Hoi Netherlands: Day 30- Miffy-ing Utrecht

ZE was so in love with our Airbnb rental stay, that I had to convince her to head out to the city. She wanted to stay in, and enjoy our boathouse. 

How? Simple. 

One magic word. 

MIFFY, locally known as Nijntje.

I was expecting it to be an easy feat. Lunch, check out some shops, tada, chop-chop-all-done. But no, despite Utrecht being Miffy’s birth town, we didn’t find Miffy merchandises everywhere. 

  

  

  

 Miffy statue, Miffy Square (Nijntje pleintje) and even Miffy pedestrian traffic lights. But no, NO Miffy soft toys. And particularly Miffy in a Dutch dress. The one that we saw in Amsterdam and Kinderdjik. Come on, she was born here, no?

 Hoog Catharijne shopping centre was where we went, adjacent to Utrecht Centraal Station. We got our lunch-before-snack (Yay! Another herring for me) lunch, and checked out some shops.

  

 After a disappointing outing, the positive side was we managed to find stamppot €2.50 at HEMA, our favorite place in the Netherlands.  We were told that stammpot is more of a home-cooked thing; seldom found at restaurants. We even bought one ready-packed stamppot €4.30 from Albert Heijn supermarket, until we saw it at HEMA.

Stamppot is a traditional Dutch dish made from a combination of potatoes mashed with one or several other vegetables or fruits. These vegetable pairings traditionally include sauerkraut, endive, kale, spinach, turnip greens, or carrot and onion. (Source: Wikipedia)

  

  

 And we also found the customary ‘chocoladeletter’ – a Dutch chocolate alphabet, letter made from solid chocolate. Read here for more info about chocoladetter. €4.95 for one letter, but because these were more fancy looking, otherwise we also saw plain looking letters at €1.50.

  

 And lunch at La Place in the V&D Department store in Hoog Catharijne was great, with €1.00 chocolate for dessert.

So, Utrecht has been kind to us on Day 29 and 30. One more day to go on Day 31, please let us find our Dutch Miffy.