Marco and I just got back from a trip to London for a week. We had a blast! While I visited London back in 2010, that was only for a day and a half so I didn’t remember much.
Here are some of the photos I took over the last week:
Above: a display at the British Museum. As you can tell, I am a fan of blue things.
Above: Westminster Abbey
Trafalgar square includes an area with four lions. You can read more about the square and lions at visitlondon.com. I took this photo because I was way too amused by the warning in the foreground…
Above: Big Ben. I am charmed by the statue in front.
Above: London Eye ferris wheel, from a distance. Apparently it takes 30 minutes for one full revolution.
All in all, it was a lovely trip. And I didn’t even show any of the awesome food we ate…
(If you came across this blog post after a Google search and you need help with this puzzle, skip to the end of this post.)
Marco gave me a puzzle for Christmas—it might have been Christmas 2021, even!—that has proven challenging to say the least. I worked on it for months, off and on. This puzzle was one of the main reasons I bought a pair of reading glasses. A lot of pieces look like each other. Even though you can see two shades of brown below, if you put the pieces next to each other it was hard to tell what shade it was. It reminded me of the dress color controversy (Wikipedia).
As you can see, it doesn’t even fit in my Portapuzzle (see also bol.com) because it is much wider than it is tall. The puzzle measures 35 by 13 inches (89 by 33 cm). The official store where you can buy it is at Noble Collection.
Here’s a close up:
Along with the odd dimensions, another problem is that the puzzle doesn’t come with an extra piece of paper showing the puzzle at a larger size to help you put it together. It does come in a very awesome box, though. And don’t get me wrong. This was a great gift and definitely worth the money Marco spent.
Here are the two links I used to help me solve this puzzle:
Noble Collection’s UK website – if you click on the first box at the bottom of the page, you’ll see a close up of the puzzle. Click on it again to zoom it.
This Reddit image from user jnfranne. Note: click on the picture to zoom in further. This image was extremely helpful as you could see the lines of the puzzle pieces. It was also amusing to see that the puzzle I got was about 1mm off from that user’s – in my puzzle everything was a bit further to right. The image came from this post over at the Reddit “jigsawpuzzles” community.
I was by Albert Heijn recently and I spotted a crompouce. What is a crompouce, you ask? It’s a cross between a croissant and a tompouce (Wikipedia). The latter is a Dutch/Belgium treat that is horribly difficult to eat. I subscribe to the method where you eat the cream in the middle with your fork, and when the structural integrity starts failing you start eating the top of it as well.
And now we have crompouces…
It’s basically a croissant with cream in the middle and the tompouce icing on top. I haven’t had one yet. I might need to have my dentist on speed dial if I try it, though.
I recently spotted some pepernoten beer by the local Hema:
A pepernoot is a cookie-like confectionery (see more at Wikipedia). But the red hat symbol on top of the beer makes it clear that this should be consumed in the days leading up to and during Sinterklaas, a Dutch holiday similar to Christmas on 5 December. (Okay, okay, obviously Sinterklaas came first. See more at Sinterklaas vs. Santa Claus from The Hague International Centre.)
The thought of Dutch parents enjoying a beer or three while children unwrap presents during Sinterklaas reminds me of the scene during A Christmas Story when the parents relax with a glass of wine after the kids have unwrapped their presents on Christmas Day.
Oh, and unrelated: I have decided that I am (still) not a fan of setting the clocks back. I’d rather have a dark morning than a dark evening. You can have your hour back!
While taking a walk earlier I decided to photograph one of the canals in The Hague’s city centre.
The best part of this photo? The lovely blue skies. But after I took this photo I turned right and all I saw was grey, depressing sky. It looked like it would rain any minute, although it thankfully did not.
Are you also looking forward to Halloween? Check out Festival of frights: 13 ways to celebrate Halloween in NL from dutchnews.nl. Slowly but surely, Halloween is becoming a “thing” here, every year just a bit more. You can also get some Halloween candy at Kelly’s expat store. I bought a few bags of candy corn for Marco and Roger already. It reminds me of the time that Marco and I were visiting my parents in the States and Mom bought a huge tub of candy corn. It disappeared so quickly you would think a ghost ate it all…
The Hague’s official website also publishes a list of events happening in The Hague for Halloween over at their website. You can even attend a Halloween party at the Grote Kerk (“Big Church”) on 28 October.
