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.
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:
Lekker bezig NS: overvolle sprinters. 1.5 m afstand zo goed als niet mogelijk. Als makke schapen in een hok, mijzelf incluis. Geen intercity’s dus i.p.v. 40 minuten nu een uur in deze volle trein én geen korting in de spits. Maar retail moet dicht blijven, wat een gekte. pic.twitter.com/q8NYXc2VC5
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:
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.
Later this evening and tomorrow the Netherlands will be under a “code red” warning for Storm Darcy. Apparently the last time the entire country was under code red was February 2012, before I arrived in the Netherlands.
Dutch issue Code Red weather alert for snowdrifts, blizzard conditions from nltimes.nl. The expected snowfall itself varies anywhere from 2 to 6 inches; it really depends on who you are listening to. The wind is the real problem for traffic, since it will cause snow drifts and limited visibility. Some days it will feel like -15c to -18c (closer to 0F) next week, which is rare in this country. Some news sites are calling this a “once in ten years” event.
And of course, what you would expect to see in this situation…
Marco graciously allowed me to change our plans; we picked up Five Guys for dinner tonight. We haven’t been in there a year and a half, probably… definitely not since the corona crisis started. Which is a bit strange, since it is much quieter there these days. Unfortunately for them.
That’s technically where the line would be, if there was a line. And of course there are no free shelled peanuts at the moment.
But ignoring that – woo, Five Guys! Hamburger with jalapeños, grilled onions and mustard for me, with cajun fries. This time we were smart and ordered “cajun on the side”, so we could add the spices ourselves. That meant the spice was a bit more uneven, but at least they were not completely coated in cajun spices this time.
One of the two message boards at Five Guys, a staple by all of their locations I think.
On Sunday Marco and I had falafel for dinner. It is part of FOAM @ home, a pickup service offered every Friday.
It is one of those things – I am sure I have had falafel before (deep-fried balls made from ground chickpeas or lava beans, served in a pita). However I have no direct memory of it so it could indeed be the first time.
It was pretty tasty, a perfect light meal for a Sunday evening.
Eurovision planning live event in Rotterdam; In-person audience unknown from nltimes.nl. It seems like ages ago, but the Netherlands did win the Eurovision Song Contest back in 2019, which meant they were able to host the event in 2020. Only the 2020 event was cancelled due to the coronavirus, so they will be hosting the 2021 event instead.
Milder temps to give way for icy weekend from nltimes.nl. Brrr. Winter is coming back this weekend with temperatures around freezing and high winds. Also a chance of snow, but we will need to wait and see if that happens. Again, brrrrrr.
Tomorrow (Sunday) is the last day you can buy oliebollen and krentebollen (=oliebollen with raisins) from the oliebollen stand at the end of the Grote Marktstraat next to the Blokker and Xenos stores.
This is our Marco, Roger and I’s favorite place to get oliebollen and apple beignets. Usually they close every year by 15 January, however this year the city granted them a permit extension through the end of January. They were also able to open a month earlier due to most carnivals not being able to open during 2020 (the same was true for all oliebollen stands in the area).
Last week Marco and I shared a giant cookie, with a cup of coffee on the side. The cookie was from FOAM over on Frederikstraat in The Hague. As you might have guessed ordering from FOAM has sort of become a weekly lockdown tradition these days.
Coffee and a chewy cherry chocolate cookie. Now that’s a dose of C’s (albeit not vitamin C).
Chewy, slightly gooey, thoroughly awesome.
In other news: Pandemic forces Artis to say goodbye to its lions from nltimes.nl. Artis, a zoo in Amsterdam, doesn’t have the funds currently to build a larger lion enclosure as planned. At least this way the three lions can stay together and have enough space to move about. It’s a sad but smart decision.
Stroopwafels being the Dutch delicacy of two thin wafels with caramel syrup in the middle (English Wikipedia). They were originally made in Gouda in the 19th century. In my opinion, the best way to eat them is from a street vendor while they are still warm. There is a local company by the name of Van Schaik (official website) which makes them. Usually they have a street stand but recently they also opened a store in the same area on Venstraat.
Marco and I took a walk on Sunday and spotted a few cute heart-shaped stroopwafels in their shop window:
You can also get them in the tourist tins (which sell really well, I’m sure).
The sugar waffles above are what caught Marco’s eye in the first place.
But the coolest thing was definitely this bucket of stroopwafel pieces. Holy moly! That is a LOT of stroopwafel. My only fear with bringing that home is that I wouldn’t be able to stop eating them…
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”
Life in the Hague 