ARGHHHHHHJHHHHHHH!!!!!!
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Tasty Fridays (Or: Cheesecake Company in The Hague)
A few Fridays ago some of my coworkers and I celebrated the impending weekend by getting some cheesecake from the Cheesecake Company in The Hague. Officially it was a cheesecake tasting – everyone took a little bit from each piece.
I don’t remember all of the fruit flavors, but ones I do know are: plain (lower right side). Directly above that is razma-limey, with the lime on top. Definitely my favorite fruit flavor. To the left of the plain one was double chocolate-chocolate chip. Dreamsicle (a sort of orange and vanilla swirl, based off a cream popsicle) was in the 9 o’clock position. Lastly, next to the strawberry up top was mango (with all of the yellow pieces on top).
Other fruit flavors that were there included blackberry, blueberry, bosvruchten (forest fruit), and more that I can’t possibly remember. But it was delicious! They are right next to the Grote Kerk in The Hague, on Torenstraat.
A milestone (Or: Stop asking to translate Dutch, Chrome)
A milestone!
http://www.nu.nl, a Dutch news website.
I finally decided to turn off translation requests in Chrome. It was never automatic translation, just a request per website if I wanted to translate Dutch. In reality it has probably been some months since I needed this feature (I usually ignore it), but still, it is a nice minor achievement.
Categories: Reading
Leave a comment
Orange fever (Or: Dutchies take first place in group B)
Nederland 2 – Chili 0
The game between the Netherlands and Chile was closer than the score would show – the first Dutch goal was in the 77th minute by Leroy Fer and the second one was in extra time by Memphis Depay.
With this win, the Dutch take first place in their group (B) and play again Sunday at 6PM local time. Go Dutchies!
‘Blokker’ store in The Hague with decorations
Time for chocolate (Or: Homemade rice krispie treats)
As mentioned in the previous post, on Thursday night I had a barbecue at my teacher’s house. I decided to make rice krispie treats (Marco and I had a lot of fun in the kitchen making them!)
Above is a photo of one of the pans of rice krispies, after pouring the melted chocolate but before spreading it. Lekker!
My classmates definitely enjoyed it. Marco took most of the leftovers to work on Friday for his coworkers. I heard it was also a hit there (although one of them said he wanted to run up and down the hallway repeatedly after eating all that chocolate).
Toetsverklaring (Or: End of the B2 Dutch course)
Yesterday our Dutch class was invited to our teacher’s house for a barbecue get-together. At the end of the night she passed out certificates for those who students had passed the course (to pass, you needed to get 3 out of the 4 sections at B2 level).
I succeeded in getting everything at the B2 level (the last row in the chart).
Op weg naar = on the way to. i.e., in between a level.
Along with the certificate the teacher also said a few words about each of us. How awesome! Of course when she talked about me she talked about how I said right away that I was a grammar nut. 🙂 She also bought each of us a book and this is the book I received:
Taal is zeg maar echt mnijn ding = Language is really my thing. Appropriate, don’t you think? I haven’t had time to read it yet but I hope to soon.
And lastly… last night I signed up for the Staatsexamen programma II. Awesome! I will be taking it later this summer. After that the language courses stop for the most part (most people don’t go past this) though I do know of one place that has a C1 course if I really want to keep going – next year maybe.
I am sort of nervous about it but I know if I buckle down and study I should be fine. More excuse to visit the library and study [says the librarian]!
Oranje tompouce (Or: The Dutchies win again!)
“tompouce”, a type of cake that goes with coffee. Here with a festive orange color due to the World Cup going on.
Nederland 3 – Australië 2
Woohoo. A much closer game but we survived. This time someone in the neighborhood had a lot of fireworks and set them off after we went ahead 3 to 2 (a bit premature if you ask me!). But we made it – and they set more firewoks off after the game was officially over.
Success (Or: I passed the B2 Dutch course)
Today we received the results for the B2 course I have been taking at ROC Mondriaan. I passed all four sections – reading, writing, listening and speaking – with no problems. I did ironically have some comments about how to work on my writing, but it was mainly due to a lack of time to check over my work when I was done writing. I tend to write a lot – a bit too much probably!
When I got home I saw a small gift on the table from Marco. The message he wrote on it makes me wonder what I should have done with it if I hadn’t passed the tests. Burn it?
“open me if you passed the exams – Marco”
If you know what ‘Jamin’ is (what it sells), you can already guess what the gift is. ;p
Chocolate! geslaagd = successful, in the sense of success at passing a test (a school exam, a driving test, etc).
Wow (Or: Go Dutchies!)
Spanje 1 – Nederland 5
Wow. Very cool to watch! After they scored, we would sometimes turn off the volume briefly and just listen to everyone shouting outside.
And as much as Marco likes to say otherwise, he was shouting at the tv too!
I have to say my favorite goal was the “flying Dutchman” goal by van Persie – a header right before the half to tie the score at 1-1.
Dutch spirit (Or: The World Cup begins)
Tomorrow marks the beginning of the World Cup. If you visit the right places, you will see a lot of Dutch spirit.
Here we have the decorations in my father-in-law’s house – Dutch spirit against a pretty (mooi) backdrop.
1. The banner over the door was from the TUC brand crackers.
2. The orange soccer balls/footballs are actually lights.
3. The other things hanging from the plant are Albert Heijn hamsters (the mascot) which can you receive for free if you spend more than a certain amount of euros in a shopping trip (15, probably). Orange, of course!
Life in the Hague 