The weather has definitely turned; the cold fingers of fall has arrived. If you’re lucky you’ll get a moment of sun but otherwise it is just wind and rain. Therefore I haven’t taken many photos for the blog of late. So here is one from a month or two ago which I never got around to posting:
It shows two sandwiches which are on sale at the Pathé movie theatre. The one on the right is named “Eggstra cheesy” which is a horrible pun. Good, but horrible.
The one on the right is Boerengezond. That one is less punny and simply translates to “Farmer’s healthy sandwich”.
Van Gogh museum stops Pikachu card promo due to “chaos” from dutchnews.nl. They are cute cards (you should check them out) but really, anyone could have known that these would have been snatched up immediately and re-sold by scalpers.
Here are two food related things I noticed in the last few weeks. Check out these bag of Doritos on sale at the local Albert Heijn supermarket:
In the US this flavor is known as “Cool ranch”. Frito-Lay thought that “Cool American” would be a better name for this flavor in Europe because ranch isn’t that well-known in this country. I don’t understand how “American” helps explain the flavor any better, but okay. I did end up buying a bag last week (the first bag in years) just to remember what the flavor was like. It isn’t one of my favorite chips but it was good enough.
And in other news… it is October! Which means the oliebollen stand (Wikipedia) magically appears on 1 October.
Admittedly they weren’t open on that day but they did open shortly thereafter. You know it is that time of the year when this stand appears!
I must admit we have had a lot of luck this summer with good weather, especially in the second half. (The first half could be eloquently described as rain, rain, rain.) With that being said, you can tell fall is approaching, with less sunlight and shorter days in general.
Here is a photo I took of Lange Voorhout, with the leaves on the ground:
And here is a photo from the Paleistuin (Palace gardens):
The building pictured is called Koninklijke Verzamelingen (Royal Collections). The website describes it as “the accumulation of objects and sources of information that members of the houses of Nassau and Orange-Nassau, and people around them, have gathered and kept over many centuries.” You get the idea.
One good thing about the approaching colder season? It’s much easier to sleep! Air conditioning in homes isn’t that common here so it can get warm at times. But now you can get onder the covers and make yourself nice and toasty.
Yesterday was our 10 year anniversary. Sometimes we go for a swanky hotel, like the executive suite in Amersfoort, or the awesome views from the nhow hotel in Rotterdam, or the Kurhaus hotel in nearby Scheveningen during corona. This time I went with a nice restaurant since we already have vacation plans later in the year.
I booked a reservation at Blue Blood in The Hague as a surprise for Marco (he didn’t know where we were going until we were there). The restaurant offers “a mash-up of the Peruvian and Japanese cuisine”. I had read good things about both the food and service at this restaurant and they did not disappoint. When booking the reservation I was asked if this was for a special occasion. I of course clicked on anniversary. When we arrived we saw they had given us a table in the corner next to the canal, with rose petals on the table and a glass of cava (on the house) to toast the occasion.
I knew in advance that I wanted the tasting menu. It started off with oysters. The first oyster I have had in my life. It did not disappoint!
The sauce was yuzu sauce, which gave it a lovely sour taste, with Peruvian corn and lots of other goodies inside.
Another plus point: as each course arrived the staff took the time to explain what each component was, what the ingredients were and why it was on the menu. Unfortunately my memory isn’t good enough to remember most of it, but it was lovely to hear what the inspiration was behind everything.
A few Fridays back, during that week when the weather was so warm, Marco and I met up in the city centre. We each had an idea about where we could eat that evening to celebrate the end of the work week. Great minds think alike, since we quickly found out we had the same idea: Kompaan Binnenhaven at the Torenstraat in the city centre. They had been open for a while now but we had never gone. With the weather so good it is hard to pass up the opportunity to sit outside in the sun for a while. (Although to be fair the sun was pretty mean, so a bit more shade wouldn’t have been a bad thing.)
Marco chose the pork tacos. Don’t they look awesome?
Whereas I had the Libanese flatbread veggie kebab. This one also had pickled cucumber and red cabbage kimchi which gave it a lovely slight sour note. It combined well with the other components of the dish which had me dancing in my seat a bit. (Marco knows if I really like something I start to do a tiny dance. I was dancing.)
We also shared some salted jalapeño peppers. They were delicious and not actually that spicy considering they weren’t deseeded. The salt was definitely at the forefront with this one (in a good way). Since the jalapeños were grilled there was also a lovely hint of smokiness.
Okay, now I sound like a restaurant connoisseur and I’m not. But it was a great way to end the work week for sure.
Life in the Hague 
