Yum yum yum (Or: Homemade ramen soup)

Posted on August 20, 2020 by Niki

Marco has outdone himself yet again. Here’s a look at our dinner tonight:

Ramen soup with Japanese noodles, super snaps, pork, carrots, fresh ginger, pickled red ginger, green onion miso, onions, seaweed and sesame seeds. Therefore, I say: yum yum yum! Go Marco!

Here’s a sign that we live in a different world now: HTM laat meer trams en bussen buiten spits rijden, tijdens spits juist wat minder from omroepwest.nl. HTM, the public transportation company of The Hague, has altered their schedule for the rest of the year. They will be offering fewer buses and trams during weekday rush hour, but more buses and trams outside of weekday rush hour. Because, really, what is rush hour these days? Sure, some people go to work, but a lot less than before the corona crisis hit. They will also review the schedule at the end of the year to see if it should be extended into 2021.

Today was a bit of a madhouse in the city centre, although I missed it due to being hard at work. Which is probably a good thing. There were more demonstrations from the group “Viruswaarheid” or “Virus truth”. The demonstrators are against the corona measures the government has created. See also this article (with videos) at nltimes.nl: Covid protestors fight with police in The Hague; 1 cop hurt. But note you do see some idiots.

Categories: Food | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

Annastraat in The Hague (Or: Side street in the city centre)

Posted on August 19, 2020 by Niki

Today I’ve chosen a random photo of the city centre for you. Take a look at Annastraat:

As noted, it’s in the city centre: not far from the Grote Kerk and just around the corner from restaurant Milu, where Marco and I held our wedding reception back in 2013, although it was a different restaurant then.

DutchNews.nl has updated their coronavirus article with the changes announced during the press conference: Coronavirus in the Netherlands: what you need to know, update August 19

In and other news: Germans must walk their dogs twice a day, new law will say from theguardian.com. And each walk must last an hour. In theory it sounds good for dogs everywhere. Yet in reality it seems too hard to enforce. Does it take older or sick dogs into consideration? Or bad weather (freezing temperatures or scorching temperatures)? Personally I don’t expect to see this law lasting long… but you never know.

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

Dinner in front of the TV (Or: Another Dutch press conference)

Posted on August 18, 2020 by Niki

There was another press conference tonight, held by the Prime Minister Mark Rutte. The main highlights are:

People are urgently asked, but not required, to limit home gatherings to a maximum of six guests. And if you cannot accommodate social distancing for yourself and your six guests in your apartment then you should not be inviting six people over. This advice is because most of the cases seen are occurring within private areas. An unexpected twist: Rutte advised that people who wanted to meet up should instead go to restaurants or cafés, where social distancing was easier to maintain, a health check was done, contact details were saved and fixed seating was required (all of those in theory).

People are also reminded that the rule is still ‘work as much as possible from home, where possible’. There was some unfounded hope that going back to work after 1 September would be allowed, however that was never officially said and now the number of cases are growing again. Therefore Rutte decided to make it clear that working from home would remain the norm for the foreseeable future. (See also: my work saying we’re now officially working from home until at least the New Year. Yikes!)

The length of quarantine will be reduced from 14 days to 10 days. The advice remains that you should get tested if you develop symptoms while in quarantine. While it seems counterproductive to reduce the number of days, it is the government’s attempt to weigh the smaller risk of developing symptoms during days #11-14 and making it easier for people to accept going into quarantine. At the moment the government cannot require that you go into quarantine, though they said during this press conference that they are looking into changing the law to permit that.

The RIVM posted the weekly numbers on their website earlier today; weekly updates are provided every Tuesday. Corona cases are about the same as last week, with hospitalizations and deaths slightly rising.

Later tonight the mayor of Amsterdam is expected to announce regional measures on top of what was announced nationally. Rotterdam is expected to follow with additional regional measures later this week.

In the meantime: stay safe everyone!

