Holidays

Black Friday in The Netherlands (Or: Early morning lines)

Posted on November 27, 2020 by Niki

Black Friday has become popular in the last 5 years in this country. I know it doesn’t make much sense, but who doesn’t love a good deal? (Although whether something is a good deal is questionable at times.) But with corona this year, it was a bit weird to see the city centre so busy.

Here was the line for Uniqlo, a recently opened Japanese clothing store:

This photo was taken just before 10:00, so right before the store opened. I was lucky that I was just passing through and could use the side streets to avoid this area. When I passed the edge of the city centre later in the afternoon it was almost impossible to see through the mass of people shopping here at Grote Marktstraat (denhaag.com, English site). Are the discounts really that important?

Most NL residents don’t care about Black Friday from nltimes.nl. You could have fooled me.

Still, other cities had it much worse: Burgemeester Aboutaleb sluit winkels in centrum Rotterdam om ‘dramatische drukte‘ from nos.nl. The mayor of Rotterdam (Aboutaleb) closed all stores in the center of Rotterdam because of the ‘massive crowds’. He closed them at 19:10, about 50 minutes earlier than they would be required to close due to corona regulations. Amsterdam and Rotterdam were quite busy all day though (with both mayors issuing warnings to avoid certain areas of their cities early in the afternoon). According to reports the crowd levels were more manageable in Utrecht and The Hague.

Note: the above article does have a lovely picture of the “Koopgoot” shopping area. The nickname “Koopgoot” translates to “Shopping gutter”, owing to the fact that it is lower than the street next to it, although still an open area. It’s a lovely area. Just not on Black Friday in 2020…

Happy weekend, everyone!

Categories: Holidays, Shopping, The Hague | Leave a comment

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!

Categories: Everyday purchases, Food, Holidays | Tags: | Leave a comment

The days are getting colder (Or: At least it’s weekend)

Posted on November 20, 2020 by Niki

It seems like lately my only moments of fresh air are during quick trips to Albert Heijn for groceries. But because the quietest time to go is in the mornings, that always happens during my work day so I have to rush. But it is now weekend, which means it is easier to get outside and take a walk. Although it is getting colder these days…

The baby panda born at a Dutch zoo earlier this year is now on display:

Still, I have found something even cuter: the tiny owl that was discovered in the Christmas tree at New York City’s Rockefeller Center (nbcnews.com). So cute!

In other news: Netherlands has world’s highest English proficiency for non-native speakers from nltimes.nl. Not that we didn’t know that one already. I still remember my first trip to The Netherlands, sitting in the train to The Hague at close to midnight, nervously trying to ask something of a random stranger in Dutch (Marco and I wanted to sit near him due to a lack of seats elsewhere). Ha. To this day, I still have people switch to English randomly when they hear my American accent. That’s okay. I just keep talking in Dutch, they get a chance to practice their English, everyone is happy…

And here is an article in Dutch from nos.nl: Rutte waarschuwt ministers voor Twitter-slordigheid na incident met geheime code. In summary, the Dutch ministry of Defense is sitting at home in quarantine. She is attending an online meeting with other defense ministers in the European Union. The problem? She let her assistant take a photo of her, but a Dutch news site spotted the login code and 5 of the 6 digits for the password in that photo. They logged into the meeting and quickly introduced themselves as a Dutch journalist and then left again. They logged into a SUPER SECRET MEETING WITH OTHER DEFENSE MINISTERS. Yikes.

Categories: Holidays, News | Leave a comment

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.

Categories: Everyday purchases, Food, Holidays | Tags: , | 2 Comments

Farmers invade The Hague again (Or: More army blockades)

Posted on November 17, 2020 by Niki

Living in The Hague has some interesting side effects. One of them is that most of the protests happen in your city. But when farmers come to The Hague to protest, they bring their tractors. Which as you can imagine causes traffic chaos. (I guess that is one of the benefits of most people working from home these days, then.) They were protesting the government’s new plans regarding farming pollution, among other topics.

Omroep West has a great article (in Dutch) with many photos: Boeren voeren weer actie in Den Haag. Or you can check out this article in English from dutchnews.nl: Radical farmers drive into The Hague to protest at government regulations.

Things are going a bit better in The Netherlands, in terms of the coronavirus: New coronavirus cases at lowest point in 44 days from nltimes.nl. The Dutch government is holding a press conference at the moment to discuss the current situation, although reports have already said that it is too early to think about what the plans are for Christmas. At best we would get a loosening of restrictions for a few days around the holidays (article in Dutch at nos.nl).

And finally, here is an interesting article (unfortunately in Dutch) about the newest use of drones – The Hague is going to use drones to inspect the sewer system! Gemeente Den Haag gaat drones inzetten om riolering te inspecteren from omroepwest.nl. There are over 1,700 kilometers (just over 1,000 miles) of sewers in the city. The city is fairly ambitious – their plan is to combine work on the sewers below with any needed work on the ground above, to save costs.

And here you thought you wouldn’t read about sewers today. You thought wrong.

Categories: Holidays, News | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

Start of another week (Or: Bring the weekend back, please!)

Posted on November 16, 2020 by Niki

It’s Monday again. It was quite a crazy work day for both Marco and I. On the plus side, the workday flew past for both of us – blink and it was 17:00 (or really 17:25… opps).

Here is some random news for you:

Fotoserie: Stille aankomst van Sinterklaas in Den Haag from indebuurt.nl. Photo series: The silent arrival of Sinterklaas in The Hague. The man next to him is the current mayor of The Hague. There are four pages; click the orange arrow before or after the photos to go to the next page. The photos on page 2 (where he is in De Passage, a covered shopping area) are my favorite.

