My apologies for the lack of posting over here. Marco and I just got back from a trip to NYC. We met up with a lot of family members (my parents, brother, sister-in-law and their kids) for some fun in the sun. And a bit of rain…
Without further ado, here are some random pictures we took:
Last weekend I had a day off so I decided to visit the Mall of the Netherlands. It is for the most part a very American looking mall, with dazzling store fronts and small food stands set up in the middle of the walkway. When it first opened I was surprised to see that the mall’s owner is Westfield. I found that particularly interesting considering I lived near a Westfield mall growing up in the US, so it felt like a piece of home.
For lunch I decided to go to the food court on the upper level of the mall. Technically I am European enough these days to want to write that it is on the 1st floor, but any American readers might think I mean ground floor if I say that… (Ground floor = 0 or “BG” for begane grond.)
After walking around looking at the options I chose Laffa, a place which serves Middle Eastern street food. I went for the falafel, which was of course delicious.
That made me realize that eating habits definitely do change, at least for the most part. I hate peas (still do), but if you grind them up or change the texture I am much more likely to appreciate them. I love falafel, I love roti bread.
Back when I was a kid I was mostly enjoyed chicken fingers. Heh. I still have a memory of scrapping spaghetti into a trash can when no one was around as a young picky eater, not realizing that it would be very obvious if anyone looked into the trash can or saw the marks on my plate. Obviously I was caught. For the record, I am still not a fan of spaghetti, but I do love penne. Growing up we called it mostaccioli.
Who knew I would move here and get to eat Vietnamese, or sushi, or Indian, or Indonesian, or Greek whenever I want. Of course, I still need to broaden my horizons a bit more. But it is a start.
Yesterday was Veteran’s Day in the Netherlands, held every year on the last Saturday in June.
Veterans Day attracts 90,000 visitors in The Hague from nltimes.nl, which has some nice photos of the event.
Here is a picture that I took of a medical vehicle. I wasn’t able to get any good pictures of the parade, unfortunately. I was just passing through and most of the city centre had crowds 10 man deep. But the marching bands I could hear sounded great.
In other Dutch news: ‘It’s every woman, it’s us’: Rotterdam falls for British statue of ordinary black woman from theguardian.com. It is a pretty interesting statue. And I love the backdrop of Rotterdam’s Centraal train station in the photo.
This past May The Hague was host to an art festival called BlowUp Art. The festival was an initiative of Pulchri Studio. I previously wrote a blog post about the sculptures they had placed on the Lange Voorhout.
Here is a look at one of the six creations featured in the BlowUp Art festival:
This piece is called “Crested” and it was created by Steven Messam.
In other news, the Netherlands will get to experience its first mini heat wave this weekend! Temperatures are expected to be around 30C or 85F here in The Hague. Time to find my sunscreen…
Dit weekend zomerse temperaturen: meer openbaar vervoer naar stranden from nos.nl. Translated: This weekend summer tempatures: more public transportation to beaches. For instance, HTM here in The Hague will be running the Strandexpress tram (=beach express), with limited stops between the Holland Spoor train station, Centraal Station, Madurodam and the beach. And of course it won’t be enough as everyone will descend on the beach with their car, bike or feet!
We now have a Dirk supermarket in The Hague city centre, since this week. It is at the Torenstraat (Tower street). It is in the location where Rock Palace used to be, a store where you could buy all sorts of musical instruments including guitars.
There isn’t much supermarket competition in The Hague city centre. Everywhere is Albert Heijn, with a few Jumbo supermarkets here and there. But now we also have a Dirk (pronounced Dyerk, with a bit of a y sound).
Marco and I decided to visit this weekend. The first thing we saw was this sign:
Translated, it reads “By Dirk you don’t need to horde groceries to get savings”. Although the verb to horde, hamsteren, will always make me think of the corona pandemic, where people were warned not to horde groceries and supplies when the pandemic first hit. Most people didn’t listen.
The store technically should have cheaper prices, although most of the products are the same as other supermarkets. The location is a bit on the small side with narrow rows that quickly cause congestion issues. But the worst part is that they only have one cash register with a worker and four self-service checkout points. Definitely not enough in the weekend or during prime time hours. The space for the self-service area wasn’t designed that wisely (the Jumbo in the city centre has six self-checkout points in half the space, for example). But it might be a good location to visit during the quieter hours, maybe.
We finally have some good weather here in the Netherlands! Unfortunately “good weather” in this case is about 19-20C, or 64-68F. But we take what we can get.