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , | Leave a comment

A flurry of colored feathers (Or: Owl graffiti)

Posted on August 17, 2020 by Niki

Today’s photo is of a large piece of graffiti over on the Boomsluiterskade, not far from the Bierkade:

And as I always say: it’s not a Dutch photo without a pile of bikes in front of it!

Today’s big news: A sizable portion of The Hague (the city centre, Duindorp, Scheveningen and more) has been without electricity since just after 11 in the morning – about 37,000 households. Turns out there was a fire in one of the power stations. Luckily Marco and I didn’t have any issues – I have too much to do for work! But a lot of people were trapped in elevators, a lot of stores in the city centre and the city hall were forced to close, trams were diverted, etc. It was a bit chaotic today, that’s for sure.

There are lots of photos over at: Grote stroomstoring Den Haag na brand hoofdverdeelstation from regio15.nl

Some of the city centre had its electricity restored after a few hours, the rest is only starting to get electricity again within the last half hour. The good news is that it didn’t happen last week during the crazy heat wave. I can’t imagine that scenario. After two days of loud, rumbling storms and the occasional moments of pouring rain, it has finally started to cool down around here. Yay.

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

The beginnings of a protest (Or: Who needs corona laws?)

Posted on August 16, 2020 by Niki

Today’s photo comes from Malieveld yesterday morning, just before lunchtime. Apparently there was a demonstration against the upcoming coronaspoedwet (corona emergency law) that the Dutch government is currently working on.

This is actually the beginning, as people had just begun to arrive. In the end the demonstration grew to a few thousand people. There’s a video at nu.nl: Zo’n 2.500 mensen demonstreren tegen coronaspoedwet op Malieveld.

On the way back there was a group of three people who took up most of the path. Since they didn’t move to the left of the path I deliberately made a wide arc and started walking in the grass for a while to avoid them. I figured they were part of an anti-corona demonstration so they probably couldn’t care less about keeping the proper amount of space between me and them.

In other news: Mind your Ps: Amsterdam installs plant pot street urinals to improve toilet manners from dutchnews.nl. Interesting idea. It can only help – people are going to find a place to pee whether or not one of these exists. If you’re lucky, they find a corner in the shadow. If you’re not, well, then, you need to look the other way. Generally there is a bigger problem with outdoor peeing (wildplassen in Dutch) at night, so it makes sense that the urinals are only open at night; during the day the plant urinal “doors” are closed. (There’s also hidden urinals near the Grote Kerk in The Hague – they only pop out of the ground at night. During the day you only see an innocent looking circle on the ground.)

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

Koekamp (Or: A glimpse of nature in the heart of The Hague)

Posted on August 15, 2020 by Niki

I mentioned Koekamp, a park for red deer and fallow deer, a few weeks back. It’s less than a 5 minute walk from The Hague’s Centraal train station.

A look at the area. If you look closely, you can spot a deer behind the picnic table in the middle-left part of the photo.

They are very smartly taking a nap (this was just before lunch). If you can read Dutch, try the article Op de Koekamp ligt het oudste hertenkamp van Nederland from boswatchersblog.nl. Keep in mind the number of deer is artificially controlled (to prevent inbreeding, among other reasons), and not all deer can find a new home.

And lastly, here is a photo of some stags. Male red deer are apparently known as bucks, whereas fallow deer (known for their spots) are called stags.

And there is your cuteness for the day!

Categories: The Hague | Tags: | Leave a comment

Dwarsligger? (Or: I call them mini books)

Posted on August 14, 2020 by Niki

Here is something I don’t think you find often in America: mini books with the text parallel to the spine instead of perpendicular. The Dutch call them dwarsliggers, which the English Wikipedia article says translates to “crossbeam” or “sleeper”. Perhaps it is related to trains? Google translate says it could also be “railway sleeper”.

ARGH! Why is the book on the left upside down? Why didn’t I notice that when taking this picture and fix it?

