Exploring Leiden (Or: Windmills and canals)

On Saturday Marco and I went to Leiden. It is a university city not far from The Hague (10-15 minutes by train). We first made a stop at the VVV office (tourist office) for a free city guide. Unfortunately it was pretty commercial in nature and it wasn’t quite as informative as the Dordrecht guide was (we paid €5 for that). However the Leiden guide did have three recommended walks in the back so we used that. You just need to keep in mind some of the streets it takes you down are store heavy…

My first picture was easily my favorite:

Leiden windmill and canal

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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:

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And around dinner time tonight:

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You can find the puzzle here.

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Springtime flowers in The Hague (Or: Sun!)

Lately the temperature has been climbing up – bit by bit, with lapses back into cold rainy days from time to time, but it is definitely springtime. It’s still generally in the high 50s or low 60s, but it is an improvement. Usually!

Springtime flowers in The Hague

Along with most of our days off (holidays) falling in April-June, this marks the time when outdoor events begin. For example, yesterday was the Dag van de Haagse Geschiedenis (in Dutch, Day of History of The Hague). Next weekend is the Life I Live festival (Dutch | English). This festival is found throughout the center of The Hague, on nine different stages, from 7pm to 1:30am. It falls on King’s Day eve, the night before the King’s birthday.

How do I feel about spring finally being here? Well, here’s a cappuccino smiley to show you:

Cappuccino smiley

 

Of course the forehead makes it look slightly evil… just don’t feed it after midnight.

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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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Empty stores (Or: Graffiti on Voorstraat in Dordrecht)

As I mentioned in my last blog post, Marco and I went to Dordrecht about a week ago to do a stadswandeling in Dordrecht (that’s a walk around the city). After that was done, we doubled back to visit Voorstraat. People say Voorstraat is the longest shopping street in the Netherlands. Of course, such an achievement does come with a price in today’s economy: there are some empty stores. Not a lot, but enough to be noticeable.

Of course, what makes it even more noticeable is when someone adds graffiti to each of the shop windows to point out that it is empty:

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Here’s an idea for this empty store: a popup cafe with free wifi!

Some graffiti points out the fact that the store has been empty for over three years. But the main purpose of it is to point out what the store could be used as (apparently if the city government cared enough to do something about it – I suspect it isn’t as easy as the graffitist hopes, though). But other ideas for popup stores (always illustrated by graffiti) include music stores, bike rental stores, and a biological store.

More information about the graffiti and pictures can be found here (in Dutch).

Something cute hanging out by the door of a non-abandoned (just closed at the time) store:

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Dordrecht (Or: A walking tour of the city)

Marco and I took the day off on Friday and we decided to visit Dordrecht, a small town outside of Rotterdam (the credit goes to Marco for the idea of what to do).

partial map of the Netherlands

Dordrecht, just under the red “Zuid Holland”

It is about 35 to 40 minutes by train traveling from The Hague. We did a walking tour of the city (Rondje Dordt – page in Dutch) which was about 3km long and showed the sights of the city.

Here are some of the photographs that we took along the way:

Holland Spoor train station platform

Photograph of Holland Spoor, one of the two train stations in The Hague

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