Kings Day and other Dutch stuff

Yesterday was Kings Day which is the day the Netherlands goes orange. It's basically party day – a national holiday specifically for the purposes of consuming large volumes of alcohol and listening to live music all in the name of celebrating the reigning monarch’s birthday (this year King Willem was 50). Here in The Hague we found it a somewhat subdued affair compared to Haarlem where the party always starts quite early with a mass secondhand sale of household goods – you simply set up a stall outside your house and sell off your old junk. In the Hague itself there were very few people selling off their old junk – maybe a sign of the city’s large international community, or the fact that people in the Hague are so posh they don’t have old junk.

There were several pop-up stages for live music around the city centre, and pop-up bars – of course, and a huge fun fair selling the largest bags of candyfloss I think I’ve ever seen. (The Dutch have very sweet teeth). The Dutch for funfair is kermis – an easy word to remember when learning a language by word association. Think Kermit the frog on a big wheel.

Another Dutch word I have recently learned is woonwagonwooner.  This little gem I picked up whilst watching an edition of Midsumer Murders with Dutch subtitles. It was used as a translation for ‘traveller’ – not someone setting off on a long journey but someone who lives in a caravan (literally living-wagon-dweller).  I’m still trying to think of a suitable word association analogy although with the days being ticked off now until I move back to the UK permanently it’s a little too late to be worrying about learning Dutch now.

Last weekend was the Bloemencorso – another wonderful Dutch word.  The Bloemencorso is a flower parade, and it takes all day to make its way from the bublfields of Nordwijkerhout, near the Keukenhof Gardens to Haarlem. We headed up to Haarlem to see the floats parked up on Sunday morning, bumped into our old neighbours, and thought to ourselves all over again how lucky we were to spend two years living in such a beautiful city. 

So, it's been a week of doing lots of Dutch stuff - which also involved a hazardous trek to the supermarket avoiding hail and sleet showers, as well as ducking falling masonry from men working four stories high on unnetted scaffolding. and been run over by a man and a dog on a motorbike. 

Meet the Neighbours

Since we arrived in the Hague I have to admit I haven’t exactly gone out of my way to make new acquaintances. There are plenty of ex-pat groups available, but with old friends just a train ride away in Haarlem and Amsterdam, it all felt like too much effort to start all over again – especially as I always knew my stay in the Hague was due to be short-term. Making new friends on the ex-pat circuit is relatively easy – as long as you are prepared to put yourself out there and join in.  However, after eight years of travelling, having to tackle another round of ‘first dates’ to introduce myself to a new friend set just seemed one hurdle too many.  

I was hoping that living in an apartment block might provide some sort of social hub – after all we made good friends living in a similar complex in the US.  I suppose a communal swimming pool and endless sunshine does increase the opportunity for social-action with the neighbours.  Here we’re not quite so lucky. I‘m not naturally the most out-going of people but I will generally smile and say hello if I pass someone on the stairs or in the corridor. It still surprises me that there are people who can stand next to you in an elevator and pretend you don’t exist, but it happens. I could blame it on the language/cultural barrier. The Dutch are not known for their small talk, or their manners (twice last week in the supermarket I was the victim of trolley bashing by the boy filling the shelves – no 'excuse me', no apology) but the majority of our immediate neighbours are not Dutch. The Hague has a huge international population.

Fortunately, having set myself the target of cracking on with novel number two while novel number one does the round of publishers, I’ve been quite content to hide myself away with my computer. When I need a break I head out to track down the evening meal at Albert Heijn, when I need the exercise I head off to the gym for a swim.  It’s a lifestyle that would have sent a social butterfly completely bonkers, but fortunately I am not a social butterfly, although the insanity issue is still up for debate.

So anyhow, the whole purpose of this post is basically to show off a photograph of our more friendly neighbours – a pair of swans who have built their nest in the middle of a nearby canal,

and a mother hen, spotted not nearby, but wandering around a park in Breda. We visited Breda over the Easter weekend, mainly to tick it off the list.

The Dutch do like their captive animals. As I said in my last post, most towns will have a deer park, and many neighbourhoods will have a small city farm with goats, cows and hens. Presumably this little family of chickens have escaped from some such establishment – so good luck to them.

As for the pony in the next pic, we came across this on the beach, in a pizza restaurant. In my opinion there is definitely a place in society for ponies, but not as an Easter display, and definitely not when I’m sat in eating a restaurant.

A Dutch Spring

When I was deliberating whether to return to the Netherlands or not after my winter break in the UK, Mr T assured me that the Netherlands was due to have its hottest spring ever. As luck would have it, it appears he is right. Last weekend although not quite as hot as certain parts of the UK,  the temperature hit 22 and the Dutch flocked to the beach.

We were early birds, determined to beat the rush. Catching up with old friends from Haarlem we  headed to Scheveningen on the bikes for brunch. It doesn’t take much for the Dutch to strip off (as I have learned to my cost since joining the Health Club) and the sun worshippers were already stretching out on the sand as we settled into one of the many pop-up beach restaurants.

