Hemaxima (Or: Eating a tompouce on King’s Day)

As recently noted, today is King’s Day in the Netherlands, a holiday to mark the birthday of King Willem-Alexander. Every year the royal family (including King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima and their children) visits a Dutch city to celebrate King’s Day. This year they visited Emmen, a city in the province of Drenthe in the northeast of the Netherlands.

The local Hema had a great marketing trick. They added “xima” to their logo as shown in this tweet:

Geniaal toch!
"Hoe eet u 'm het liefst?"#HEMA #HEMAxima #koningsdag #Emmen
Fijne Koningsnacht/dag pic.twitter.com/5XhdZUVm0N

— harm jan veenstra (@tweetshopcoevn) April 26, 2024

Of course the “xima” is in orange since it is King’s Day. It is also a nice word joke since “Hé” is a way to get someone’s attention, pronounced “Hey”. Therefore Hemaxima becomes “Hey Maxima!” The question above that is “What is your favorite way to eat (tompouce)?”, so it is asking the Queen how she eats the messy dessert that is known as tompouce.

Personally I eat the cream first with a dessert fork and then I eat the top and bottom layers in either order. Any other way results in a mess (for me). The kid in the photo above is eating it in the traditional manner, but then you risk the cream squirting out the other side.

Preparing for King’s Day 2024 (Or: Flags and tompouce)

Tomorrow the Netherlands will celebrate King’s Day to mark the birthday of King Willem-Alexander.

Tonight is the Life I Live festival, with free podiums set up at Lange Voorhout, Kerkplein, Grote Markt and the Hofvijver. Here is a look who is playing at each podium. Alternatively you can now download an app for iOS or Google Play (under the name “Woov”).

Here are some of the things you can do tomorrow:

• Visit the King’s Day carnival at Maliveld (Saturday is the last day)
• Visit the King’s Day carnival at “De Fred”, or Frederik Hendriklaan, which runs through 5 May
• NMNH Kingsday Festival at Zuiderpark (paid event)
• The Hague’s Vrijmarkten. If you’re from the US this is equivalent to a garage sale, but held on a national level. It’s the one day of the year you’re allowed to sell your stuff outside, although you have to do it in certain streets of The Hague. Check denhaag.com for a list of streets where you are allowed to sell your crap–err, precious memories.
• Eat tompouce. indebuurt.nl has a nice list of places where you can buy it. Since it is for King’s Day the top layer is orange instead of pink. I had a “double decker” tompouce yesterday from Plasman.
• Geraniummarkt at the Lange Voorhout. That translates to “Geranium market”. Yes, for some reason it is tradition to buy geraniums on King’s Day.
• King’s Day at the Grote Markt, at the Zwarte Ruiter bar. denhaag.com has the list of bands and the times they will be playing.

Lots of places have put out Dutch flags to mark the holiday. This photo was taken near Dozo, an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant (formerly known as Sumo, see also this blog post).

Pickleball (Or: Are they watching you play?)

Last month I visited my parents in the US. I had a blast of a time and really enjoyed visiting my old childhood town as well.

One of the places I came across while on my travels was a pickleball court. That sport is getting more and more popular. Don’t ask me how it is played though – I will just point you to the Wikipedia page (English|Dutch). But the court did have some very, very gorgeous graffiti in the area.

Are you a dog lover?

Perhaps you have two dogs at home…?

Palace garden (Or: The first signs of spring)

A few weeks ago I visited the Paleistuin (Palace Garden), not far from the city centre. See also Google Maps.

The sky was a lovely shade of blue:

It’s hard to imagine that this was taken in the Palace Garden, since there isn’t much open space without flowers in it. But if you take a picture at the right angle, it makes the garden look even larger.

There wasn’t too much color yet when I visited (see the photo below) but it was, as always, a peaceful place to walk around.

I did find some nice purple flowers though.

Maybe I will go back next week to see if even more flowers have started blooming. We have since had a few days of really good weather (including yesterday which was the first “no jacket” day of the year for me).

Did you know there is also a secret entrance to the Palace Garden? You ring the doorbell to get let in. During the day, at least. See also this news article in Dutch from indebuurt.nl.

Stop apologizing (Or: There’s a language lesson to be had here)

Last week I read a lovely article at The Guardian:

I stopped apologising for my poor German, and something wonderful happened | Ying Reinhardt https://t.co/LV4ITEq37e

— The Guardian (@guardian) April 1, 2024

I am not going to lie – I definitely know where she was coming from. Even when you live somewhere for years, it is so easy to feel like your language skills don’t measure up and that you make too many mistakes. Sometimes it feels like half of the conversations I have in unfamiliar situations result in me feeling ashamed when I walk away, even though I know I shouldn’t. When I try to be helpful and explain something or show someone the way, I always wonder if the other person understood me.

