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Dutch influence (Or: The color of carrots)

Posted on May 10, 2014 by Niki

I did have my usual Dutch lesson on Thursday, however we mostly did exercises from the book and not much extra work. The class ends around mid June, so we need to finish the current chapter we are on and then start to talk about the Staatsexamen (programma II). Because we need time to cover that, we are going through the text book faster.

Thus I’ll tell you a random fact that I was reminded of when reading my copy of The Book of General Ignorance. We all know that carrots are generally orange. However, they did start not out like that – before the 17th century they were purple, white and red.

So, what changed? In the 17th century the Dutch cultivated carrots to be orange by crossing them with other colors. Some say this was in tribute to the House of Oranje and Willem van Oranje (Willem from the House of Orange). He led the Dutch to a revolution for independence from the Spanish.

Carrot mosiacs by Ilona Fried

Categories: Culture | Tags: Art | Leave a comment

Chip and dips bowl (Or: Curves appreciation)

Posted on April 28, 2014 by Niki

I spotted this a few weeks ago at a cooking store nearby work and I just had to take a picture of it. Some of the comments are in Dutch but you can assume they all follow the same theme that is shown on the right side: “Love my curves”.

For example, the top comment is “Heb ik een dikke kont in deze broek?” and “Lekker kontje”. Or “Do I have a fat butt in these pants?” with the reply “It’s a nice butt.” Yeah.

Categories: Everyday purchases | Leave a comment

Almost that time again (Or: Dutch world cup)

Posted on April 27, 2014 by Niki

The Netherlands got a little taste of “orange mania” this week as Saturday was Koningsdag (English: King’s Day) in The Netherlands. Of course you see some wacky items that come about this time of year – both for the previously mentioned holiday but also for the FIFA World Cup in June.

See at Albert Heijn. “Hup Holland Hup” translates to “Go Holland Go”

Don’t forget to check out the title on the can. See also this previous post, Hup Holland.

Categories: Culture, Everyday purchases | Tags: Football | Leave a comment

De Haagsche Bluf (Or: Coffee and music)

Posted on April 21, 2014 by Niki

Marco and I went shopping this afternoon — I needed a new pair of sneakers as mine had seen better days. We knew we wanted to go somewhere for coffee afterwards but we weren’t sure where. We were going to try Hometown Coffee (the last time we tried there were no free tables and it was a bit too cold to sit outside) but we ended up elsewhere.

More specifically, in De Haagsche Bluf (English), a luxury shopping area in the middle of centrum. We decided to have coffee at Kaldi (English). I had my usual coffee and Marco his cappuccino, and we split an American cookie with white chocolate chips (American = large, soft cookie). Yum.

But unexpectedly we also had some musical entertainment:

It was pretty cool, as the “stage” was actually the front part of the building, simply pulled down like a drawbridge. Here is a close-up.

Great music! Sort of jazzy, with the drums and clarinet alongside.

Categories: Daily Dutch living | Tags: Cafes, Haagsche Bluf, Music | Leave a comment

Easter and… furniture (Or: Dutch B2 course #24)

Posted on April 18, 2014 by Niki

Here is a random thing that I learned yesterday during Dutch class: on Easter Monday, some Dutch go to a meubelboulevard, or a furniture store shopping mall. At least for the last few decades. Part of this is because furniture stores are open on Mondays although these days more stores are open on Mondays than just furniture stores. They also lure you in with irresistible discounts.

A local mall in The Hague (with mostly furniture stores) by the name of Mega Stores also has a chocoladefestival (chocolate festival) on Monday to celebrate the holiday. They have two chocolate fountains and children can also make bunny ears crafts.

I also found an old article (unfortunately in Dutch) from 2008 about the traffic around Ikea in Delft. The traffic was so bad that by the afternoon Ikea was asking visitors to stay away from the area and not come on that day in an attempt to lessen the traffic headaches people were experiencing on highway A13. Of course, Ikea seemed to be a hot place to be back then – they also closed a few exit ramps (afritten) leading to Ikea due to the traffic nightmares it was causing.

Of course this just reminds me of when Sonic restaurants opened in northern New Jersey, causing such bad traffic jams on the highway exit ramp that the police were called in for the first few weeks.

Categories: Courses, Holidays | Tags: Easter | Leave a comment

Videochats (Or: Electronic birthday cake)

Posted on April 14, 2014 by Niki

Yesterday I had a videochat with my parents to celebrate my birthday. Imagine my surprise when the videochat connected and I saw this cake:

German chocolate birthday cake!

That’s right. They bought a cake for me, even though I was in a different country! I then got treated to “Happy Birthday” from my parents, all the way across the ocean. 🙂

Categories: Friends&Family | Tags: Birthdays, Desserts | Leave a comment

Awwww (Or: birthdays and romance)

Posted on April 13, 2014 by Niki

From Marco. 🙂

Categories: Marco&Niki | Tags: Baking, Birthdays | 6 Comments

Old commercials (Or: “I feel like posting tonight”)

Posted on March 31, 2014 by Niki

Back when I was a kid we had commercials for a product called “Chicken Tonight”. Small world I suppose – it was originally sold in America under the Ragu brand, but Ragu is owned by Unilever, a Dutch company. According to Wikipedia (same article in Dutch) it is no longer sold in America, but it is still sold in the Netherlands.

Of course the flavors are quite different in this country – while in America you had flavors such as Honey Mustard and Country French, here you have flavors like kerrie met ananas (curry with pineapple) under the Knorr brand. So we made that tonight, just to have a blast with the past type feeling.

Best part, of course, was the ridiculous commercials from the ’90s where people would say “I feel like chicken tonight, like chicken tonight” while flapping their arms like chickens.

Youtube commercial

Categories: Food | 3 Comments

Who are you referring to? (Or: B2 Dutch course #16)

Posted on March 22, 2014 by Niki

There wasn’t much in my notes from Thursday’s class – we did a lot of practice exercises it seemed. One thing I did write down was this exchange:

Pretend someone calls you and asks Is Mary daar? Is Mary there?

How do you refer to ‘Mary’ when you answer? Nee, …. is niet hier. No, … is not here.

In English it would generally be ‘she’ or ‘he’ (ze/zij or hij). It’s possible in Dutch as well. But in Dutch you can also say: Nee, die is niet hier. die refers back to the question, rather than the person itself. (This is much like my last post about Er, where I said er could refer to an entire idea/phrase/statement.)

And since this wasn’t the most comprehensive post, here’s a picture of dessert!

cinnamon ice cream with chocolate sauce and whipped cream

It’s from Spize, a Thai restaurant in The Hague. We went there back in January. Yum!

Categories: Courses, Food | Tags: Desserts, Dutch language | Leave a comment

Celebrations (Or: St. Patricks Day in The Hague 2014)

Posted on March 16, 2014 by Niki

a day early, but…

Of course when the previous place you lived was Pearl River, NY with the second largest parade in the state (at 100,000 spectators)… anything else will look really, really small in comparison.

The celebration in The Hague was basically one plaza. But, people seemed happy to inebriate themselves:

There was also a live band:

And festive head gear on sale:

And a jolly demonstration of head gear:

So yes, it isn’t quite the same as a crush of 100,000 people, but it will do.

Categories: Holidays | Tags: St Patrick's Day | 4 Comments