And in case you can’t visualize what I mean with parellel to the spine, here’s an image from Wikimedia Commons, taken by user Pienfie.

Nederland, Amsterdam, Promotiemateriaal Ambo Anthos/ Jongbloed-Dwarsligger, Foto: Mark Kohn

So yeah, a mini book. You can hold it in one hand. Good if you’re standing in the train – hold the railing with one hand and hold the book with the other. I suppose if you have really good coordination you can turn the page with your thumb. I don’t think my coordination is that good, especially not while standing in a moving train.

Oh, and the Dutch zoo’s panda cub was named after Vincent Van Gogh, receiving the Chinese name Fan Xing. “Fan” refers back to Van Gogh (Fan Goa in Chinese) and Xing refer’s to the panda’s father, Xing Ya. Xing also means “star” in Chinese, which, if you want to take it that far, could refer to Van Gogh’s Starry Night painting.

Categories: Reading, The Hague | Tags: | Leave a comment

Storms are coming (Or: Finally! Rain!)

Posted on August 13, 2020 by Niki

The thermometer reads 30.5C or 87F. I know it’s probably not the actual temperature, but it does make me pretty glad that rain will finally be coming tonight after an 8 day heat wave. Lots of records were broken in the Netherlands this week. The seven day average temperature for the country was 33.1C, with the previous record of 32C back in 1976 (about 91F).

Another record broken: the Netherlands had 8 straight days of temperatures above 35C (95F) somewhere in the country. De Bilt, a small town in the centre of the Netherlands saw temperatures above 30C for 8 days in a row. That is significant because De Bilt is the official site for average temperatures for the country (and also home to KNMI, the Dutch metrological service).

Of course, it will probably take a while before the apartment cools down, but hopefully not too long. I’m crossing my finger a lot while saying that!

And for some news regarding the corona crisis:

Stay cool, everyone… ☀️

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

Just a tree (Or: One lonely tree)

Posted on August 12, 2020 by Niki

Today’s photo is of the tree in the Centraal Park (at least, that’s the name Google Maps gives it). This park is not far from Centraal Station and the Malieveld.

But it’s one little tree, all on its own:

But it does provide some nice shade, that’s for sure.

My coworkers and I found out today that we will be working from home until at least January 2021. That is a very long time, but it was to be expected considering the circumstances. Mostly I think: ooh, January. Hopefully cooler temperatures! (The Netherlands is still in the middle of a heatwave at the moment.)

In other news: Ad falls flat: Coca-Cola to remove ‘inappropriate’ Amsterdam tourism banner (dutchnews.nl). The rather large ad says Ik zeg nooit meer ‘er zijn te veel toeristen in mijn stad’. Or, in English: I will never again say ‘there are too many tourists in my city’. The problem is that since the tourists came back, the issues with drug and alcohol use has skyrocketed in parts of Amsterdam. Because of that some local residents aren’t that happy with tourists at the moment.

Stay cool, everyone…

Categories: The Hague, Working & Volunteering | Leave a comment

Changes in De Passage (Or: A bit of separating green)

Posted on August 11, 2020 by Niki

De Passage (literally “The Passage”) added plants last month to help shoppers walk on the correct side.

Each set of plants is about a meter long so it does create a natural divide between shoppers walking in different directions. The Passage has come a long way since having tiny arrows by the entrance.

And because it’s a beautiful area, here’s a look at the Apple store:

It’s right in the center of De Passage, where the Christmas tree is placed each year.

And now for some cute news: The panda cub born in the Netherlands earlier this year will be 100 days old on Friday. It is tradition that its name is revealed on the 100th day. The possible choices are: He Kang, He Shun, Fan Xing, Dan Qing, and Zing He. And for your one minute of cuteness, here is a video made by zoo:

If all goes well, vistors can view it sometime in October.

Categories: The Hague | Tags: | Leave a comment

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.