Time to return those library books (Or: No more garbage bins)

Posted on July 16, 2020 by Niki

It seems as more time goes by that the coronavirus restrictions are being relaxed. The same is true of the Centraal library here in The Hague – you no longer need a pass to enter the library, although you do need a pass if you want to stay and study.

The last time I visited the huge garbage bins were gone, thankfully. You had to throw (or gently place) your returned library books into them. Once full they would remain unopened for four days in case any of the books were infected. Still, there’s something weird about throwing library books into a huge garbage bin so I am glad to see them gone.

In its place, the checkin point is back in service!

terugbrengen = to bring back

In other news:

  • Head of security council protests for right to chant at football matches from dutchnews.nl. I can see his point – there are some fanatical fans here in The Netherlands. The government’s theory is that less screaming and chanting would also mean less potential coronavirus particles in the air. But who knows, maybe I will be surprised. I suspect it will be harder for people to follow this rule as the months go by.
  • Long-distance relationship exempted from Netherlands travel ban from nltimes.nl. Are you in a long-distance relationship with a Dutch citizen or someone here who holds a non-temporary residency permit? Then you can visit for up to 90 days (provided you meet a few other criteria as well), even if you’re from a country that is not currently on the “safe” list, like the United States.
  • Are you in the Netherlands and you’re itching to taste some kruidnoten? Well, they are coming. The first photo of kruidnoten has been posted on Reddit on the /thenetherlands page. (This treat is generally consumed around the Sinterklaas holiday, which falls on 5 December each year. The earliest I’ve seen it so far is the first of August.)
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Courgette curry (And: A very special beer)

Posted on July 15, 2020 by Niki

Today’s dinner was a very lovely courgette curry which I stole from Albert Heijn recipe section. We’re trying to eat less meat this week, and I think this recipe different hit the mark:

And I now realize my American readers might be slightly confused: courgette is zucchini. Courgette is more often used in French and British English, while zucchini is used in American English. But since I didn’t really cook with zucchini when I lived in the States, it will forever be courgette for me.

The beer… ah, yes, the beer. That is a gift from a coworker. It’s a beer from a brewery here in The Hague. Eiber is another word for stork, which is also featured in The Hague’s crest of arms. This beer was brewed in honor of the beer makers’ daughter, born in March. See a photo of her at indebuurt.nl. And it is tasty! Marco and I were thrilled with this gift.

In other news:

Categories: Food, Transportation | Tags: , | 2 Comments

Former glory (Or: Repainting of the Chinatown gate in The Hague)

Posted on July 14, 2020 by Niki

The Chinatown gate in The Hague’s city centre has been repainted, a task first mentioned in a blog post from June. Here is the end result:

This is the Chinatown gate near Bijenkorf. Unfortunately the other one is not scheduled to be repainted at this time. Perhaps because that would require closing a street to cars? Not sure.

There was also a small crisis averted yesterday: Marco and I were almost out of coffee, with only one pack left. Luckily Albert Heijn had a deal: buy 2 packs, get 2 packs free. Score! Coffee is one of those things I can’t imagine paying full price for, since we’ve now gotten into a pattern of stocking up just enough until the next good sale.

In other news:

  • It’s Tuesday, so the Dutch health ministry released the weekly COVID-19 statistics (from nltimes.nl). There were 8 deaths and 16 hospitalizations reported in the last week, although some might have occurred before last week. A slight worrying point is the rise in positive cases: 534 compared to 432 last week.
  • Another addition at a Dutch zoo, this time a red panda (complete with short video), from nltimes.nl. If you can read Dutch or your Google translate is up for the task, there’s also an article on nu.nl about possible names for the giant panda baby born a few months ago.
  • Here is a picture from Reddit of the Neowise comet, taken in the east of the Netherlands. Bonus: it also features a windmill.
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Slightly brown water (Or: Pond by Centraal train station)

Posted on July 13, 2020 by Niki

Not far from Centraal Station, and before you reach Malieveld, there is a pond. The water is a bit brown, and there may or may not be honking geese around, but it is a slice of nature nonetheless.