A typical Dutch breakfast - and all for me!!

Scheveningen was packed. Trams were sardine cans, off-loading day-trippers in their thousands, but of course it was a one-day wonder. By Monday the temperature had halved and it was back to coats and scarves.

A Dutch spring is of course most famous for the tulips. The previous week I’d met up with friends from the US who were spending a few days in Amsterdam. I’d offered my useful travel tips which included booking their tour of the Anne Frank house five years in advance to avoid the three hour queue and visiting the bulb fields. Fake news travels fast – they’d been informed the first week in April was too early to catch the tulips.  Fortunately with my insider knowledge I was able to put them right. It always helps to know a local.

(not wanting to mislead this is actually a picture from last year but you can get the gist)

And talking of locals, I’ve been continuing my exploration of The Hague and encountering the wildlife at close quarters. Like most Dutch towns and villages, the Hague has a deer park, which seems quite a bizarre thing to find right outside the main central station, but there you go. 

All countries have their customs, and it will soon be time for Kings Day, where everyone wears orange, plays loud music and drinks a lot, and then it will be Bevrijdingsdag, which is a Liberation Day celebration which also involves (funnily enough) lots of drinking and loud music, followed by graduation day in June, when schoolbags are hoisted onto flag poles (and probably also involves lots of drinking and loud music).  By then, hopefully, we’ll also have had another hot sunny day.

More locals out for a stroll

Tourist Mode

Visitors are always a good excuse to get out and about and see the Netherlands through new eyes.

Yes, it's that time of year again, which means another trip to the Keukenhof Gardens. I like gardening and it's always good to get some ideas, but I couldn't help but feel this year's exhibits in the flower arranging section were just a little lacking!

Nevermind, the sun was shining and although it's very early in the season the gardeners had done their best to ensure colourful displays outside. It was more of a crocus-fest than a traditional tulip party, but definitely, some ideas to take home. It would never occur to me to plant rhubarb in a flower pot, but it's one to try, as is hyacinth wedding cake.

However, the most inspirational idea - the book chair. Perfect.

Making the Most of It

What is it about human nature that makes us wait until time is running out before we start using it effectively?

With the ‘last day in the Netherlands’ now pencilled into my diary, I’m in panic mode. But, I haven’t done this, I haven’t been there, I haven’t got my money’s worth out of my annual museumkaart...

The Museumkaart is a wonderful thing. For less than 60 euros a year it gives you access to nearly every museum in the Netherlands, and as individual entrance fees are between 10-15 euros, it’s a very good deal.  If you use it.

A wet weekend is the ideal incentive to seek out some culture. The Hague is currently celebrating 100 years of Mondrian and the De Stijl movement, so we took a trip to the Gemente Museum to view the more permanent works of art as opposed to the red, blue and yellow seagull floats outside the Binnenhof. Another lure of the Gemente Museum was to catch the last few days of the Hubert De Givenchy exhibition – a collection of the fashion designer’s most iconic costumes, including several worn by Audrey Hepburn, a Dutch national treasure. Quite naturally, the exhibition featured that Little Black Dress, and I too could don the Audrey hat and sunglasses for a dress-up session in the photo booth, or at least I could, if the photo booth had been working.

From the Gemente we went next door to the Foto museum, where Mr T was positively inspired by the idea of transforming mundane subject matter into pictures of interest. On our walk home he insisted on snapping pics of parked cars, the beginnings, apparently, of a possible coffee table book.

The following day we headed down to the Maritime Museum in Rotterdam, where one of the new features is the ‘off-shore experience’. More dressing up was required – hard hat, florescent jacket, and following a safety film about what to do if your helicopter crashes (if I was a child – and it is aimed at children - I’d have been completely terrified at this point) you head up a staircase to a simulated oil-rig in the North Sea – complete with wind effect where you can press lots of buttons and pretend you control pipelines. Home from home for Mr T.   

There are several old vessels to explore outside in the museum harbour, including a traditional Dutch barge which was used to transport coal, sand and peat, back in the day when Dutch people were considerably shorter than they are now  – even I had to bend my head in the living quarters, which incidentally were about the size of an average family bathroom. Even more fascinating was learning that the family who lived on this particular barge had six children - there wasn't room to swing a cat let alone a child. However, the kindly curator showed us a photograph of the children strapped together on the canal bank towing the barge - children being cheaper than the cost of buying and keeping horse. Not now they're not. 

A good weekend's worth of knowledge gained. Now I just have to get my money's worth out of the spa membership. It'll be tough. 

(Not a picture of ex-pat wives on a day out but more outfits from the De Givenchy range)

One Week In...

It’s the end of my first week back in the Hague; and the sun has come out. That’s not the only change since I left in December. Roads that had been closed since we first arrived way back in September are now open; barriers down, traffic cones removed. Whole new areas have opened up. There are new art installations, including several in celebration of the artist Piet Mondrian and the de Stijl art movement.

