Today Marco and I feasted on Middle Eastern mezze (a selection of small dishes) from FOAM here in The Hague. Check it out:
And a photo from above:
Yum yum yum. The meal included:
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Well, that’s memorable (Or: Wine choices at Bijenkorf)
As I wrote about earlier, this year the Christmas department at Bijenkorf extends into what is traditionally the wine department. Perhaps it is for social distancing purposes?
Marco and I couldn’t help but notice this bottle of wine (in the middle):
It is pretty normal to see something like this in the Netherlands. It isn’t nearly as bad a curse word in Dutch as it is in English, although you still wouldn’t want to have your kid saying it.
(Is anyone else tempted to give it a try just to see if it lives up to its name? If I was a wine drinker, that is.)
Did you know that there is a wine brand with the name Slurp! at Albert Heijn? That one always makes me laugh.
Saved by art (Or: Derailed metro car)
Have you read about this one yet? I have never seen something so cool (which I only feel comfortable saying because no one was injured):
This happened late on Sunday night into Monday, just after midnight. The metro went straight through the stop blocks at the final stop, crashing off the platform, landing on a whale’s tail. (Don’t believe the rumor that the artwork is called “Saved by the Whale’s Tail”, as cool as that would be. The actual name is “Whale tails”.) The artwork was installed in 2002 and is a reference to the metro’s tail track.
I give the dismount a perfect 10. More news articles:
Subway crashes through stop block; Hangs precariously off artwork 10-meters up from nltimes.nl
Whale tail sculpture stops Rotterdam metro train from crashing into water from dutchnews.nl
Verbazing bij kunstenaar na metro-ongeluk: ‘Gedacht dat het zou instorten’ from nos.nl (Surprise by artist after metro accident: ‘I thought it would collapse’). The construction is reinforced polyester, so I can see why he would think that!
The artist also says in this article that he wanted to go a different direction, however he decided to stick with the whale tail because residents in the area reminded him that he had promised them a whale tail (or two).
And because of that the driver is still alive today.
Bijenkorf 2020 Christmas displays (Or: A piece of normal)
Marco and I decided to risk it and go to Xenos and Bijenkorf (a high end department store) today. It was probably the first time I stepped foot in Bijenkorf this year. And actually it wasn’t too bad. I thought it it would be really busy, especially on a Sunday afternoon, but Xenos was actually busier.
Bijenkorf had an interesting setup for the escalators: pieces of cardboard taped to the side of the escalator which reminded you to stand on the other side (as far away as possible from the opposite escalator). While they are taped securely to the elevator it was done in such a way that someone standing on the wrong side won’t rip them out. I didn’t take a photo, however.
The good news is that the Christmas section isn’t that busy on November 1st. Who knew?
Vegan food by FOAM (Or: A delicious brunch)
Today Marco, Roger and I ordered brunch from the FOAM restaurant in The Hague (over on Frederikstraat). It was a special brunch offer which you could pick up between 10:00 and 14:00 today. Roger was kind enough to bike there to pick it up before biking over to our place.
Check out the color on those wraps! Here is a list of what we received for this brunch box deal (two portions per box):
- 1 They don’t carrot about us juice
- 1 fresh orange juice
- 2 small soups (“cheesey” vegetable)
- 2 small wraps with curried quinoa and veggies
- 2 small BLTA’s (tempeh bacon, lettuce, tomato, avocado)
- 2 small oatmeal pancakes with maple syrup
- 2 chocolate-coffee desserts
- 2 peanut butter blondies
My favorite was (again) the BLTA’s on flatbread. My second favorite was the chocolate-coffee dessert although it was quite rich. But deliiiiicious.
We split the leftovers; I’m looking forward to trying the peanut butter blondie tonight. Yummmm. Give it a try if you are in the area!
Rainy days (Or: Soundtrack against the window)
It is another rainy day, although that seems to matter less when you are working from home. Luckily it was dry when I went out this morning to do some grocery shopping. Otherwise it is a pretty quiet Thursday and we’re just counting the days (or day) until the weekend.
Here are some of the stories that I’ve seen in the news lately:
- Coronavirus reporting again hit by IT issues but growth does seem to have slowed by dutchnews.nl. The issues occurred twice in the past week, meaning that the number of cases reported was inaccurate. They aren’t missing any data, it just comes a day or two later than it should. The last few days the number of cases has only risen by a little bit (we’re just over 10,000). What really matters, however, is getting the hospital intakes down so that more people leave the hospital than enter it. And we are not quite there yet.
- Pumpkin sales up but Halloween celebrations squashed, also from dutchnews.nl. As noted previously, Halloween is not as big a tradition over here, but Amsterdam has still sent out warnings that trick or treating should not take place this year.
