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Brushing up on the Dutch (Or: A new podcast)

Posted on March 10, 2021 by Niki

I decided to start following a new Dutch podcast a few days ago, a slightly nerdy one in fact. The name is Spoorcast (Apple | Spotify). It is about Dutch trains (spoor being Dutch for track). Actually, my favorite hobby has always been to read up on The Hague’s tram system, but trains are second best. However I don’t follow as much public transportation news since the pandemic started.

I listened to an old episode of Spoorcast from last year and learned that Rotterdam is working on their own sort of High Line, re-using elevated railroad tracks as a park. I also felt a bit nerdy when I realized I was actually enjoying one of the more recent episodes about the interior of a train. I was glad to hear they also think the current mini trash cans by each seat area are way, way too loud. I jump every time someone slams the lid down…

When I first started listening I was dismayed to hear that it was very difficult to understand what they were saying, as each episode featured three or four people talking to each other. They kept interrupting each other and talking over what the other was saying. I was starting to wonder if this was actually a Belgian podcast (wouldn’t be the first time!) or a Frisian podcast since it was so difficult to comprehend. And then I realized I had it on my default speed setting for podcasts (1.4x). I reduced it to 1.2x and suddenly it was much more bearable. Strange I guess. I usually don’t have issues with the speed, even with the other Dutch podcasts I listen to like Echt Gebeurd. Who knows.

Photos from the “most loved” Dutch station, Klimmen-Ransdaal. See also this Dutch article from ns.nl: Waardering voor stations stijgt naar recordhoogte which talks about the most loved stations in 2020.

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Former Hudson’s Bay building (Or: The name is still there)

Posted on March 4, 2021 by Niki

Generally the name of a former store does not disappear until the new store moves in. Here is a look at the old Hudson’s Bay building on the Grote Marktstraat (large pedestrian street for shopping):

Hudson’s Bay is a previously Canadian, now American company which opened locations in former V&D buildings (English Wikipedia) back in 2017. Unfortunately Hudson’s Bay only lasted about two years, having closed all of their locations around the end of 2019. The stores just did not take off in the Netherlands, having lost 184 million euros in the Netherlands (article from nos.nl in Dutch). No one knows what will come next for these locations, unfortunately.

Categories: Shopping, The Hague | Tags: | 1 Comment

Himalayan restaurant (Or: Waiting to pick up dinner)

Posted on March 3, 2021 by Niki

It has been a while, but Himalayan is open again! Himalayan is an Indian / Nepalese / Bhutanese restaurant in The Hague’s city centre. We admittedly don’t go there often enough, considering how tasty the samosas are. We noticed that there were on Thuisbezorgd (literally = “Home delivery”) so we picked some up late last year. Unfortunately right after that there was a small fire in the kitchen which meant they were closed for the last few months for remodeling (article at regio15.nl in Dutch). So no samosas for us for a few months…

Luckily I noticed last week that they were opening again, so I quickly told Roger and Marco that we were going to get that for our Saturday meal. And it did not disappoint! I don’t have any photos of the food (dal curry for me, lamb vindaloo for Marco, chicken tikka for Roger) because it was too delicious to wait and take photos. Or maybe I forgot in my excitement of digging into the samosas…

But I do have photos of the new interior:

And another photo:

The restaurant is a bit on the small side, which isn’t helpful in these corona times – they already had to get rid of some tables to adhere to the 1.5 meters rule. Also they are down to just the owner and the wife; the owner does all of the cooking at this point. So since they are open again I need to try and remember to order from them more often. The food is definitely worth it!

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Waiting in line at HEMA (Or: Pickup is allowed)

Posted on March 1, 2021 by Niki

In the afternoon you will usually see a handful of people waiting to pick up a package at HEMA (official website, or check out the English Wikipedia page). It sells housewares and clothes, mostly made under their own label.

Under the current corona measures you are allowed to pick up packages at non-essential stores, although later in the week you will also be able to make an appointment to shop at a non-essential store. The rules are pretty strict, though; only two customers at a time per floor which is not helpful for large stores.

As you can see a few people are waiting for a package in this photo. Technically the pickup point needs to be outside, but it is actually just inside the first of two sets of automatic doors. If you look closely you can just barely see the white cart with three shelves and a blue bag – there is a customer inside picking up her order. And at least this way you don’t get rained on while you are paying for your order!

