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Marco’s gift (Or: A new watch!

After work Marco surprised me with a new watch! A bit crazy since I don’t normally wear watches, but we had been talking about the Apple watch lately…

Isn’t it great? Marco is so sweet!

And so is the watch…

Watch made of candy

 

Hopefully it is 5:25 am or pm before I get hungry enough to eat it, just so I can say it was right once…

(I have no interest in wearing a watch. I tried it as a kid but it was more annoying then useful. I find it interesting to follow news of the Apple Watch, but only to see how it develops from afar. I don’t think it will really hit its stride until version 3 or 4. Until then my wrist stays bare.)

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A suitcase of WWII letters (Or: Found in The Hague)

Recently a suitcase full of WWII letters were found in the French restaurant Walter Benedict in The Hague. (Article: in English | in het Nederlands). These letters were uncovered during a renovation and were written by Israel Bachrach, a Jew living in The Hague. He wrote to both his mother and his non-Jewish girlfriend about how horrible it was to live in a German-occupied city.

The Facebook page for the restaurant talks about how the letters were discovered. In Dutch: “Tijdens het strippen van het plafond in het achterhuis waar nu de keuken gevestigd is vielen oude brieven met daarin foto’s en kleding naar beneden. Een dag voor het strippen hadden we al vraagtekens bij de ruimte waarin onze keuken geïnstalleerd zou moeten gaan worden. Dus zijn we naar het gemeente archief gegaan om de oude bouwtekeningen van het pand te bekijken. We stuitten op een bouwtekening uit juli 1941 waarop duidelijk wordt dat een extra vloer in het achterhuis is geplaatst waardoor een geheime ruimte tussen de vloeren ontstond.”

In short – the restaurant was working on the renovations for the kitchen. They had questions about the room (dimensions or similar) and decided to go to the city hall’s archive to ask for the building’s blueprints. They were able to find blueprints from July 1941 which made it clear that there was an extra floor in the room (and thus a space in between the two floors to hide items). This is where the letters were found.

Walter Benedict was able to escape in September 1942 to Switzerland (via Belgium) though there were a few close calls where he was almost caught – but he made it out. After the war he returned to The Hague and opened a bookstore at the spot that would later be occupied by the French restaurant.

 

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Irodion, Greek restaurant in The Hague (Or: Desserts and city views)

A few weeks ago Marco and I went to a Greek restaurant with my father-in-law and his wife. We went to Irodion, a restaurant which has recently re-opened on the Grote Marktstraat (it used to be at another nearby corner, but construction forced it to move so it was closed for a time). They have a snackbar on the ground floor and a restaurant on the first floor.

The best thing about the restaurant is the view of the Grote Markt plein. (It looked like most of the tables next to the window were four seaters, so keep that in mind.)

view from Irodion Greek restaurant

And here is a look at the bar:

Bar at Irodion, Greek restaurant in The Hague

The food was comparable to the Greek restaurant we usually go to, Athene. In both places you generally have the option of a salad bar to go with your meal, plus the typical Greek choices. If anything this menu was a bit easier to get through, as they had less combinations listed (though the same food on offer). Athene does give you a complementary chilled shot of ouzo, a licorice alcohol served as aperitif.

The desserts were pretty nice. First the dame blanche:

Dame Blanche dessert at Irodion in The Hague

There is so much whipped cream you can’t even see the vanilla ice cream! And of course it comes with a rather generous serving of chocolate sauce to pour on top.

Here is the baklava dessert:

Bak lava dessert at Irodion in The Hague

The cool thing about the presentation is the orange slice, although it is hard to tell why from this angle. It is a full orange slice cut in half so that one half is draped on one side and the other on the other side, with the peel connecting the two sides.

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Flowers for a compliment (Or: Albert Heijn)

Last week my mother-in-law and I made a stop at Albert Heijn. She had a coupon from the Allerhande (the Albert Heijn recipe book) for a discount on Senseo coffee. The coupon itself was good from mid-March until today but she hadn’t had much luck finding an Albert Heijn with the item in stock.

When she asked at the customer service desk for this particular Albert Heijn (Grote Markt 55A) whether they had the item in stock, the worker looked in the back for the item and whether or not it might be re-stocked soon. When she couldn’t find it, she offered a few different options. My mother-in-law was quite pleased with this service and remarked about how the service at this Albert Heijn was better than at her own. At this remark we both received flower bouquets, a quite unexpected move.