This past weekend was the Rrrollend food truck festival, this time by the Hofvijver. I am not sure if this is the first time that it was held there; usually it is at the Lange Voorhout or by Maliveld. People were enjoying the weather. Some were even sitting by the water, although maybe that was just to find a good seat — it was pretty crowded there after all. But dangling your legs over the water is a nice way to enjoy the sun.
A few weeks earlier Marco and I were at Anne & Max, a (chain) café found throughout the Netherlands. Check out the cool pattern on the cappuccino:
The cake in the background was a lime cake, but it was a bit drier than expected. It was still a fun time with Marco, though.
A few days ago I found myself near the Peace Palace in The Hague. This was on 4 May, otherwise known as Nationale Dodenherdenking or National Remembrance of the Dead day. You have a few monuments to the war near the Peace Palace. One of them is The Hague Resistance and Liberation Memorial which commemorates those who lost their lives in The Netherlands during WWII. Here is the official website for the Memorial (in Dutch).
And on 5 May the Netherlands celebrates Liberation Day, which in comparison to the more somber Remembrance Day is a day for festivals and celebrating one’s freedom. A lot of cities hold festivals on 5 May.
Pictures from the festival in The Hague (at the Malieveld), in Dutch at indebuurt.nl.
And because I couldn’t not take a photo of it, here is an impressive looking tree which is also near the Peace Palace. It is huge! I would love to sit under its shade and read a book for a while.
Today is King’s Day in the Netherlands. At the very least, it is a nice day off! It celebrates the birthday of King Willem-Alexander, although most people use it as an excuse to head into town and enjoy a lot of good music and alcohol. (Seriously, walking into the local supermarket, the first thing on display was six-packs of beer. They know where their money is made!)
Dutch flags on display for the holiday with the Grote Kerk (“Big Church”) in the background.
You can also check out the King’s Day Google doodle. The doodle celebrates tompouces, a pastry which is normally pink. Unless it is King’s Day, and then it is bright orange.
Chilly but sunny start to King’s Day after a busy night of partying from dutchnews.nl. The day before King’s Day is known as King’s Night and most of the major cities have music festivals. For instance last night The Hague had The Life I Live festival in the city centre.
There are two main activities on King’s Day: 1) The king and his family always visits one city each year. This year was Rotterdam. 2) A lot of cities have “free markets” (Vrijmarkten) which is basically a huge garage sale – one day a year everyone in the nation is out selling things. Or buying things. On that day people can clear out all of their junk and old items and sell them in specifically designated spots in each city.
Here is a live blog from NOS (the national news channel). It is in Dutch but at the very least you can check out the pictures to get a sense of how crowded it was/is!
And here is the live blog from the local news service, Omroep West, also in Dutch. But Google Translate is your friend. (And mine too, sometimes.)
Tomorrow is my birthday and I decided to spend it going to work. Eek.
Actually, yes, but I am taking Friday off. Part of the reason I am going in tomorrow is because it is the monthly post-corona “common office day” where everyone is asked to come in so we can remember what we look like in person. (I kid, I kid. I see most of my coworkers once a week.) Since everyone is in the office together tomorrow we decided to do a potluck lunch. Aka a lunch where everyone brings something in.
Since I am not much of a cook, I decided to bake cookies. Unfortunately, I am not much of a baker either, so Marco was of great help there.
I chose a recipe for oatmeal cookies with banana (no sugar added):
This was originally a Dutch recipe (original website). As happens every once in a while, I had to look up what havermout is. Apparently it is quick cooking oats, which just brings up childhood memories of my parents eating oatmeal for breakfast.
The recipe contains quick cooking oats, raisins, almonds, cinnamon powder, baking powder, banana and apples. I chose Granny Smith apples as those are nice and sour, and I added some lemon zest for a flavor contrast.
I am not going to lie. The cookies look a bit ugly, but I made them (with a lot of help from Marco!).
As usual, there were a lot of April Fools jokes made yesterday in The Netherlands. Here are a few examples:
Unfortunately it is just an April Fool’s joke. Tourists are notorious for trampling tulips just to get the perfect selfie. In response to this The Tulip Barn in Hillegom created a “selfie garden” in 2021 to allow visitors to take photos in a specially created area, complete with Dutch props. That is pretty cool, actually.
The tweet below is in Dutch, but it basically says that elevator accidents caused by drunk passengers have increased by 24% since 2020. Therefore, the Lift Instituut in The Netherlands has banned elevator use by people who have had more than two glasses of alcohol (thereabouts).
And finally, if you’re an international living in The Netherlands with a bike, prepare to get a biking license…
I guess it is a good thing I don’t have a bike, right?
Life in the Hague 