I’m not quite sure who came up with the idea of the floating blocks in the Hofvijver lake but the seagulls certainly seem to be appreciating them.

It’s almost like starting over somewhere new. I'm seeing the city with fresh eyes. The crocuses are out, creating swathes of purple beside the pavements.  At Scheveningen, quickly becoming my favourite place, the pop-up beach restaurants have already popped-up. On Friday night as we sat on the pier, sipping a pre-dinner beer and a wine, watching the sun set from a cloudless sky into an uncharacteristically calm sea, we could almost imagine ourselves, if we weren’t behind glass and still wearing our coats, back in the Caribbean.

We decided we would make the most of the weekend’s good weather forecast and head out for a hike along the beach. We thought we’d just wander and see how far we got – which wasn’t actually that far. It’s hard-going walking on sand. We did deviate inland onto the manmade paths across the sand-dunes for a change of scenery, but the scenery, if I’m honest, was less than spectacular.

The Dutch landscape isn’t the only thing that’s a bit subdued We spent Sunday morning watching the NN CPC Loop Den Haag, a massive running event involving 35,000 participants which saw most of the newly opened roads closed off again. Having been a spectator at the London marathon a couple of years ago it was quite noticeable how low-key this event seemed to be in comparison. There were several races on the agenda, including a 5 K, 10K, kids races and a half marathon. We seemed to be the odd ones out as we clapped and cheered as the participants ran, jogged and staggered past. We were at the 1K mark – but the crowds were pretty thin, and surprisingly (for the Dutch) unvocal, which seemed a bit of a shame.

However, with the sun out it was a day for doing stuff – not standing around. The bikes came out of hibernation and we decided to go for a cycle. My gears had seized up and Mr T’s front-brake had stuck, but after quick massage and a splash of oil off we set.

We headed for the Haagse Bos, an area of woodland we hadn’t explored before. The Dutch Royal family have a house in the Bos, and although we found the palace, sadly, there was no sign of Willem and Maxima pottering in the grounds. The house appeared to be undergoing a complete renovation but presumably if the Dutch Royals are anything like the British, they'll have several other residences to decamp to,  or  maybe they were hiding out in a mobile home around the back.

Disappointed, we carried on and came to a large garden centre. Now I love a good garden centre.  On a Sunday in the UK, a garden centre would be heaving with customers.  But this is the Netherlands. The garden centre was closed. My inner American screams why isn't everything open 24/7? While my it's so refreshing the Netherlands is so uncommercial side appreciates why Maxima wasn’t out there with her gardening gloves on. She was probably out on a family cycle ride instead.

Day One

Back in the Netherlands after an extended stay in the UK and my first day has been a day of queuing. This is not a result of food shortages that have mysteriously occurred in my absence,  but simply an issue of staff deployment. Generally I do my best to avoid Albert Heijn supermarkets first thing on a Monday morning. Our nearest shop is very small, and the aisles are full of staff restocking after the weekend.  However, with an afternoon mission already planned I had no choice but tackle the chicanes and other major hazards created by warehouse crates and boxes blocking every aisle.  No queues at the check-out, mainly because there were more staff in the shop than customers.

However, the real fun began in the afternoon,  when I had to return to a second Albert Heijn (I refuse to visit the same one twice in the one day) to pick up the goods I had (a) forgotten in the morning and (b) had not been re-stocked (that’s the trouble with going too early!).  But first, I went to Action. For those of you don’t know Action think Home Bargains. It’s one of those shops that sells everything from toothpaste to bicycle pumps, the sort of place you go into expecting to buy one item, and come up with arms full of stuff. It is also one of those shops that has six check-outs, four of which are for display purposes only. Action is the home of the queue. And typically, after a lengthy wait, just as I finally reached the point where I could load my several-more-than-planned purchases onto the conveyer belt, the inevitable happened, another check-out opened, and of course, those at the back who had waited the least, scrambled to the empty till.

 

Undeterred, I stuck it out. I had invested a great deal of time in my queue, and then, exactly the same thing happened next door in the second Albert Heijn supermarket of the day, where just as I reached that point...the till roll needed to be changed.  Outwardly calm, inwardly seething.

I appreciate that these situations are not unique to the Netherlands. It could happen anywhere. But they say Europeans don't know how to queue. Trust me, they do!

During my two months back in the Uk I had become re-acclimatized with those cheeky check-out conversations with shop assistants, which simply don’t happen here, mainly because ashamedly, I don’t have any Dutch conversational skills apart from a ja, ja, nee  and a dank Ju well in answer to the standard do I have a bonus card, do I want a receipt, am I collecting saving stamps and have a good day (I am completely thrown if I’m asked anything else). Back in the UK recent exchanges with shop assistants have included a lengthy conversation on the merits of bathroom refurbishment (stemming from the admiration of my new bathmat) and another five minute talk on the commercial viability of wine for cats. Anyone who has ever given their cat catnip will know that cats do not need wine.  And dogs don’t need beer either (yes we got onto that too).

Ed looking unimpressed with another spontaneous purchase from Action!