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The Life I Live festival 2022 (Or: King’s Night in The Hague)

Posted on April 26, 2022 by Niki

Tonight is the 10th anniversary of The Life I Live festival. Note: their website is definitely experiencing server capacity issues, so it is a bit hit or miss to visit it right now.

The last edition was of course in 2019. It is held in The Hague’s city centre, with musical acts spread out over about 8-10 stages. The opener this year was the Ukrainian band Go_A. Last year they participated in the Eurovision Song festival held in Rotterdam. This year the band got special permission from the Ukrainian government to travel to The Hague to perform (as technically Ukrainian men are not supposed to leave Ukraine right now).

This stage was at the Lange Voorhout not far from the Escher museum and Hotel Des Indes.

This smaller stage was on the opposite end of the Lange Voorhout, featuring the band Kuzko. I didn’t stay long, but they really brought the bass! It was a weird feeling to feel the bass after not going to any concerts the last two years.

King’s Night (and more accurately King’s Day) is a holiday to celebrate the birth of the Dutch King Willem Alexander who turns 55 tomorrow. The joke “Max komt misschien later…” is a joke that Max Verstappen, the 2021 F1 world champion, might stop by here later. Hmm.

(Man, I still remember when it was weird to see Willem Alexander with a beard!)

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Categories: Culture, Holidays, The Hague | Tags: , , , | 1 Comment

King’s Day 2022 (Or: Do you have your “orange” yet?)

Posted on April 24, 2022 by Niki

This coming Wednesday is King’s Day here in the Netherlands, a public holiday for most of us. The larger Dutch cities like The Hague and Amsterdam also have parties to celebrate. The Hague has “The Life I Live” festival (official website in Dutch) traditionally held the evening before, dubbed King’s Night. This free musical festival is held throughout the city centre. This year there are 8 small stages for artists to perform. The Ukrainian band Go_A will open the festival.

I suspect things will get a bit insane Tuesday evening as the event has not been held for the last two years due to corona. The 2019 edition drew 275,000 visitors for those two days (omroepwest.nl, in Dutch), so it will be interesting to see how many we get this year. The local transportation company HTM runs an alternate route due to how congested the city centre gets. (I must admit it is kind of fun to walk down the middle of the street and not worry about cars or trams.) HTM and the national train service will also add extra night buses and trains to help everyone get home at the end of the evening.

But why did I mention orange in this post’s title? Because everyone wears orange, of course! Well, the tourists and the diehard Dutchies do, at any rate. Here is a look at the King’s Day merchandise at Xenos:

See also my post about King’s Day 2018.

Anyone else remember the attempt to rename Koningsdag to Woningsdag for the first year of the pandemic? Woning = home, so it was an attempt to be clever and tell people to be safe and celebrate the holiday from home.

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Coming along nicely (Or: Amare cultural complex in The Hague)

Posted on April 21, 2022 by Niki

Amare is the cultural complex that opened last year. Progress has also been made around the building, including the side. It actually looks pretty good now, which is important considering this area is the walkway between the central train station (behind this photo) and the city centre (ahead of this photo). For some months only a tiny sliver of walkway was open on the right side, about 5 feet across… Not fun when you have pedestrians and cyclists competing for the same space, let me tell you. Either way, we have come a long way from this graffiti-filled construction area two years ago.

Here is another look at the flowers in the front. You can still see some construction off on the right side, where they aren’t quite done yet.

Categories: Culture, The Hague | Leave a comment

Not yet 40 (Or: Happy birthday to me)

Posted on April 13, 2022 by Niki

Marco and I just celebrated my birthday with a small cozy session of gourmetten for dinner. (Small meats and veggies cooked on a mini grill at the table, see other posts about this topic.) Next year will be the big 4-0, but this year I will happily settle for the slightly smaller 3-9.

Here is a look at the birthday card and present my father-in-law and his wife made for me!

The joke present is on the left. Can you guess what it means if you don’t speak Dutch? I will give you a hint. “Leeftijd = age”.

No? It basically means, in less polite terms, “who gives a crap about your age”. Hence the emoji and toilet roll, haha. The card is on the right. As usual, another beautiful handmade card from them.

Until next year!

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Street food delights (Or: Umami restaurant in The Hague)

Posted on April 3, 2022 by Niki

Marco and I decided to visit Umami, a Chinese restaurant in the city centre. We had looked at the menu a few years ago, but it seems like they have added a street food option since then. The only unexpected thing was that even though we were able to make a reservation for 15:00, when we got their the hostess seemed surprised and said that the kitchen closes between 15:30-16:00. (Why does the website let you make reservations for that time slot then?)

But in the end it wasn’t really a problem as Marco and I had stared at the menu in advance and had a general sense of what we wanted to sample already. The only difference was that we ordered everything at once, whereas we were hoping to order a bit, see how full we were, and then order a bit more if needed.

The snack attack platter, comprised mostly of croquette/bitterballen type snacks, plus 4 spring rolls. The croquettes are filled with meat paste or ragu. The quality of these snacks can differ greatly based on the restaurant you are at, but luckily upscale dining restaurants use high quality meat. In this case the croquettes were green curry, chicken satay, shrimp, duck and rendang. But as they say you also eat with your eyes – the photo above just begs to be eaten (and to be photographed).