Here’s a picture of mine, though I’m sorry for the blurriness. I tried to sharpen it a bit, but it didn’t quite work out:

Green-white flower bouquet

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New York marathon (Or: A puzzle marathon)

The puzzle is now complete! As a reminder it is a puzzle with the name  “NY marathon”. 1,000 pieces! This was two nights ago:

image

And around dinner time tonight:

image

You can find the puzzle here.

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Jan van Haasteren puzzles (Or: NY marathon)


Last week Roger dropped off one of his mother’s puzzles for me to work on. Little did I know, it was 1000 pieces! (I thought it would be 500.)

Jan van Haasteren NY marathon puzzle

It is a Jan van Haasteren puzzle with the title NY Marathon – he is a well-known Dutch cartoonist. Part of the reason I like his puzzles is the fact that they are animated – it reminds me of a puzzle I had when I was younger (probably 500 pieces) with a mini golf theme.

First things first – separate out the edges:

pile of puzzle pieces, edges separated

I had a small scare at one point when I couldn’t find one of the edge pieces (remember, it’s not my puzzle!) but after a while it turned up. The biggest issue is the lack of table space – hence why I don’t have any puzzles of my own and it is better to borrow one from someone else.

Progress is being made…

working on a puzzle NY marathon But still a long, long way to go.

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Holidays in the Netherlands (Or: The April-May bonanza)

One interesting thing about the Netherlands is how most of the holidays fall in the early summer. For example:

April 5 &6: Easter Sunday, Easter Monday

April 27: King’s birthday

May 5: Liberation day (public holiday every 5 years– 2010, 2015, 2020…)

May 14: Ascension day

May 24/25: Pentecost

And that’s it until Christmas. America has July 4th, Labor day in September, Thanksgiving in November… Everyone looks forward to the start of summer here, but it is all downhill after that! And then there’s vakantiegeld (vacation money), an “extra” paycheck equivalent to roughly a month’s salary which almost everyone gets in May. Of course, it comes from the taxes you paid the rest of the year, but yeah… vacation time!

Marco and I will be visiting Dublin for a week in June. Should be fun to finally see more than just the international terminal of Dublin’s airport!

On another note, I am hoping it begins to warm up here soon… the mild weather is lovely in the winter but during the summer it is easy to get jealous of other countries. The typical summer high here is (only) 65F/19C, give or take. Brr!

See more about Dutch holidays at this link.

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New bus/tram stops (Or: Look up)

The Hague is slowly but surely getting new bus and tram shelters!

Here is a photo of one of the old tram stops being removed (while buses, trams and traffic in general ride past just a few feet away!). You can see the old stop being moved in the air, including the stone base underneath.

Old tram/bus stop being removed in The Hague

 

Here is a look at the new design being used (link).

But when you find yourself at one of the new designs, make sure you look up at the roof, as the design is uniquely The Hague:

Ceiling above new bus/tram stop in The Hague

The symbol of The Hague is the ooievaar (stork). Very pretty!

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Cakes and other baking goodness (Or: By the Asian store?)

If you are looking to make American-style cakes and desserts and happen to be in the center of The Hague, I would actually recommend visiting the Asian store underneath C&A (to the left of the C&A entrance you will see stairs leading downwards – see also this blog post with a photo).

Here is just a small sampling of the various Duncan Hines recipes they offer:

Duncan Hines cakes at Amazing Oriental Den Haag

In total there are probably about 15-20 different types on offer at any point. German chocolate cake, red velvet cake, blue velvet cake, coconut surprise… Unfortunately the selection isn’t available in the webshop on their website linked above. Of course if you are desperate for American food there is also usfoodz.nl though it is definitely import prices.

As there is a large Asian population in the area (it is not far from Chinatown) the store is almost always crowded. But it is a staple if you’re looking for Asian food. There’s also a smaller store by the same name in the Markthof, across from the Hema entrance and close by Simonis, a fresh fish store, and “Flowers for you” (a flower shop, of course).

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In search of baking soda (Or: Zuiveringszout)

Yesterday Marco made soft baked pretzels. The recipe called for baking soda; you dip the pretzels in it before they are put in to bake. We knew that you could get baking soda at the local expat store (Kelly’s) but I was curious to see if it was available at any Dutch stores. While doing some Google searches I came across this article from Kiwidutch. I found out that baking soda is zuiveringszout in Dutch and it is more likely to be found at drug stores rather than the local grocery store. Oddly it is cheaper as an import item than at the local Dutch store…

On the way to the expat store we came across an interesting metal sculpture depicting two bicyclists in the rain (note the umbrellas).

Dutch metal sculpture of bikers with umbrellas

click for a larger size

 

I just noticed the bicycle shop across the street (Top bikes), too. How Dutch!

Categories: Culture, Food | Tags: , | 4 Comments

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