Just lights and a sign (Or: No Royal Christmas Fair this year)

Posted on November 28, 2020 by Niki

A few days ago I walked past the Lange Voorhout, a street with a rich history that spans back to the 12th and 13th centuries (Wikipedia). It is also home to the Royal Christmas Fair and one of the homes of the Rrrollend food festival (the other being Malieveld).

Of course there is no Royal Christmas Fair this year. But there are a few signs out as you can see above. The city also added the usual white Christmas lights to give it a holiday feel. (You can just barely see the light strings in the trees on the left of the photo.)

Balloons as an alternative to fireworks: ‘Still nice to pop’ from news1.com. (Or try the Dutch version of this article over at rtlneiuws.nl.)

1987 Ferrari pulled from Amsterdam canal to appear in Netflix production from nltimes.nl. But it is all just for show – the article says it will be scrapped afterwards.

And it is unfortunately still busy today due to Black Friday shopping (where deals seem to last all weekend): Drukte in winkelstraten, in meerdere steden winkels eerder dicht from nos.nl. It is busy in the shopping streets, with many cities closing stores early, around 16:00, give or take. The Hague sent out a tweet at 12:30 today saying it was too busy in the city centre and people should stay away, but for the moments stores in The Hague are closing at their normal times.

(a pretty picture of Bijenkorf’s winter decorations…)
Categories: Holidays, The Hague | Tags: | Leave a comment

Black Friday in The Netherlands (Or: Early morning lines)

Posted on November 27, 2020 by Niki

Black Friday has become popular in the last 5 years in this country. I know it doesn’t make much sense, but who doesn’t love a good deal? (Although whether something is a good deal is questionable at times.) But with corona this year, it was a bit weird to see the city centre so busy.

Here was the line for Uniqlo, a recently opened Japanese clothing store:

This photo was taken just before 10:00, so right before the store opened. I was lucky that I was just passing through and could use the side streets to avoid this area. When I passed the edge of the city centre later in the afternoon it was almost impossible to see through the mass of people shopping here at Grote Marktstraat (denhaag.com, English site). Are the discounts really that important?

Most NL residents don’t care about Black Friday from nltimes.nl. You could have fooled me.

Still, other cities had it much worse: Burgemeester Aboutaleb sluit winkels in centrum Rotterdam om ‘dramatische drukte‘ from nos.nl. The mayor of Rotterdam (Aboutaleb) closed all stores in the center of Rotterdam because of the ‘massive crowds’. He closed them at 19:10, about 50 minutes earlier than they would be required to close due to corona regulations. Amsterdam and Rotterdam were quite busy all day though (with both mayors issuing warnings to avoid certain areas of their cities early in the afternoon). According to reports the crowd levels were more manageable in Utrecht and The Hague.

Note: the above article does have a lovely picture of the “Koopgoot” shopping area. The nickname “Koopgoot” translates to “Shopping gutter”, owing to the fact that it is lower than the street next to it, although still an open area. It’s a lovely area. Just not on Black Friday in 2020…

Happy weekend, everyone!

Categories: Holidays, Shopping, The Hague | Leave a comment

Opps… (Or: I am neither elderly or sick, but…)

Posted on November 26, 2020 by Niki

This morning I went to a local supermarket to pick something up for dinner. While I usually go to Albert Heijn, this item required me to go somewhere else. Actually, the first place I tried was closed but I kind of figured that would be the case, so I walked on to my second choice.

I was pleasantly surprised to enter a quiet supermarket, only spotting two customers on my quick trip through the store. I quickly found what I needed, checked one other thing and then moved to the cash registers to pay. While waiting for the cashier to appear (it really was quiet) I saw a paper before my nose detailing the opening hours of the store. And then realized that 09:00-10:00, when I was visiting, was actually the weekday ouderuurtje, aka the “elderly hour” where elderly or “immune compromised” persons can visit a supermarket to do their shopping in the quieter hours. That is one of the corona laws the government passed earlier this year. Opps.