It’s also a bit of a reminder that I should take a different path sometimes. Normally I follow this path until it reaches Malieveld, but on the other side of those trees there’s a deer camp that goes by the name of Koekamp (Dutch Wikipedia). Of course Koekamp translates to cow camp, not deer camp, but okay. The Wikipedia page mentions that this used to be a hunting area full of bovine, with the earliest reference dating back to 1316. The deer took over sometime in the 17th century.

Interesting story I forgot to mention yesterday: I walked past the central library just before 12:00 and was surprised to see four or five people waiting in line by the library entrance. In these corona times the library is closed on Sundays, hence my surprise. I wonder if there was an event going on, but I don’t think so. More likely the first person stood in line and then others walked past, saw the line and thought the library was about to open so they joined too. I hope they weren’t waiting in line for too long!

In other news:

  • Rutte wants to continue as PM but still uncertain; Relaxing Covid rules was “terrifying” from nltimes.nl. That’s Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister. I had not realized there was any doubt that he would run for re-election next March. It also talks about the death of his mother in a nursing home a few months ago during the height of the corona crisis. The strict visitation rules and his workload prevented him from visiting her in her final days. Her death did not leak to the press until two weeks after the fact; he kept it secret so that it would not be a distraction.
  • Beach pavilions cannot operate this winter but can stay standing: Minister from nltimes.nl. The government has struck a compromise with beach pavilion owners: to prevent unnecessary costs pavilions do not need to be dismantled during the winter, although they cannot open to customers. The reason pavilions are normally dismantled is due to winter storms. Any costs due to storms or vandalism would still need to be covered by pavilion owners.
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If you like hagelslag, try these… (Or: Variations at Albert Heijn)

Posted on July 12, 2020 by Niki

Hagelslag in Dutch is basically chocolate sprinkles. I like to eat them occasionally, but I’ll admit I don’t eat them in the traditional way: on buttered bread. The butter is needed to keep the hagelslag from sliding off the bread as you raise it to your mouth. No thanks, I’ll skip the butter and take a risk. …and listen to the clink clink clink as a few pieces of chocolate fall off and crash into my plate. It’s all good.

I recently saw that Albert Heijn came out with variations on the traditional sprinkles theme:

The brownie bites caught my eye first. However I did not purchase them as I am afraid that I would eat them directly out of the box. Yum. Strooifeest, seen at the top of the box, translates to something like “sprinkle party”.

Oh, to be a kid again and enjoy eating that much sugar with breakfast. I have fond memories of eating Rice Krispies cereal with a few spoonfuls of sugar at my grandparent’s house. Luckily I was already too old for sugary cereals by the time Reese’s Puffs hit the market in 1994, which is a chocolate and peanut butter cereal. Very American, really. I remember being quite shocked that anyone would put peanut butter (or peanut butter flavor) into cereal. But it seems rather normal these days…

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

Leaves of yellow and green (Or: Megastores)

Posted on July 11, 2020 by Niki

This morning Marco and I walked over to Megastores and a few stores in the surrounding area to do some Saturday shopping.

Megastores has always been an interesting mall. Most of the stores are furniture related, with some additional everyday stores like Hema, Blokker, Big Bazar and Xenos. They have had issues with unoccupied stores throughout the years, although we didn’t see as many this time. However in general it is the same issue American malls have: walk down the “wrong” wing and you will find yourself in a ghost town.

In other news:

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Painted on the street (Or: Social distancing messages)

Posted on July 10, 2020 by Niki

More and more “keep your distance” messages have appeared on the streets of The Hague in the last month. This one is on the Grote Markt:

I do like the coat of arms (Wikipedia) in the upper left.

Let’s go for a few random YouTube videos today. It’s Friday, and the headlines are depressing!

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Temptation at the checkout lane (Or: It’s not quite like the US)

Posted on July 9, 2020 by Niki

In the last year Albert Heijn started adding candy and other snacks to the area by the self-service registers. It’s not very tempting though, probably because they don’t have that much room to show off the “goods”:

So, five choices generally. And they aren’t well-stocked and they don’t look that appealing visually. At least try to get the barcodes looking a bit more similar, please? Although I suppose there will come a day when I desperately need that extra purchase to get me over ten euros to get a stamp. If you get 10 or 20 of those you can usually get something good (if the promotion is right).