Georgian man infected with coronavirus arrested at Schiphol from nltimes.nl. Note for my American readers: That’s Georgia the country (not far from Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan), not Georgia the US state. I will admit it took me a bit of time to get used to that when I first moved here. As the article states: a man from Georgia was discovered at Schiphol Airport with a letter in his pocket informing him he tested positive for coronavirus. Needless to say, he was immediately arrested by the Marechaussee (the Dutch military police, who oversee the airport) for bringing others into danger.

Belgian racing pigeon fetches record price of $1.9 million from nbcnews.nl. The pigeon was purchased by a Chinese buyer. She was probably bought for breeding purposes – apparently she has very good lineage – and won’t be used for racing again. Another article (from nos.nl, in Dutch) stated this was because she would try to fly home to Belgium from China. Now that’s a trip…

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Temporary fixes (Or: Amendment to coronavirus regulations sign)

Posted on November 15, 2020 by Niki

At the moment the Netherlands is under an additional layer of coronavirus restrictions, with additional community areas closed like libraries, theaters, cinemas, zoos, theme parks, etc. These additional restrictions will automatically expire on Wednesday (article in English from nltimes.nl) because there has been some improvement in hospitalizations.

Another restriction that is about to expire group sizes outside are currently limited to three (instead of the usual four). The Hague found an interesting way of getting this temporary amendment across:

That’s right. A nice big X of black tape where it says you can only be outside in a group of four. It works, I guess…

In other, Sinterklaas news: as you may or may not know, the subject of Zwarte Piet (Black Pete; link to English Wikipedia) is quite controversial because traditionally the character was portrayed by a white person, in blackface, with black curly hair, red lips and huge golden earrings. You can see the issue there…

But in recent years the trend (at least nationally) has been to have Black Petes with chimney soot on their faces, no curly hair, etc. The national children’s news program Sinterklaasjournaal already adapted this a few years back. The changes have sadly been much slower on a local level (if you remember from an earlier blog post this week, there’s a national Sinterklaas but also a local Sinterklaas for each city).

Dutch libraries are taking another step towards the future by banning all children’s books which depict a black-faced Black Pete, either removing them from their shelves or not buying them in the first place. Read more at the guardian.com: Will Dutch library ban on ‘Black Pete’ books spell end for ‘racist’ festive tradition?

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

Ca-SHEW! (Or: The sound of a nut sneezing?)

Posted on November 13, 2020 by Niki

Marco and I spotted this amusing joke at FOAM‘s breakfast / lunch restaurant:

Cute, huh?

Unfortunately the number of coronavirus infections are increasing again; we’re back at around 6,100 after hitting a low of around 4,700 earlier this week (article at nltimes.nl).

In other news: Billion euros raised to extend Amsterdam subway to Schiphol Airport, also from nltimes.nl. I’ve always in favor of more public transportation options from the airport to your destination. Of course it will be years before that project is completed.

And a few days ago I reported on Sinterklaas’ plan to arrive at a non-existent village to prevent crowds of parents and kids from going there in these corona times. That’s the national Sinterklaas, but a lot of cities have their own local Sinterklaases as well. Check out this blog post that I wrote about the 2013 parade in The Hague.

Well, this year the story is that the boat of Sinterklaas had some favorable winds during its journey from Spain to The Hague’s harbor, so he unexpectedly arrived early. The mayor advised him to go into a short quarantine at an undisclosed location, which he did. Sinterklaas will receive a corona test on Saturday so that he can participate in Sunday’s parade (which children can watch on TV at home). Read more (in Dutch) at omroepwest.nl.

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Sinterklaas to dock at Zwalk this year (Or: Wait. Where is that again?)

Posted on November 10, 2020 by Niki

Here’s another thing that has changed this year due to the corona crisis: Sinterklaas will arrive in Zwalk this year. But good luck finding it, because Zwalk doesn’t exist on any maps.

That’s right – the organization behind Sinterklaas (a Dutch holiday celebrated on December 5) has cleverly chosen to have him arrive in a fictional town. That way you avoid any crowds and super spreader events. Usually 20,000-30,000 children and parents watch him arrive in a different city each year. Of course, everything was probably taped a month or two ago, but this way you prevent any and all traffic to the town.

This news was announced during the first episode of the Sinterklaasjournaal (literally “Sinterklaas news”) last night. That is a 10 minute program that will air daily until December 5. (Side note: there are so many toy commercials before and after this show – it is insane!).

The mayor of the fictional town asked children to send their drawings to Sinterklaasjournaal so that they could take part in the fun without being there physically.

The lady on the right is Dieuwertje Blok, the presentator of the show. The show is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year – and she has been the presentator since the beginning.

Here is an article in English from dutchnews.nl: Sinterklaas to dock at fictional location on Saturday, but tv cameras will be there

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A bit early, but still pretty (Or: Christmas decorations)

Posted on November 8, 2020 by Niki

Hotel Huis ter Duin has put up the ‘tallest Christmas tree of the Randstad area’. The tree is 17 meters tall (55 feet). It is of course a bit too early to be thinking about Christmas decorations – but not really. Check out this video:

We haven’t put up the Christmas tree yet, but we do have one or two things out. Including a painting we brought last year (complete with LED lights):

We found it in a pop-up Christmas store in Eindhoven. It looks nice, doesn’t it?

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