I did apologize to the cashier when he walked up, but of course he didn’t care. Probably because it was unbelievably quiet… but still, I know better for next time.

In other news:

Tired of sniggers, Austrian village tweaks its name to Fugging from uk.reuters.com. I assume you can guess what their current name is… but hopefully this way people won’t steal as many of their signs.

Wintersporters blijven met Kerst massaal thuis, ‘nauwelijks boekingen from nu.nl. Dutch skiers are choosing to stay at hore for Christmas, rather than visiting Italy, France, Austria and similar. Although there is some speculation that last minute bookings might still occur. (This is important because the first wave of Covid this spring came from Italy, brought back by Dutch skiers.)

I told Marco about this one; he could only exclaim “Wow, like Pet Cementary!”: Culled mink rise from the dead to Denmark’s horror from theguardian.com. The reason is simple, though: they weren’t buried deep enough and when their bodies started to decompose, well, bodily gases caused them to rise back up to the surface. Still, ew…

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Work “goodbye parties” (Or: Corona time addition)

Posted on November 25, 2020 by Niki

One of Marco’s coworkers is leaving, so Marco’s company has scheduled a virtual goodbye party later this week. But, it isn’t just any goodbye party – each participant received a package in the mail today to give the person a “good send off” during the virtual party:

That’s right, a nachos and beer package! The nacho chips, potato chips and salsa are all Spanish products (or are labeled as such) while you have two Dutch beers from Jopen, a brewery in Haarlem. Apparently there is also an aioli dip, but I didn’t find that until after taking this photo. All the straw underneath reminds me of the leg lamp unboxing from A Christmas Story (link to YouTube).

The gift package itself comes from charles.nl.

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Music at the Malieveld? (Or: Parkpop changes)

Posted on November 24, 2020 by Niki

Yesterday the news broke that the Dutch music festival Parkpop would be moving to Malieveld next year (article from omroepwest.nl in Dutch). The festival has been held at The Hague’s Zuiderpark for the last 40 years. Indeed, the festival gets its name from the fact that it is held at Zuiderpark (Parkpop). In 1992 it claimed the title as the biggest music festival of Europe, drawing over half a mission visitors that weekend (!).

However, location always proved an issue. It’s much easier to get to Malieveld (which is a 2 minute walk from The Hague’s Central Station) than it is to get to Zuiderpark. Another issue was noise: Zuiderpark is surrounded by residential area, whereas Malieveld is not.

In corona news:

De Jonge: Dutch partial lockdown likely to continue past mid-January from nltimes.nl. The worst part is this means restaurants and cafés will not be able to reopen for dine-in for a while, but if it helps…

Government advised to extend Christmas school holidays, not relax other measures from nltimes.nl. I bet kids will be really happy if their Christmas vacation does get extended, but it will probably mean a shorter summer break. But as a kid, would you think of that? (At the moment it is just advice; the government can ignore it.)

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Corona collection (Or: Upcoming exhibition at The Hague Historical museum)

Posted on November 23, 2020 by Niki

The Haags Historisch Museum (The Hague Historical Museum) will be opening a new exhibition in the first week of December: “Corona collection, The Hague in lockdown“. (On the right side of the page there is a link to their online corona collection, which includes photos taken during the first wave of the coronavirus earlier this year. It’s written in Dutch, but Google translation should also work on the descriptions that accompany each photo.)

Photograph of random art spotted during the first “lockdown”… it translates to “Covid-19 is coming out of my nose!”

If you can’t make it in person, you can see some more of the corona-related photographs from the Dutch photographer Sandra Uittenbogaart at The Hague’s archive. It’s great that this year is being archived online for all to see and remember (or forget…).

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Crazy flavors (Or: Red velvet kruidnoten, anyone?)

Posted on November 22, 2020 by Niki

Did you notice flavors are getting crazier every year? Marco recently took a photo of some red velvet kruidnoten (English Wikipedia) at Albert Heijn:

Apparently this flavor was the winner of the ‘kruidnoten thuisverkiezing’ or ‘kruidnoten home vote’. I can believe that.

