The Netherlands: Den Haag

In September or October, another iRYLA member contacted me to let me know she was in Minsk, Belarus and to ask if I wanted to meet her in the Netherlands in November for a weekend. The Netherlands was one of my top travel destinations, so I jumped at the chance to have a travel companion. Strangely, though, it happened to be the weekend immediately following my trip to Sweden and Norway with Danielle. Not even a week after I got home, I repacked my backpack (the night before leaving) and got set to spend another few days sleeping in strange beds.

November 10, 2012:
At 4:45am, I left the house for the metro. This was the earliest possible time I could leave as the metro only starts running at about 5am. I easily made it to the airport and through security. Feeling incredibly paranoid about not missing my flight, I went to find my gate first thing. I walked for a long time and made it to the gate I was looking for only to see no one there (or in this entire wing of the airport for that matter), but that my flight wasn't posted on the flight board. I checked my ticket at realized I had gone to the gate with the same number as my seat number. I walked all the way back to security only to realize I had now passed by my gate twice -- once on the way to my seat number, and once on my way back. Once I found it, I settled in and did some homework, since I had barely had time to catch up since my return from Scandinavia.

A man had taken my window seat, which didn't particularly bother me, but his friends were opposite from us and he kept talking to them across me in Dutch, presumably. I found this insanely annoying. I guess they noticed me rolling their eyes as they passed candy across the aisle, because they offered me some.... they didn't annoy me so much after that, and I proceded to fall asleep. I think my body has come to associate any form of transportation with sleeping. I find it almost impossible to travel without falling asleep. I haven't driven since August, but let's hope that I'm still able to do that without falling asleep!

I arrived at Schipol Airport in Amsterdam, found the train station and bought a ticket to Den Haag, thanks to my friend Kristin's excellent instructions. She met me at the train station and we stopped for breakfast -- boschebol (basically just a Dutch cream filled puff pastry with chocolate on top, aka. delicious) and a muffin. We didn't have the greatest weather, but we opted to do a walking tour of the city in the sprinkling rain.

Four or five years ago, Kristin had lived here for two years as an au pair and had known the city reasonably well. She showed me the government buildings and the area where the Royals have ceremonies and things. We then headed to the home of her former host family. They lived on a road that looked incredibly dutch. All the houses were attached, with large, white-framed windows columns, if you know what I mean. Kristin told me that it is a stereotype that Dutch people like to peer into each other's windows, and so many of them have dividers in front of their windows or thick curtains.

 

The host family has three children (including a newborn!). I met the two older children who were both adorable and very blond. They were fun to play with for the short time I spent with them. Kristin and I opted to go to a museum containing a historical panorama of the beach in Den Haag which was massive and really cool. There were tons of little details and funny things hidden in the painting itself, which was really well-done. Afterward, we had a glance through the rest of the museum and there were some other gorgeous paintings by the same painter, as well as an exhibition of Paul Critchley's work. I didn't know anything about him before going to this museum, but he basically explores the use of perspective in his artwork. For example, he painted all of the rooms in his apartment in Barcelona...

...and there were "rooms" constructed where on one side of the wall, there was a window showing part of a room, but then you could go into the room and see the window from the other perspective, as well as parts of the scene that had been missing when you looked in the window, essentially revealing something that contradicted or enhanced your original understanding of the seen. There was a theme of voyeurism that was a bit metaphysical which was really interesting. There were so many of his paintings and each of them was really interesting. His goal, essentially, is to create a sense of space using perspective in his painting.

 

For lunch, we decided to go to the real beach in Den Haag, despite the weather, and to compare it to the Panorama. We stopped at a fish-hut along the boardwalk and ordered typically Dutch food: kroket (deep-fried, left-over stewed meat), kaassouffle (deep-fried, breaded melted cheese) and fried kipling. It was incredibly delicious, but maybe not so great vegetable-wise. We tried to make up for this at dinner.

 

We wandered around quite a bit at the beach which was still nice even though it was quite grey (at least the rain had stopped) and then met up with Kristin's lovely and generous friend Wendy with whom we'd be spending the night. For dinner, we made andijviestamppot, which is mashed potatoes mixed with some sort of pork and andijvie (which literally translates as endive, but I don't think they are the same thing). It was so good. For dessert, we had stroopwaffle icecream and we curled up on the couch to watch "Alles is liefde" (Love is All; we watched it with subtitles), a film similar to Love Actually, but featuring Sinterklaas and famous Dutch actors. The Dutch holiday traditions are so interesting and may have been a precursor to the North American Santa Claus!!!