Flowers alongside a canal (Or: Maliestraat)

Posted on June 11, 2020 by Niki

Here’s a cute photo for today:

This is a canal at Maliestraat which is not far from – some of you might guess this – Malieveld. It was a bit of a grey day, just like today. A bit of rain here, a bit of rain there. Not enough to bring out your umbrella.

In other news:

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Small Dutch streets (Or: A look down Korte Koediefstraat)

Posted on June 10, 2020 by Niki

Today’s photo comes from the Korte Koediefstraat, or Short Cow thief street. No joke. I posted about the nearby Koediefstraat a few weeks back, if you want to read about why the street is called that.

In other news:

  • you can take part in Quarantinekunst or Quarantine art. Artists have been placing artwork in their windows or garden, visible from the public street. Non-artists have offered up their windows and gardens for someone else’s art to be put on display. You can also donate to the cause. See the map of where the pieces of art can currently be found.
  • 68,759 people have been tested for the corona virus so far under The Netherlands’ policy of now testing any resident who requests it. This period is from 1 June to 9 June (yesterday). Most test results come back in 48 hours, although the original promise was to have test results within 24 hours. About 2.1% of the tests have come back positive. See also the NOS live blog from today.
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Roses and plaques (Or: Along the Zuidwal)

Posted on June 9, 2020 by Niki

Happy Tuesday everyone. At least it is not raining…

Here are a few more photos from my walk along the Zuidwal last week. There were some eye-catching roses decorating some of the houses along the canal:

There were also a high proportion of mobility scooters in this area. You can just see one in the background behind the flowers.

I also saw a plaque marking the former residence of a famous writer:

That writer was Eduard Douwes Dekker, better known by his pen name Multatuli (Wikipedia.com). He is best known as the writer of Max Havelaar, a 1860 novel which cast a negative light on the issues with colonialism in the Dutch East Indies, now known as Indonesia. I’ll admit I haven’t read it yet as it doesn’t really fit with the type of reading I normally do.

In other news:

  • Do you have issues with wearing a face mask and glasses at the same time which causes your glasses to start to fog up? If your face mask has elastic bands, try crossing them over your ears first to tighten up the face mask a bit. See also this image from i.imgur.com which I found on Reddit. I’ve also heard you should try cleaning your glasses with dish soap and then drying them with a glasses-friendly cloth. That leaves a tiny layer a soap on your glasses which can usually protect against your glasses fogging up – though not always unfortunately.
  • Opinion sharply divided about using an app to trace coronavirus cases (dutchnews.nl). Considering there was a data leak in the Dutch COVID-19 website Infectieradar last week, I can see why people are a bit nervous to download it (when it becomes available)
  • HTM blij met staatssteun: ‘Tien miljoen euro verlies in plaats van zeventig miljoen’ (omroepwest.nl) – HTM [The Hague’s public transportation company] is happy with the government’s support: 10 million euros loss instead of 70 million. Government support of Dutch public transportation companies is required due to the government asking them to run their full schedule even when passenger numbers are down. In that way the government can be sure that there is enough space for passengers who are using public transportation during this time.
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Archways (Or: Looking towards the Muzenstraat)

Posted on June 8, 2020 by Niki

Earlier today Marco and I went for a short, quick walk. One of the places we walked through was the Muzenplein (translated to something like ‘Plaza of muses’).

The archway is what caught my eye. In the distance you see Muzenstraat (‘Street of Muses’). I like the use of browns and cyans in the building facades.

In other news:

  • Strandrobot raapt peuken op in Scheveningen: Gemeente Den Haag is eerste klant from ad.nl – Beach robot picks up cigarette butts in Scheveningen: The Hague government is the first customer
  • Tim Akkerman geeft toch geen concert in een vliegtuig from ad.nl – Tim Akkerman won’t be giving a concert in an airplane after all. The singer from the band The Ivy League was not happy with the Dutch prime minister saying vacations to some other European countries could restart from 15 June – with every airplane seat filled – while Dutch musicians are still not allowed to give open air concerts. He said he would rent out a large plane that would stay on the ground and give a concert for 500 fans. In the end, it looked like he was just trying to wake up the government a bit to their illogical thinking
  • Vrouw rijdt met brandende auto naar tankstation langs A1 from nos.nl – Woman drives her burning car to a gas station off the A1 highway. What the? Luckily gas station workers saw her coming and hit the emergency shutoff button just in time.
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What is your R number? (Or: Corona dashboard)

Posted on June 7, 2020 by Niki

Last week the RIVM (Dutch ministry of Health) released a prototype of the Corona dashboard which can be found at coronadashboard.rijksoverheid.nl.