- Rembrandt’s Night Watch to be 3D-scanned before restoration from nltimes.nl. The restoration is not happening behind closed doors (although it is behind glass). The team has spent most of this year investigating the painting and they will hopefully begin the restoration process earlier next year. You can also view the painting interactively online with the Rijksmuseum’s Experience the Night Watch tour.
Christmas displays (Or: The view at CASA)
CASA is a home goods store on the Grote Marktstraat. I decided to take a few photos of their Christmas display for you:
And here’s a look from the escalator:
I don’t think it will be that much longer before we put up our Christmas tree. We’re home a lot these days, so why not make it extra festive?
In other news:
- You are no longer allowed to sit on the stairs at the Spuimarkt (article in Dutch from indebuurt.nl). The stairs are part of the Grote Marktstraat; it is one of the exits for the Pathé movie theatre. I only ever use the escalator so it doesn’t affect me either way. The reason? There’s no way to keep 1.5 meters distance because so many teenagers sit there (which also means the area needs more places to sit, but I digress).
- Miss airline food? Finnair selling business class meals in supermarket from reuters.com. But that’s over in Finland, not here. I’m not sure I would buy airline food in the supermarket from KLM, but who knows. It might be interesting to try once.
- Baby panda born at Dutch zoo is a boy from nltimes.nl. Because we all need more links with baby panda pictures.
Woonplaatsguesser game (Or: Where is that town again?)
Last week Thursday someone from The Hague made an online game, placing a link on Twitter. The game? Guess where the Dutch township/municipality (gemeente) or place of residence (woonplaats) lies on the map. Gemeente is the default option. The closer you are, the more points you get. There are 10 rounds.
I am not so good at this – I’d say my best score was 350. I keep guessing all the way in the north and it’s all the way in the south or vice versa. Hmph.
Hagenaar ontwikkelt razendpopulair spel: ‘Het is al 615.000 keer gespeeld’ (Person from The Hague creates an insanely popular game: ‘It has been downloaded 615,000 times.’) And that was only the first 24 hours.
That’s pretty clever (Or: A wall of chocolate letters at Hema)
Marco took this photo for me of the Hema in The Hague’s city centre. It shows a wall of chocolate Sinterklaas letters being used to block off what was formerly the entrance to Hema’s restaurant:
Hema’s restaurant is closed right now due to the corona regulations in the Netherlands. All restaurants and cafés are closed with the exception of takeaway. But takeaway doesn’t make much sense at the Hema restaurant so it is completely closed.
And what better way is there to to block off an entrance? It’s quite clever – it immediately makes the space more festive and takes attention away from the reasons why it needed to be closed in the first place. Here’s a look at the store when the restaurant redesign first opened back in early 2015:
If you need a refresher on Sinterklaas letters, they are literally large letters of chocolate, from A all the way to Z. They usually come in the flavors milk, dark, white and hazelnut. They are either plain or covered in fancy designs. If they are a gift for someone, then you normally buy the letter that corresponds with the first letter of the receipt’s name (N for Niki, and so forth). Or a lot of people buy “S” for Sinterklaas. But be warned: if you wait until the day before Sinterklaas to buy one, there will probably only be Q’s left!
Sinterklaas is celebrated on 5 December. It is a children’s holiday (mostly…), celebrated with gifts, poems and good food. You can read more at dutchnews.nl with the “Ten things you need to know to celebrate Sinterklaas” list.
Bizarro world (Or: Changes at the movie theatre)
Do you want to read something really bizarre?
Pathé sluit alle shops en buffetten: bezoekers mogen zelf eten meenemen from filmvandaag.nl [Pathé movie theaters close all shops and buffets: viewers can bring their own food in]
Of course, it is completely logical that the movie theatre chain is required to close shops and buffets, since restaurants and cafés are closed right now as well. And before you start hoping you can bring in McDonald’s or a full pizza, Pathé did say by “snacks” they meant popcorn and chips. Darn.
A bit less bizarre, more “lucky”:
Ypres chestnut tree battered but unbowed by wars wins Belgian award from theguardian.com. Short story: 160 year old tree survives repeated bombings during WWI. It grows back with four separate trunks (!). It then avoids being chopped up and turned into firewood during WWII.
The Netherlands also has their own award: De boom van het jaar (The tree of the year). Check out the trees that were nominated last year. I think my pick has to be the 9th tree, from the Overijssel province. I mean, the tree even goes through the roof of a tiny house. To clarify, it is not a house anyone lived in, but rather a tiny “house” that was used to bake bread apparently.
Life in the Hague 