers.

And why was I there? Lebkoeken!! (English Wikipedia). German Christmas cookies. I had to get them there, considering the Royal Christmas Fair was closed this year…

The store worker managing the line asked what I was looking for. She was able to point me to the display so I didn’t have to wander around looking for them. The line outside the store was only getting longer at that point so it was probably for the best. (Note: Simon Lévelt is open as normal. Since they sell primarily tea, coffee and chocolate they are an essential business.)

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A new addition in Grote Markt (Or: Toilets)

Posted on December 6, 2020 by Niki

Kudos to The Hague for putting temporary public toilets on the Grote Markt. The most shocking of all: I didn’t see any signs that you had to pay, which would be quite normal in the Netherlands. Generally the only free bathrooms are found in restaurants or cafés.

Normally these barriers would be used for the Royal Christmas Fair. However, the fair was cancelled so the barriers could be put to a different use. And public toilets are very important right now. At the moment restaurants and cafés are only allowed to be open for takeout or delivery, so there not many public toilets available to shoppers at the moment.

I also saw some toilets by the plaza outside the Tweede Kamer parliamentary building, so it is not just on the Grote Markt. (Oh, and for American readers: yes, that’s TJ Maxx in the background. However in Europe the company goes by the name TK Maxx.)

Above is a tweet from the Scheveningen police, wishing everyone a nice Sinterklaas evening. Everyone opens their presents from Sinterklaas on the evening of December 5, aka last night.

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Opps… (Or: I am neither elderly or sick, but…)

Posted on November 26, 2020 by Niki

This morning I went to a local supermarket to pick something up for dinner. While I usually go to Albert Heijn, this item required me to go somewhere else. Actually, the first place I tried was closed but I kind of figured that would be the case, so I walked on to my second choice.

I was pleasantly surprised to enter a quiet supermarket, only spotting two customers on my quick trip through the store. I quickly found what I needed, checked one other thing and then moved to the cash registers to pay. While waiting for the cashier to appear (it really was quiet) I saw a paper before my nose detailing the opening hours of the store. And then realized that 09:00-10:00, when I was visiting, was actually the weekday ouderuurtje, aka the “elderly hour” where elderly or “immune compromised” persons can visit a supermarket to do their shopping in the quieter hours. That is one of the corona laws the government passed earlier this year. Opps.

I did apologize to the cashier when he walked up, but of course he didn’t care. Probably because it was unbelievably quiet… but still, I know better for next time.

In other news:

Tired of sniggers, Austrian village tweaks its name to Fugging from uk.reuters.com. I assume you can guess what their current name is… but hopefully this way people won’t steal as many of their signs.

Wintersporters blijven met Kerst massaal thuis, ‘nauwelijks boekingen from nu.nl. Dutch skiers are choosing to stay at hore for Christmas, rather than visiting Italy, France, Austria and similar. Although there is some speculation that last minute bookings might still occur. (This is important because the first wave of Covid this spring came from Italy, brought back by Dutch skiers.)

I told Marco about this one; he could only exclaim “Wow, like Pet Cementary!”: Culled mink rise from the dead to Denmark’s horror from theguardian.com. The reason is simple, though: they weren’t buried deep enough and when their bodies started to decompose, well, bodily gases caused them to rise back up to the surface. Still, ew…

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Crazy flavors (Or: Red velvet kruidnoten, anyone?)

Posted on November 22, 2020 by Niki

Did you notice flavors are getting crazier every year? Marco recently took a photo of some red velvet kruidnoten (English Wikipedia) at Albert Heijn:

Apparently this flavor was the winner of the ‘kruidnoten thuisverkiezing’ or ‘kruidnoten home vote’. I can believe that.

Still, it doesn’t beat the Lay’s potato chip flavor “Baguette with garlic butter”. That was memorable!

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Anyone up for cookies? (Or: Spotted at Albert Heijn)

Posted on November 19, 2020 by Niki

While shopping at Albert Heijn I noticed they had gingerbread men baking mixes:

The box is in the upper right. Of course I’m not sure if it is actually gingerbread, since the box calls them “Winter holiday cookies”, translated.

And even though you can’t really see it in my photo above, if you go to AH’s website you will see that the box says (in the bottom left): “Good for Halloween, Sinterklaas and Christmas!”

I’m trying to imagine making gingerbread men for Halloween, but I can’t.

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Well, that’s memorable (Or: Wine choices at Bijenkorf)

Posted on November 5, 2020 by Niki

As I wrote about earlier, this year the Christmas department at Bijenkorf extends into what is traditionally the wine department. Perhaps it is for social distancing purposes?

Marco and I couldn’t help but notice this bottle of wine (in the middle):

It is pretty normal to see something like this in the Netherlands. It isn’t nearly as bad a curse word in Dutch as it is in English, although you still wouldn’t want to have your kid saying it.

(Is anyone else tempted to give it a try just to see if it lives up to its name? If I was a wine drinker, that is.)

Did you know that there is a wine brand with the name Slurp! at Albert Heijn? That one always makes me laugh.

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Christmas displays (Or: The view at CASA)

Posted on October 28, 2020 by Niki

CASA is a home goods store on the Grote Marktstraat. I decided to take a few photos of their Christmas display for you:

And here’s a look from the escalator:

I don’t think it will be that much longer before we put up our Christmas tree. We’re home a lot these days, so why not make it extra festive?

In other news:

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