In other news:

  • I don’t know if you remember the train derailment in The Hague at the start of the year, but the report of what went wrong was released earlier this week (omroepwest.nl). The type of train that derailed is often used in routes which require hard and frequent braking, however the maintenance schedule for this train type did not take this into account. The train’s brakes were worn, causing two wheels to completely derail and damage to a few dozen meters of track. A conductor and passenger were both injured, but not seriously.
  • Did you know that the Show/hide formatting marks button in MS Word has the nickname onderwater tekens or onderwaterscherm in Dutch? I mean the button which shows you carriage returns or non-breaking spaces. In English that translates to “underwater marks” or “underwater screen”. In other words: looking under water to see what you normally can’t see. Hmm. It’s not the formal name, of course.
  • Great, now I am thinking of the MS Word paperclip. “Clippy” was his name (theverge.com).
Categories: Everyday purchases, Transportation | Tags: | Leave a comment

Anniversary year (Or: 150 years of Bijenkorf)

Posted on July 8, 2020 by Niki

Bijenkorf is a Dutch department store which opened its first store in Amsterdam in 1870. 150 years ago! To celebrate this, they scheduled a year of celebrations in 2020 (thehagueonline.com). For example, there are unique shop windows (Bijenkorf always has beautiful holiday windows), unique merchandise to buy, guided tours, events to attend…

The only problem – which you can see coming with the date of March 10, 2020 in the article from thehagueonline.com – is the corona crisis rearing its ugly head. The carefully scheduled events and tours now read tijdelijk niet beschikbaar or temporarily not available.

In other news:

  • The Dutch corona app will be called CoronaMelder (nltimes.nl) and will use Bluetooth. CoronaMelder translates to Corona Reporter.
  • Kuikentjes bevrijd op de Oude Trambaan from regio15.nl – baby chicks fell through a pedestrian bridge and couldn’t get out on their own. They were ultimately freed by firemen who removed a few of the bridge planks to reach the chicks.
  • The Guardian has a very interesting article called ‘Landscape of fear’: what a mass of rotting reindeer carcasses taught scientists although that topic admittedly isn’t for everyone. But there’s an informative tie-in with the Dutch Oostvaardersplassen nature reserve (where thousands of animals ended up starving due to a lack of predators in the area) and the ultimate changes to the ecosystem which occurred because of the abandoned carcasses. This caused a great amount of controversy in The Netherlands because it was a conscious choice not to feed the animals to help them survive the winter.
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Food halls (Or: Haagse Bluf in The Hague)

Posted on July 7, 2020 by Niki

Food halls have only recently become a “thing” in The Netherlands, lets say the last five years. A few examples I have been to include the Markthal in Rotterdam and MingleMush in The Hague. Apparently MingleMush re-opened today! I’ll have to schedule a (safe) visit, as it has been too long… It looks like they are open Tuesday through Saturday, 12:00-21:00.

Another food hall Marco and I still need to visit is the food hall in the Haagse Bluf, an upscale shopping area in the centre of The Hague:

It’s a great place to walk through, with very photogenic areas. Just click the tag “Haagse Bluf” at the bottom of this post to see more. My favorite photo was of the red scooter, but the photo of the iced chai tea at the end of this post serves as a great memory for me. We only had it a few times before Kaldi stopped selling it. It was delicious!

In other news:

  • It’s official: Amsterdam to London direct train without Brussels stopover now ready from nltimes.nl. Now it only takes 3 1/2 hours to get into London by train (from Rotterdam)! Considering how long you’re waiting around in an airport, that’s pretty good.
  • The Netherlands now reports deaths and hospital intakes on a weekly basis on Tuesdays. RIVM reported 19 Covid-19 deaths and 9 hospitalizations in the last week (from nltimes.nl), although due to delayed reporting not all of those were in the last week. They can say that 5 deaths occurred between June 28 and July 5, and two of the hospital admissions occurred after June 30. There were also 432 positive cases reported.
  • ICU intakes are (for the moment) still reported every day at lcps.nu. There are currently 24 Covid-19 patients in the ICU, with a low of 18 last week.
Categories: Food | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

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