Categories: Everyday purchases, The Hague | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

Butter flavored…? (Or: Curious possibilities at the Asian store)

Posted on February 25, 2021 by Niki

Sometimes I like to go to a local toko, which I usually just call “the Asian store”, to see what odd things they have on the shelves. Next to the awesome things Marco and I can’t live without, of course. I’m back on my faja lobi peanut butter kick (orientalwebshop.nl), which is Surinamese peanut butter mixed with Madam Jeanette peppers. So awesomely spicy.

Anyway, today I spotted these crackers:

The yellow Magic creams product is apparently “butter flavored cream cracker sandwiches”. Who wants cream that tastes like butter? Probably a lot of people, but I can’t wrap my mind around it. The chocolate version on the right looks pretty decent, though.

And sticking with the subject of crackers, check out these Fita crackers:

Does the logo and packaging remind you of anything? They are definitely going for the same branding as Ritz crackers (English Wikipedia), down to the color scheme and the amount of holes on the crackers. I haven’t tried the Fita crackers but they will probably disappoint. Marco and I purchased similar crackers at Xenos (xenos.nl) last year but they weren’t that good. So we still get our Ritz crackers at Kelly’s expat store (kellys-expat-shopping.nl). And since I am on a spicy peanut butter kick, as mentioned above, we usually get two boxes at a time…

Categories: Everyday purchases, Food | Leave a comment

Fleeting – Scents in Colour (Or: Upcoming exhibition at the Mauritshuis museum)

Posted on February 24, 2021 by Niki

The Mauritshuis museum in The Hague will be unveiling a new exhibition as soon as it is allowed to open its doors again. The exhibition will run through 29 August. The name of the exhibition is Fleeting – Scents in Colour (mauritshuis.nl, in English). According to the Dutch website nu.nl scent dispensers will be available at 8 paintings to allow visitors to “smell” the scene, as it were. The dispensers will be foot activated. The smells range from pleasant (spices, tobacco, coffee and teas from faraway lands) to not-so-pleasant (foul-smelling canals and unpleasant body odors).

It’s an interesting way to make museum visits even more interactive. There is also a book available at the Mauritishuis webshop, in either English or Dutch. The nu.nl article also mentions that the museum is working on packaging the scents so that you can experience the scents from home while visiting the exhibition virtually.

In other news: Foutje herder veroorzaakt babyboom bij schaapskudde Balloo: ‘Nu al 20 lammetjes’ from nos.nl in Dutch. (Herder’s mistake causes babyboom in a flock of sheep: ‘There are already 20 lambs’). In short, a young ram was allowed to stay with his mother too long because he was still nursing. In the meantime he managed to get very frisky before the herder noticed. Since then twenty lambs were born. Since the ram is black, and all of the offspring are black, it was quite obvious to see who the culprit was…

DUO maakt printfout met brieven: burgerservicenummers op straat, from nu.nl in Dutch. (DUO makes a printing error with letters: BSNs accidentally visible). DUO is an government which helps students with financing. They recently printed letters with the burger service number (think social security number for Americans) visible in the address portion of the envelope – that is, visible without even opening the letter. Opps? Up to 1,700 students could be affected although the number is likely to be much less than that as some letters in the batches were fine.

DUO said that the numbers were printed a bit too high on the paper. They are now investigating whether the numbers need to be on the letter in the first place. It does seem like a good idea to leave them off…

Categories: Culture | Tags: , | Leave a comment

In the meantime, at Albert Heijn (Or: Different batches, I guess?)

Posted on February 18, 2021 by Niki

Earlier this week I was at Albert Heijn and idly looking at the focaccia breads on sale. My eye was immediately drawn to a focaccia that looked almost burnt, next to a pale one that looked okay.

I suspect I’d probably buy the lighter version if I really wanted it, but I can’t say that the darker version didn’t look tasty as well. Just… slightly burnt. (You can also see some dark exemplars in the back, so it seems like there was just a difference in the batches.)

Today is kind of a weird day, probably a day when I should stay away from checking the news. A few days ago we were at 2,700 infections, then yesterday 3,600, and now today 4,600. Last week’s winter weather could be a culprit, since a lot of testing areas were closed. There were also closures this past Monday when rain came while temperatures were still around freezing. Still, I think it is a sign I should read less news, to avoid feeling frustrated.

For a crazy-but-very-interesting story, check out: People are rescuing thousands of ‘cold-stunned’ sea turtles in Texas from theguardian.com. The cold-blooded sea turtles became paralyzed due to the temperature of the water. At this point over 3,500 sea turtles have been brought in. They will be released once the water warms up, but that will take some time as another cold front is expected in the coming days.