Which is silly. Deep down I know it is silly. My Dutch is great. It’s not native, but neither am I. My self-confidence could use some improvement, though!

Looking back, I have obviously improved. Years ago I would spend a few minutes rehearsing what I wanted to say before I approached someone, for instance, a worker at the supermarket. Imagine my panic at those sudden situations where I didn’t have time to prepare. ARGH!

So if, like me, you are learning a language and you think your skills aren’t good enough, take heart. Sometimes the most important thing to help you succeed is to boost your confidence so that you feel more willing to dive into situations. Only by believing in yourself can you improve.

(And by reading. And listening to podcasts. My Dutch vocabulary absolutely rocks these days!)

Pink camellias (Or: Randomly spotted)

Last week I was walking back from Albert Heijn when I spotted some beautiful flowers. If Google Images reverse lookup is to be believed, it is a camellia flower.

And of course it wouldn’t be a picture in the Netherlands if there wasn’t a bike in it. Ha!

Hrmmm (Or: A man and a bear walk down the street…)

Imagine my confusion this weekend when I snapped this picture, taken on the street which connects The Hague’s Central Station with the city centre:

Either he is about to be eaten alive from behind or that is one big bear. Roger offered a good explanation though: the Kingsfair is now open at the nearby Malieveld. Kingsfair is the carnival to celebrate the upcoming King’s Day holiday on Saturday, April 27.

Hopefully the gentleman didn’t actually drop it on the way home. That thing looks like a dirt magnet!

Tulips by the Spuiplein (Or: Beauty on a rainy day)

Recently Marco took some pictures of the tulips by the Spuiplein. The tulips just appeared one day – before that the area was barren all winter!

It’s an appropriate topic considering we had one day of really, really good weather today. It was about 24C/75F. The winds shifted and came from Africa today. But only for one day.

And a look at the area in general:

Orange, pink and just a bit of yellow!

And a look at the raindrops stuck to the flowers:

In case you are interested, Spuiplein is in the middle of a renovation. The next stage will begin this fall. You can read more about it at projecten.denhaag.nl. The article is in Dutch but there are pictures and a Google translate option available.

On horseback (Or: Statue of Willem the Silent)

During the holiday weekend (a four day weekend!) I decided to take a picture of the equestrian statue of Willem the Silent outside of the Paleis Noordeinde. I was drawn by the color of the statue against the gray-white of the building behind it. Unfortunately the sun decided to mostly disappear at that moment.

Here is a Google Maps link on where to find the statue.

In other news:

New species of tiny geckos found in India named after Vincent van Gogh from nltimes.nl

King’s Day in The Hague from denhaag.com in English. This includes the King’s Fair (= carnival) at the Malieveld, opening this Friday and running through Saturday, April 27. There’s even a geranium market on Lange Voorhout on King’s Day!

Route of Tour de France Femmes announced from denhaag.com. The Tour de France femmes will be cycling through The Hague (and Rotterdam) on August 12 this year.

Dutch flowers in St Peter’s Square (Or: A decades old tradition)

Since 1985, the Netherlands has been sending thousands of flowers to the Vatican for Easter Mass. This year they will be sending over 20,000 flowers. Here’s a tweet of how it looks, although I am not sure if this is an arrangement from 2024 or from an earlier year.

Dutch flowers in St. Peter’s Square in Rome at Easter – Dutch flowers will transform St. Peter’s Square into a hugely colourful spectacle during the Holy Mass celebrated by the Pope. https://t.co/UYw3QS2ok8 #gardencentres #horticulturenews #gardenforumheadlines #sustainability pic.twitter.com/s3B1lOeJll

— Garden Forum (@gardenforumUK) March 26, 2024

The tradition in 1985 for Titus Brandsma’s beatification. See also: Dutch Flowers Back in St. Peter’s Square in Rome At Easter at seedworld.com. In case you’re wondering, no flowers were sent in 2020 due to the corona crisis. In 2021, even though there were no major gatherings allowed in Italy, roses were sent. That year they decorated the inside of St. Peter’s square with some roses also being sent to retirement homes in Italy. See also: Italy – An Avalanche of Roses to Celebrate Easter. Amusingly that comes from a Dutch government website which publishes agriculture news happening outside of the Netherlands (agroberichtenbuitenland.nl). How specific!