As you can see it shows things like ICU intakes and hospital intakes averaged over the last three days (6 and 8.7), number of infected persons per 100,000 residents (9.9) and the very well known R number, which is currently 0.87. There are also data points about nursing homes and a list of data points they are looking to add in the coming weeks.

In completely other news: sometimes trips to the grocery store can be very, very interesting. Today I wanted to grab a water bottle however there was already another customer there looking at multipack water bottles. Okay, he was right in front of what I needed, so I decided to wait. Even in non-corona times, it would have probably been perceived as rude, and it’s not like he would take that long right?

Wrong. After 2 minutes of semi-patient waiting I decided to look at my watch to start timing the rest of this experience. He had a pack of water in his basket already and he would grab another slightly different pack and look at the label. He would then put it into his basket and then pick up something else and look at the label of that water pack.

After the first minute someone else stopped and was clearly waiting to grab something from the water as well. After three minutes I did start to get a bit impatient, but tried to keep it from showing on my face. It must have been obvious that I was still standing there waiting, right? The other person was behind him on the other side of the aisle, so I could forgive him not seeing her. In the meantime about 15 people walked down the middle of the aisle, probably wondering what the heck the bottleneck was. But this was the last item I needed to get, and I was morbidly curious to see how this would play out.

After switching out the multipacks in his basket about 5 times, and staring at labels about 10 times, he finally picked one, grabbed the rest of his stuff and got a move on. The other customer politely waited for me to grab my water which I quickly did. Her and I shared a smile, neither believing what we had just experienced. I whispered fijne dag while deftly grabbing my water with my left hand. Total time it took him: 5+ minutes. Total time it took me: about half a second.

But now I have a good story for the blog, so it was worth the extra five or so minutes, right?

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An empty Malieveld (Or: Preparations for an anti-lockdown protest)

Posted on June 6, 2020 by Niki

Earlier today I took a walk around the Malieveld, which you’ll know happens a few times a week. But this time there was an unexpected amount of police: a handful of police outside the area, another handful at the entrance, another 4 or 5 on bicycles, and another 5 or 6 in the far corner watching a stage being set up.

There wasn’t too much to see yet, but something was definitely about to happen. It turns out it was preparations for an anti-lockdown demonstration which would happen in the afternoon:

Of course, there’s not a lockdown as such, or at least not a lockdown like what other European countries have had. However they are also protesting against the 1.5 meters requirement that everyone has to follow.

The minister of Health is looking to create a new set of corona laws to replace the emergency ordinances each city has set up to deal with the corona crisis. The benefit of that is that the law would be the same throughout the country, versus differing based on what city you were in. But putting something in the law books does feel more tangible, more permanent. So it is easy to understand the angst that some citizens have over a crisis that might not go away next year, or even the year after, and the thought that this crisis has only taken away personal freedoms. (See also Nieuwe coronawet moet einde maken aan verwarring over maatregelen at rtlnieuws.nl).

There’s even the question of personal data being illegally used – right now in the Netherlands you need to make a reservation to eat inside a restaurant, and undergo a health check when you enter. What if that information later falls into the wrong hands? Speaking of which: Lek in RIVM-coronasite: gegevens van gebruikers makkelijk in te zien at nos.nl – there is apparently a significant data leak at a website run by the Dutch ministry of Health. The website allows Dutch residents to report if they have had corona-like symptoms in the last week. Opps.

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Follow the arrows (Or: Venestraat and The Passage)

Posted on June 5, 2020 by Niki

Over the last few weeks more and more streets have received directional arrows to let people know which side of the street to walk on.

Above is the Venestraat, one of the shopping streets in the city centre. It’s a bit wider than the nearby Spuistraat, which has been named one of the 20 possible areas of concern in the new ‘one and a half meters community’ we find ourselves in (omroepwest.nl, article in Dutch).