Above are two bao buns. In the foreground is chicken thigh and in the background is beef. A bit messy (especially the beef which leaked everywhere) but still quite tasty.

And finally, sandwiches. In the foreground, chicken thigh and in the background duck. We actually only had a half each, taking the other half home for later.

It was a great experience. We do plan on going back to sample some other stuff later (and perhaps the actual lunch or dinner menu, versus the street food menu). If you like good food that is Instagram worthy than this is the place for you.

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CeeCee’s chicken and chips (Or: Food hall in the Haagsche Bluf)

Posted on March 30, 2022 by Niki

This past weekend Marco and I visited the food halls in Haagsche Bluf (denhaag.com in English), a tiny, upscale shopping area in the heart of the city centre. The food halls (official website in English) have 10 food stands with various types of food like Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Malaysian, etc. We chose CeeCee’s chicken and chips for our first visit:

At the top of the photo we have mozzarella sticks with sweet chili sauce and twister fries with sweet chili sauce and ketchup for me. The chicken tenders were hot and spicy on the left (obvious, I am sure) and lemon and pepper on the right.

The food was good, although none of it really stood out. So good, but not great. (In comparison with the tacos Marco and I shared at the Mall of The Netherlands last month.) The service could also be better. Marco and I ordered via a QR code at the table which you can see in the lower right of the photo. The website said that I would receive a text when the food was ready, so we thought it would be okay to switch tables. However, I received a call saying that they went to my original table and we weren’t there. Oh well.

Don’t get me wrong though – this is on my list to go back as the concept of food halls are always nice, and I either want to try some falafels or some Malaysian food next.

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Inflation (and corona?) strike (Or: Cocktails at Milu)

Posted on March 12, 2022 by Niki

I recently went out for drinks with some coworkers. We went to Milu, and we went on a Wednesday of course. (If any of my family is reading this, Milu used to be Het Wapon, where Marco and I had our wedding reception back in 2013.)

Why did we go on a Wednesday? Well, 5 euro cocktails of course! Oh wait, it is 6 euros now and there are less choices. Thanks to inflation and/or corona. Don’t get me wrong: 6 euros is still a steal and there are still 5 choices. The cocktail choices are every rotating, which is probably a good thing. You can see a lot at one of the old menus at this old blog post from 2017 (scroll down to the end). I remember really liking the Hello Tokyo cocktail, although I don’t seem to have a picture of it readily available.

On the left you have a lemon ginger scroppino for a coworker (vodka, Caipi ginger liquor, Prosecco and lemon sorbet) and a golden caipi boy on the right for me (Caipi ginger liquor, grapefruit, lime, rhubarb and soda). I loved how sour it was, which was exactly what I was looking for.

Above is a frozen pornstar martini (vodka, Caipi ginger liquor, lime, passionfruit, orange and vanilla). Very sour again. While the paper straw looked very pretty and worked well with the drink, it didn’t hold out forever so I ended up finishing this slushy drink with a spoon.

In the background you can see Dutch bitterballen (English Wikipedia). We actually ordered a platter of four different things. The other three (chicken nuggets, duck spring rolls and cheese sticks) quickly disappeared, leaving the bitterballen to finish. They are definitely an acquired taste. At any rate, I didn’t need any dinner after this when I got home.

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Unexpected finds at the library (Or: The Mullet atlas of The Hague)

Posted on March 9, 2022 by Niki

Did you know there is a book full of mullet photos? In Dutch it is known as De Haagse Mat.

Matlas, The Mullet Atlas (matlas.nl in English). “There are few things as emblematic of The Hague as the mullet. Whether balding, curly, straight, gelled or matt, the mullet is a piece of The Hague’s heritage, its folklore and its traditions. It symbolizes a healthy dose of resistance to imposed norms in a world of endless, dull conformity…” The book in question is filled with photographs taken between 2011 and 2019, maps, and statistics about this particular hair style. Scroll down on that webpage to see the back cover showcasing the back of the hairstyle.

You can also check out a copy at the Central Library or the Segbroek branch. Here’s a look at this slightly oversized book:

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The tastiest bento box (Or: SET restaurant in The Hague)

Posted on March 7, 2022 by Niki

A few weeks ago Roger, Marco and I celebrated the reopening of restaurants by going to SET in The Hague’s city centre. It is not far from the Grote Kerk. The best part about going for lunch is that you can order a bento box (meat, fish or mixed). I always go for the meat box.

The lunch begins with a miso soup. I’m not a huge fan of tofu blocks, but they do work in this soup in small amounts.

The star of the lunch is of course the meat bento box:

Karage (Japanese chicken) in the top middle, beef in the top right, and pork in the lower right. Roger and Marco usually go for the mixed box, which means I get to gloat that I have karate and they don’t. The only problem with having this meal for lunch is that you definitely have no interest in dinner later in the evening, but it is worth it!

I however mourn the loss of the “ice and sand chocolate dessert” which used to be on the menu years ago. The ice cream had a lovely taste and it was definitely visually pleasing.

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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…

Categories: Daily Dutch living | Tags: | Leave a comment

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