Life in the Hague

65 pages (Or: Example of “makkelijk lezen”)

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Niki

Today I went back to the Hague public library and decided to sit down and read one of the makkelijk lezen (easier reading) books. The series I picked up is called “Fast Lane” and the particular book I had was In Het Donker – In the Darkness. As you can see below, the format of the lines is definitely different than a regular book, with short lines that can’t even really be called paragraphs:

The book was about 65 pages long, but as you can see there wasn’t much text per page. Some of the pages were grouped with half a picture, and some of the pages were entirely a picture with no text. I managed to finish the entire book in about an hour and a half or so.

This particular book was rather formulaic in its vampire theme, but nonetheless I enjoyed reading it. I used the Google Translate app and the Dict Box app which has multiple dictionaries for NL-EN and EN-NL. You can also customize which dictionaries show up (I quickly removed the image dictionary as it was only for English words).

Categories: Apps, Reading | Tags: Books, Dutch language, Libraries | 5 Comments

Makkelijk lezen (Of: Bibliotheek Den Haag)

Posted on January 8, 2013 by Niki

Easier Reading (Or: The Hague Library)

So my latest adventure in the last two days was visiting the central library of the Hague. I went there yesterday with Marco’s mother as I had read that they had a Nederlands leren section on the fourth floor. (That’s really the 5th floor for us Americans.)

When we arrived on the fourth floor we found the taal section (languages / 800’s) section fairly easily. As Marco’s mother also likes to practice her English, we went to the Engels section first. Near the beginning of the English section we found some thin books which were about various classics (Treasure Island, Dickens, etc) or about certain themes. She took a book with five Canterbury Tales and a book on short ghost/scary stories.

After that we proceeded to the Dutch section, which was easily the largest section (probably 6 or 7 times the books that English had). But I found it rather frustrating to not be able to read the titles easily, and I also found it frustrating to have all the books mixed together and have academic (read: stuffy, hard to read books) on the Dutch language next to books about grammar. So eventually I gave up for the day and told her I would return tomorrow (that is today).

I returned to same place today on my own, but did not have much luck at all. As I was leaving, I took a bit of a detour and stopped to read the directional signs that were placed near the escalators. As I turned around, I realized that I had missed the Nederlands leren section completely, and really was in the wrong place. It’s right next to the escalators, near the windows. It’s quite possible I had found the section previously with Marco but just forgot about it, as I had not visited the library in a year and a half.

The Nederlands leren section does seem more my speed – they have a lot of course books, exam books (NT2, Kennis samenleving, etc) and of course fiction books to read. The fiction books included a LOT of picture books and etc for the basic level, but also thankfully some harder books that were a bit longer.

Apparently they are marked as “makkelijk lezen” or easier reading. So the theme is a bit more adult (sometimes) than the amount of pages would suggest.

Categories: Reading | Tags: Books, Dutch language, Libraries | Leave a comment

Dutch apps (Or: Words Maker Pro and 9292)

Posted on January 7, 2013 by Niki

Two new apps have been added to the Dutch page. I have my iPhone registered to the Dutch store, and my iTouch is still registered to American store, so hopefully this way I can find more Dutch games. (It’s not as easy as I had hoped!)

Dutch apps

Words Maker Pro (Apple)

This app is available in English, Dutch, German, French, and Spanish. You can either play against the computer in varying difficulty levels or you can play a multiplayer game if you and your friend have a game center account.

Initially you are given 25 letters, and from those letters you must make a word that is between 3 and 7 letters long. You drag each letter down from the playing board to the “rack” to make a word. On each round, you have two squares which are double letter and one square which is triple letter, for a higher score. The game ends when all 100 letters are used or when both players ‘pass’ on their turn.

This is a fun game to play if you are learning Dutch, as it really tests you to find words to play. The trick is to play it while also using a Dutch-English dictionary, so that you learn new vocabulary when the computer plays a word you do not know.

9292 (Apple | Android)

This public transportation app is all but essential if you don’t have a car in the Netherlands. It shows routes and times for the tram, train, bus, subway and ferry from point A to B. You can also create an account and save locations to your device so you don’t have to enter them each time.

Categories: Apps | Tags: Apps | 2 Comments

365 days of blog posts

Posted on January 6, 2013 by Niki

I started this blog back on January 7, 2012. I have written a blog post a day detailing various things – though not all of them were about the Netherlands or related to the Dutch. A lot of New York themed posts seemed to slip in as well…

Here are some of my more highly visited posts which are Dutch related:

1. With the highest amount of views: Dutch gourmetten (Or: An exercise in hungry patience)

2. Albert Heijn (Or: Glad I don’t need to ship yellow mustard in)

3. Browsing (Or: European and American shoe sized compared)

4. Speculoos (Or: Chopped Grill Masters)

5. Colonization (Or: Dutch is the best choice!)

6. Streets (Or: Wandering through the Hague)

7. Dutch televisie (Or: Soaking up some Dutch)

And I will leave you with a picture of a freshly baked stroopwafel:

Note. I will no longer post every day. Probably. Maybe. ;p

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Stroopwafels | 2 Comments

19th day (Or: Hot chocolate and birthdays)

Posted on January 5, 2013 by Niki

Last night Marco and I made hot chocolate. But not just ANY hot chocolate, nope! Friday night hot chocolate!