Above is a look at The Passage, which has improved its one way traffic markers in the last month or so. When I last blogged about them in mid-May there were only tiny arrows at the entrance, much smaller than those you see above. So there have definitely been some improvements in The Passage.

In other news – after many months of sunshine and mockingly good weather, it has finally begun to rain. Technically parts of The Netherlands are experiencing drought-like conditions (nltimes.nl), so I suppose it’s probably a good thing. Even though we’d need more than a few days to fix that.

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Sneaky sneaky (Or: Shortcut through the Binnenhof)

Posted on June 4, 2020 by Niki

Yesterday I went for a walk, part of which included the Binnenhof. But this time I took a different route than tourists normally take:

As you can see there’s a small pathway between the two buildings which you can use to get in and out of the Binnenhof area. It’s quite small and easily missed, even as a local. But if you do take the path, you’ll notice that there are windows that allow you to peek into the Tweede Kamer (House of Representatives):

It’s nothing too special, except that I’m sure I’ve seen that room countless times on the national news (generally for interviews or occasionally when a member of the Tweede Kamer is desperately trying to avoid journalists and quickly escape up the escalator).

In other news:

  • There are now only 113 COVID-19 patients in the ICU, with 481 patients outside of the ICU (lcps.nu, article in Dutch). That’s very different from when I blogged about ICU beds back in late March when we had almost 1,000 patients. At the highest there were over 1,400 patients including 46 in Germany (nu.nl, article in Dutch). And speaking of Germany, the very last Dutch patient finally left a German ICU yesterday. Crazy.
  • During a press conference last night the Dutch prime minister announced that it would be possible to travel to certain other European countries from 15 June for vacation. Countries like Germany, Belguim, Italy and Croatia (nos.nl, article in Dutch). If you’re willing to risk it, of course… but everyone’s economies need a bit of help, that’s for sure.
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Hide and seek (Or: Zuidwalschool in The Hague)

Posted on June 3, 2020 by Niki

Anyone up for a game of hide and seek?

Above is a cute photo of the school playground at Zuidwalschool, with a statue playing hide and seek in the right foreground and another statue hiding in the left background, by the tree. Can you see it?

In other news:

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Anne and Max café in The Hague (Or: Sitting pretty on the terrace)

Posted on June 2, 2020 by Niki

Yesterday Marco and I took a long walk, skirting around the city centre to avoid crowds of people. We walked along the Zuidwal, which is both a street and a neighborhood within the larger Centrum neighborhood. For the most part it was easy to avoid others and it was a pretty walk along the canal. We did see a few boats drive past as well.

Near the end found ourselves near the Grote Kerk and spotted a café by the name of Anne and Max. I’ve seen it a lot although we’ve never gone to it. And yesterday was 1 June, the day restaurants and cafés were allowed to open again. After some pondering we did sit down at the terrace. None of the tables on our side were taken so it seemed safe enough. Still, it did feel weird as it was most likely our first terrace visit of the year due to the weather only being warm enough the last few weeks.

Above is a look at the menu with a closed one on the left and an open menu on the right. The light green insert on the left was added to talk about the changes in this new “corona time”. For instance, payment would be done at the table so you didn’t have to get up, and that walking paths had been made. Slightly surprising: the toilets were open, and with them promising they are disinfected every hour.

Marco ordered a Zindering (no idea how to translate that – if you know, leave a comment), which is an ice cold chai latte with an extra shot espresso. I had a ginger-lemongrass soda and we shared a slice of apple pie with whipped cream. Somehow we always end up ordering apple pie at new places. This apple pie was pretty good, although it was different than what I expected – I expected the top crumb to be a bit more crunchy. Still good, though.

Otherwise things seemed pretty normal. I wouldn’t say the waiter kept 1.5 meters distance perfectly, but a) that’s almost impossible b) the moments were limited to handing out the menus, receiving the food and paying.

The only thing that would have made the visit better would have been more sun. When you are moving around it isn’t too cold but sitting down meant it was easier to feel the wind every minute or so. Brr! I think businesses would have preferred more sun, but perhaps it was for the best as it meant that most places weren’t overflowing with guests. There was enough room in most places to take a seat right away and enjoy the goodies.

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

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