Still, it doesn’t beat the Lay’s potato chip flavor “Baguette with garlic butter”. That was memorable!

Categories: Everyday purchases, Food, Holidays | Tags: | Leave a comment

More cancellations (Or: No Elfstedentocht this year)

Posted on November 21, 2020 by Niki

The Elfstedentocht is an 11 city ice staking race. The length is about 200 kilometers (120 miles) and is held in the north of the Netherlands in the Friesland province. It can most accurately be described as “the event that stops the Netherlands”. Or it would be, if the weather would cooperate. As you might expect, the race can only be held if the ice is thick enough along the entire course. The last time that happened was 1997. There was a glimmer of hope in 2012, but it didn’t work out. This event averages about 2 million spectators.

About a month ago Marco and I looked at each other and thought of the worst possibility ever: that the weather would finally cooperate and there would be an Elfstedentocht… and the coronavirus.

Well, the organization responsible for the event saw the chaos that was about to come and reported that no matter what, there would be no Elfstedentocht. As dutchnews.nl reports: Elfstedentocht cancelled because of…coronavirus, oh, and the weather. (Since the prospectives of ice don’t look good anyway.)

And here is a fun one:

The city carillonneur played “Paint it Black” from The Rolling Stones on the church bells in Groningen (also in the north of the Netherlands). This is something he does often, but because Mick Jagger saw the video and placed it on his Instagram with 2 million followers, the video quickly went viral. You can read more in Dutch over at nos.nl: Groningse stadsbeiaardier klinkt wereldwijd met Paint it black van The Rolling Stones.

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The days are getting colder (Or: At least it’s weekend)

Posted on November 20, 2020 by Niki

It seems like lately my only moments of fresh air are during quick trips to Albert Heijn for groceries. But because the quietest time to go is in the mornings, that always happens during my work day so I have to rush. But it is now weekend, which means it is easier to get outside and take a walk. Although it is getting colder these days…

The baby panda born at a Dutch zoo earlier this year is now on display:

Still, I have found something even cuter: the tiny owl that was discovered in the Christmas tree at New York City’s Rockefeller Center (nbcnews.com). So cute!

In other news: Netherlands has world’s highest English proficiency for non-native speakers from nltimes.nl. Not that we didn’t know that one already. I still remember my first trip to The Netherlands, sitting in the train to The Hague at close to midnight, nervously trying to ask something of a random stranger in Dutch (Marco and I wanted to sit near him due to a lack of seats elsewhere). Ha. To this day, I still have people switch to English randomly when they hear my American accent. That’s okay. I just keep talking in Dutch, they get a chance to practice their English, everyone is happy…

And here is an article in Dutch from nos.nl: Rutte waarschuwt ministers voor Twitter-slordigheid na incident met geheime code. In summary, the Dutch ministry of Defense is sitting at home in quarantine. She is attending an online meeting with other defense ministers in the European Union. The problem? She let her assistant take a photo of her, but a Dutch news site spotted the login code and 5 of the 6 digits for the password in that photo. They logged into the meeting and quickly introduced themselves as a Dutch journalist and then left again. They logged into a SUPER SECRET MEETING WITH OTHER DEFENSE MINISTERS. Yikes.

Categories: Holidays, News | Leave a comment

Anyone up for cookies? (Or: Spotted at Albert Heijn)

Posted on November 19, 2020 by Niki

While shopping at Albert Heijn I noticed they had gingerbread men baking mixes:

The box is in the upper right. Of course I’m not sure if it is actually gingerbread, since the box calls them “Winter holiday cookies”, translated.

And even though you can’t really see it in my photo above, if you go to AH’s website you will see that the box says (in the bottom left): “Good for Halloween, Sinterklaas and Christmas!”

I’m trying to imagine making gingerbread men for Halloween, but I can’t.

Categories: Everyday purchases, Food, Holidays | Tags: , | 2 Comments

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