Categories: Everyday purchases | Tags: | Leave a comment

Valentine’s Day box from FOAM (Or: Two roses)

Posted on February 15, 2021 by Niki

Marco ordered the Valentine’s Day box from FOAM for the two of us. How cute!

The two extra roses were a nice touch. The box contained fruit salad, an avocado and smoked almond sandwich and a beetroot wrap with black pepper cream cheese, tempeh bacon and cress. On the sweet side we had French toast, banana bread and a chocolate/coffee cupcake. Oh, and juice made of beet/apple/ginger/blueberry. Yum yum. The only thing that I personally didn’t like as much was the black pepper cream cheese, perhaps because I didn’t know the cream cheese had black pepper in it to begin with. It was an interesting flavor either way! The unexpected star of the dish was definitely the fresh toast.

Marco likes to take the artistic photos. I benefit from getting to post them on my blog!

After half a day of rain, the snow and ice has begun to melt. Tomorrow we’re looking at highs of 10C/50F and the weekend might (if we are lucky) get up to 16C/60F. Oh course I read my parents back in the US are facing another snowstorm today… brrr.

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

Four days later (Or: Still cold and windy)

Posted on February 10, 2021 by Niki

The Netherlands is wrapped in a cold spell, with temperatures set to get even colder over the next few days before gradually warming up from Monday.

Code Yellow: Roads still icy, trains still running on adjusted schedule from nltimes.nl. For the most part Sprinters (stop trains) are running to serve all stations, but there are not as many Intercity trains which run between cities. Although the NS promised to put in longer trains, people are still seeing packed trains:

A tweet showing full trains without the ability to keep 1.5 meters distance, noting that shops are closed but this is allowed.

Speaking of shops, they are now allowed to be open for click & collect, but a lot of bigger stores are not offering this option, including H&M, Bijenkorf and Zara (article in Dutch at nos.nl). In some cases because they think the work involved won’t be worth the money gained.

Arnhem zoo brings penguins inside due to the cold from nltimes.nl. Considering these penguins occur naturally in South Africa and Namibia, this does make sense. It does say that the only the partner-less penguins and young penguins without a cave to keep them warm were brought inside (awww, they have their own caves?)

And, finally, while not related to the Netherlands at all, I must simply share this tweet:

Combination cat-lawyer!

Categories: Transportation | Tags: , | Leave a comment

Fun in the snow (Or: Storm Darcy arrives in the Netherlands)

Posted on February 7, 2021 by Niki

Marco and I went for a walk around lunchtime today to take a few pictures of the snow that fell. It was fairly cold, but that was mostly restricted to my fingertips.

First a picture of a very cold Hofvijfer. There were actually about 10-15 birds in this part of the water, although it is pretty difficult to see.

I didn’t even see the bird flying above when I was taking the picture. My only thought was of my freezing hands and wondering how fast I could take the picture and put my gloves back on.

Lange Voorhout. Off in the distance (and almost impossible to see) is the Escher museum (official website in English). Did you know it is possible to take a virtual tour of the museum? I found it pretty interesting, even if I felt like I had to move the mouse in the “wrong” direction to move around. Note: I’m not sure if they will keep the virtual tour up after the museum opens its doors again, so don’t wait too long.

Look at the snow on this car on the Lange Voorhout – you can see how hard the wind was blowing.

Handhaving grijpt in vanwege drukte tijdens sneeuwpret from regio15.nl in Dutch. In English: Security intervenes due to overcrowding during “snow fun”. The University of Delft’s library is built into a hillside, which means their roof is basically a grassy hill. They said it was okay to snow down the hill (provided no one uses sharp objects which might damage the roof underneath), but of course that meant massive crowds arrived by the afternoon. It is a very cool library design; I’ve been inside once.

Code Orange weather warning issued for Monday; Expect school closures, roadway problems from nltimes.nl. Code orange is a step lower than today’s code red, so there is some improvement. Monday should have been the first day that primary schools were allowed to re-open in the Netherlands, but the weather has definitely thrown a curveball in that regard.

Opps. Tram 16 derailed earlier this morning. Admittedly HTM (The Hague’s bus and tram provider) is still trying to ride most of their routes, with an adjusted schedule. NS, the national train service, said no trains would run today. Amsterdam’s buses and trams were running this morning but have since stopped. Amsterdam’s metro held out a bit longer, until earlier this evening, before that was stopped as well.

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

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