Posts Tagged With: Graffiti

Gino’s East (Or: Homer Simpson and pizza)

Posted on August 7, 2013 by Niki

For the rehearsal  dinner, my brother and his bride chose Gino’s East in St. Charles (Illinois). It’s a pizza place, but they also served us penne pasta, breadsticks, and salad. Yum! And that was before another guest broke out the container of freshly homemade chocolate chip cookies…

They had some pretty interesting pizza, from the classic Chicago style deep dish to the thinner crusts. (While they even had a sausage patty pizza, which included a full size patty as one of its layers, I stuck with the thin crust pizza.) The most interesting and delicious thing was the crust, which was definitely seasoned well.

Homer Simpson poster at Ginos East

The restaurant decor itself was pretty interesting. The first thing that caught my eye was the Homer Simpson poster above (made up of individually colored elements, though I forget what they were. Probably scenes or characters from the show).

The other crazy thing was that you were allowed to write on the walls. It did provide character to the place. There were a few places that they asked you to not write on the walls, like the bathroom. The sign there said Don’t graffiti here or similar, which of course someone altered to say Don’t gravity here.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , | 1 Comment

Afspraken (Or: A visit to the IND)

Posted on January 11, 2013 by Niki

Today Marco and I went to our scheduled appointment (afspraak) with the IND to set up my VVR (permanent residency). This also included a meeting with the GBA (…Gemeentelijke Basisadministratie persoonsgegevens!), otherwise known as the department who keeps tabs on every single citizen of the Hague. You are required to register.

The appointment was at 9AM, so we left the apartment around 8AM and took tram 17 to the Statenplein tram stop. (The street we wanted was Stadhoudersplantsoen, 24. Yeah. Who needs to use the space bar.)

Gemeentemuseum in the Hague

gemeente museum in the Hague, near our appointment building. (gemeente = municipality)

The appointment went rather smoothly – as mentioned, we first met with an official from the GBA and I turned over one of the official copies of my birth certificate (don’t worry mom – a long version, not the fragile original version!). Then we waited a few minutes for the IND appointment and got that sorted. I had my fingerprint taken digitally, which was interesting because the machine was rather finicky. Eventually they ended up just trying the index finger on my left hand instead of my right, and it worked a bit quicker.

Then my fingerprint was taken again at a different window, and then it was done. The VVR should arrive in 6 to 7 weeks. I hope!

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Categories: Forms, etc., The Hague | Tags: , , | 5 Comments

Raamstraat (Or: A more urban type of art)

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Niki

Het is vrijdag! (It’s Friday!)

Go on, click the link. You know you want to.

Possible weekend Dutch plans:

1) dutchgrammar.com -> Prefixes and suffixes

2) Rosetta Stone. That thing is so finicky with pronunciation I had to set it to the easiest level and tell it I was male! Of course, my pronunciation needs work, too.

3) Watch some more Dip en Dap videos from Uitzending Gemist (lit: missed broadcasts, I think), a television programming website. This children’s show would be a lot less annoying to watch if they wouldn’t laugh/snicker so much.

Non-Dutch weekend plans:

Prepare chili in a slow cooker – about 10 hours, hopefully – for Sunday’s dinner, and enjoy it in front of the Superbowl. The start time seems later and later each year. 6:29PM EST.

For fun, let’s take a look at Raamstraat (lit: window street) in the Hague. It’ll be a graffiti post similar to this one.

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

Music (Or: A scene carefully sketched out)

Posted on January 22, 2012 by Niki

Near the train station in Delft, you might find yourself near this mural, on the side of a random building, in a random place.

A musical mural found in Delft

Although most of the mural is done in black and white, accentuated by the shadowy tree limbs, one can also find rare glimpses of yellow. The most predominant encircles the lamp on the left side, but the glow of night can be seen from most of the windows on the left side of the mural. A figure (Charlie Chaplin-esque) hangs from the middle street lamp. Three lions in the lower right – one with a paraplu* (umbrella), one coming from the garbage can, and another on top of the garbage can lid.

Note also the rider on their fiets (bike) talking to someone else.

* = I love the Dutch word paraplu. I have heard about the Paraplu restaurant in the Hague, but have not yet visited it. Soon…

Categories: Culture, Delft | Tags: | 3 Comments

Graffiti (Or: Everyone has a story to tell)

Posted on January 15, 2012 by Niki

Within the Hague, there’s a small alleyway called Raamstraat which contains many different types of graffiti. The street serves as a lesser used connector between Spuistraat and Grote Marktstraat (near de Bijenkorf department store). It can be especially useful when trying to get away from the cramped areas of Spuistraat, as it seems less traveled than most areas.

December 2010 - of course, with the iconic bicycle, as if deliberately posed.

The header for this blog is also from Raamstraat. The other place that I found beautiful graffiti was Delft, while waiting for a bus.

Graffiti at the bus station - and more bikes

And just around the corner, I found this:

The girl is from Vermeer's "The Girl with a Pearl Earring" painting

The message reads: Something that disappears is not gone, it only hides. Although the addition of the girl from Vermeer’s painting is unrelated to the quote, here’s a good fictional novel to read about the creation of the painting: The Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier.

I think one of the first things I will do when I get my feet firmly back on Dutch soil is go back to this little alleyway and take more pictures. There are lots of little hidden gems to be found.

Categories: Delft, The Hague | Tags: | 1 Comment

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