Netherlands and more

Blog about life in Holland

Xiaomi automatic corkscrew review

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TGIF — time for wine (and a review)!

I’ve been using the electric corkscrew Xiaomi Mijia for more than a year now and I’m pretty happy with it.

It features a rechargeable battery, which means there’s one more gadget to charge. However, I dare say you won’t need to charge it frequently unless you drink wine a crate a day.

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What you need to know when ordering stuff abroad

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Photo by PostNL.

If you like ordering cheap gadgets and other stuff from AliExpress (and similar online stores) like I do, you may find this useful.

For all shipments originating from within the EU no extra charges are to be paid in the Netherlands.

For all other countries, the Dutch customs regulation establishes a duty-free threshold of € 22 per package.

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(In)offensive Dutch

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Photo by JillWellington.

It’s a known fact some common words in one language may sound pretty rude or even offensive in another. Furthermore, some words in the same language can be confusing.

Take Dutch and English.

If, for example, one typed “Buurvrouw, wat een mooie koolmezen, maar wat doet mijn haan op uw ezel?” into Google Translate, he’d be presented the following translation:

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Inflatable treasure

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Today I’ve received a parcel from the almighty AliExpress. A pretty puzzling one.

You’d be puzzled, too. What do you think an “inflatable treasure” is?

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Charge your mobile by swinging

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Photo by Koen Laureij.

The Dutch will never stop to impress me with their ingenuity.

Being sustainable is now trending in Europe—and in Holland in particular. So in June 2019 my client, NS, has installed a special kind of swing at the Utrecht Centraal railway station.

This new attraction was presented during the “Sustainability Week” (Duurzame Week), and it can charge your mobile phone!

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Sugar cylinders and coffee hemispheres

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Today I’ve experienced a real paradigm shift. As I’ve found out, cubes are not the only shape you find sugar formed into (which has been my conviction for more then four decades to now). There also exist sugar cylinders!

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