Smoking In The Tunnel
This tunnel leads to all the platforms at Den Haag HS station.
The Tunnel At Den Haag HS Station
When I arrived, there were several smokers loitering about inside. Are the Dutch more tolerant than we are?
An Unfortunate Name
I took this photo of an advert on the back of a car.
An Unfortunate Name
They’re probably an excellent company and I think this is their web site
By Eurostar To The Netherlands
On Thursday I took the Eurostar to visit a friend in The Hague. I travelled in Standard Premier to get a comfortable seat with a table and a meal.
My route was to take the Eurostar to Brussels, where I would change to the Dutch Inter City train to Den Haag HS. The weather wasn’t good as this picture shows.
To Brussels In The Mist
Not that you get to see much on a trip to Brussels. But at least the gluten-free breakfast is worth having.
Eurostar’s Gluten-Free Breakfast
Note the Dove’s Farm biscuits, which seem to have disappeared from the shops.
Coming back, I got a rather nice gluten-free chicken for supper, with as much wine as I wanted.
It is a bit of a pain having to change trains in Brussels, but it isn’t too far to walk. It would be nice though if I could have got a train right the way through to The Hague or Rotterdam from St. Pancras.
The main reason is that Eurostar trains can’t run on the Dutch train network, although they can run on ours. Most modern trains like the East and West Coast Main Lines in the UK, the French TGV and the Channel Tunnel are electrified to the same standard of 25kV A.C. But the Dutch railway for some reason is electrified at 1.5kV D.C. Although the High Speed Line to Amsterdam is at the higher voltage.
This entry in Wikipedia talks about the future of high speed trains from London to the Netherlands. When Eurostar get their new trains, they may even call at The Hague.
Carry On Baling Out
It has just been announced that Germany’s top court, has allowed the Euro bail-out to go ahead.
Will this allow the solution to go ahead? Possibly! But what about the Dutch elections?
The Netherlands Isn’t Just About Orange
This news item must be watched by all of the Dutch.
Or is red the new orange?
Beach Volleyball At Horse Guards Parade
Yesterday, I spent a pleasant afternoon at the beach volleyball on Horse Guards Parade.
Note :-
- The advert for New Zealand on top of New Zealand House.
- In four hours, we saw four matches. The Netherlands won two and Venezuela and Italy one each. Sadly the British women lost to the Italians. But the Dutch beating the Germans was probably very satisfying for them.
- The food was no better than at the Lee Valley.
- The weather wasn’t good, but everybody carried on regardless. Even the Italian and Australian girls, who obviously train in the sun!
- I’ve put most of the comments in the pictures.
In some ways the stadium itself is a star. It just shows how with careful design, you can build a temporary 16,000-seater stadium. How many other sports could put on a championship in such a stadium? It would be ideal for tennis, some equestrian sports like dressage, boxing and martial arts, to name just a few. The only problem in the UK would be the rain.
Professional Theft – Dutch Footballers at Euro 2012
They have definitely underperformed in this tournament, as they are ranked fourth in the World at the moment.
I wonder what the man on the Amsterdam Omnibus is saying?
It’s All Double Dutch to Me
Some things in International football are always the same. For a start England always lose penalty shoot-outs and various Latin teams are good at faking injuries and being badly tackled.
Another was that The Netherlands always played in orange.
But not tonight!
As Portugal are playing in red and Holland in black with orange trim, from the other side of my room, I thought Portugal had scored first. But it was The Netherlands!
Rinaldo also seems to be trying to get the award for the most over-rated player at the Championship.
Unfortunately for the Dutch, he got very much better!
The Racism Has Started
Why did the old farts in charge of UEFA take the tournament to Poland and the Ukraine, when they knew it might happen?
This incident involving the Dutch is actually in Poland.
I don’t think that the Dutch govenment will take this lying down.
The Netherlands are playing their first match against Denmark tomorrow.
I wonder what the odds are that we don’t through the first round without racist trouble.
The Anonymous Widower 