First off, you have the cup, an awesome little Christmas present. Inside the drink is hot chocolate (of course), Bailey’s liquor, a large marshmallow torn into small bits, and a peppermint candy cane for flavorful stirring. On the side you have a stroopwafel (sorry to make you drool, Mom). And then an awesome little ceramic spoon on the side.

Yummm.

Speaking of Mom, today is her birthday.

Happy birthday, Mom!

Categories: Marco&Niki | Tags: Birthdays | 1 Comment

The Hague (Or: One awesome blue sky)

Posted on January 4, 2013 by Niki

Happy Friday!

This image was taken a few days ago (or so), after a week of mostly rain and gray skies. Good times!

Categories: The Hague | 3 Comments

Restaurants (Or: Drinking water in the Netherlands)

Posted on January 3, 2013 by Niki

Today I met up with Marco after he finished with work and we did some Thursday night shopping (as the stores are open later on Thursdays around here). Afterwards, we had dinner at one of the restaurants in the area. I ordered hamburger schotel which was close enough to a hamburger for me. I just asked that they didn’t put the baked egg on there that the menu mentioned. ;p

Marco and I also ordered two bottles of water:

In the Netherlands, you are less likely to see glasses of water at restaurants. If you are served a bottle of water and an empty glass to pour the water into, this is their way of proving that they did not just put tap water in there. However, they usually serve the bottle to you with the lid already removed, so who knows…

And there are also no free refills. I have adapted alright to this. The first few visits to the Netherlands, I was still addicted to diet coke (cola light) which I think made me even more thirsty so I drank even more. But around April or May of last year, I cut out diet coke for the most part and switched to water. It seems to have worked pretty well. Though I did enjoy having diet coke over Christmas!

Categories: Culture | Tags: Restaurants | Leave a comment

Sixteenth day (Or: Flowers for sale)

Posted on January 2, 2013 by Niki

Today Marco went back to work after the holidays. It has been pretty interesting having the apartment to myself, but unfortunately I didn’t get as much work done as I had hoped.

One of the things that I started on was reviewing Dutch pronunciation, in the hopes that I would be able to figure out how to say new words without giving Marco a blank stare. Little things like realizing that most vowels can be doubled: aa, ee, oo, etc. But ‘ii’ doesn’t exist – it is written as ‘ie’ instead, like ‘bier’. But mostly the diphthongs annoy me – ou, etc.

After lunch I decided to venture outside for a while and walk to American Book Center. Even with Google Maps it wasn’t that easy – although it was mainly just trying to get my bearings (again). Amusingly, the walk home was much quicker and easier. But at least now I know how to walk back there without a map.

Somewhere along the way I took a picture of some flowers for sale:

When I walked to the apartment entrance, another person who lived in the complex was coming out of the door with her dog. She said hallo so I said hi back. But then she said something else, and I wasn’t quite sure exactly what it was. But all I got out was a confused “um…” before she said Gelukkig Nieuwjaar! (Happy New Year) which at least I understood. But then my brain was still in English mode and I said “you too!” before the Dutch started to slip into my thoughts. (For the record, she grinned a bit and said something minor in English after; I forgot what.)

It’s been interesting listening to Dutch news today. So far I have battled with teletekst (channel 888 – subtitles for certain channels) trying to get that figured out. It’s technically for people who are hard of hearing but it’s obviously helpful for foreigners as well. But not every channel has it, and sometimes it is not really obvious which channels do and don’t support it.

Categories: The Hague | Tags: Flowers | Leave a comment

Fifteenth day (Or: Blowing up the Netherlands again!)

Posted on January 1, 2013 by Niki

Yay. Another New Year’s celebration at Roger’s place. First we had gourmetten (yummm – I highly recommend putting pineapple slices on the grill) and then we watched the Avengers movie which was a lot of fun. We finished about 10 minutes before midnight, and then rang in the New Year watching a music channel which had a clock and a countdown in the corner.

Here are some pictures that I took. Note as always that Netherlands is rather insane with its fireworks, but I always find it harder to get pictures of fireworks so I mostly focused on the things that were being burned…

"tidelijk buiten gebruik" - temporarily out of service. The black part is covering the slot where the mail usually goes, but the post office does not like people shoving lit fireworks into their post office boxes. Mail resumes tomorrow on the 2nd.

“tidelijk buiten gebruik” – temporarily out of service. The black part is covering the slot where the mail usually goes, as the post office does not like people shoving lit fireworks into them. Mail resumes tomorrow on the 2nd.

The police were happy that the weather was a bit less than stellar – you can see how windy it is here, plus it was also raining off and on.

Some fireworks in the sky. As you can see, you can buy professional-ish fireworks, although not really the largest type.

Random person setting off a firework (and someone one else with one in the background)

Random person setting off a firework (and someone else with one in the background)

Awesome burning bench. Most of the photos I took were of things burning, but I decided to tone it down for this blog post. ;p

Leftovers for the fireworks. Just a small example of what the streets looked like. ;p

Leftovers. Just a small example of what the streets looked like in places.

Categories: Holidays | Tags: Fireworks, New Year's Eve | Leave a comment

2012 in review (Or: Oudjaarsavond)

Posted on December 31, 2012 by Niki

oudjaarsavond = Old Year’s Eve. I can’t believe it’s been two years since my last oudjaarsavond celebration.

***

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 16,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 4 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.

Categories: Holidays | Tags: WordPress | Leave a comment