Den Haag

welp. We went to Den Haag on Friday. It was a pretty good time. We caught a train at about 1:00 pm and arrived about 20 minutes later. The roundtrip tickets that most of the kids got were only 4 euro and 10 cense. I, along with 3 others tried the kiosk at the train station in Leiden and got a one way ticket for 3 Euro 10 cense, which sucks because then we had to get a return ticket in Den Haag for the same price and ended up spending 2 euro more than the other guys. Whatever.

When we got to Den Haag it was cold, and rainy, and honestly just kind of miserable for the first hour we were there. I hadn't eaten all day and made the huge mistake of wearing my Toms. That was really probably one of the dumbest mistakes I've made in my young adult life. So, after eating at a Blimpies for lunch, the girls decided to go into a cheap looking shoe store. I bought a pair of grey boots with a short heel and 2 pairs of warm socks for about 15 euro, which I was pretty proud of. In the Blimpies though, we walked in and I walked up to the counter to order and the man working there asked "English?" and I said, "yes, please". He then snickered and asked me "well then, what kind of FOOTLONG can I get for you today?" psshhh... boy please. I was pretty angry. I mean, really? I can get saying that to a person in over-alls and a Southern accent, accompanied by an air of unnecessary American arrogance, but not to a girl belonging to a group of cute, trendy, and most of all POLITE young American females. But, whatever. I ordered and we all ate and were much happier because of it.

Some of the guys we were traveling with went to go find a tourist-type office where they wanted to get a map while we were eating and then they met us at the shoe store. We then ventured over to where the Parliament building was. It was GORGEOUS. Oh my, and huge. There are pictures on face book!

We then ventured on to the Rembrandt Museum where I saw too many beautiful, perfect, and very old peices of exquisite art. It really was just too much to handle. In particular, I saw the original "Girl With the Pearl Earring" by Vermeer himself. Woah. I have not seen the movie but I have read the book and it's one of my favorites. In one word, it was the shit.

When we got out of the Rembrandt Museum there was a little light left and we wanted to see the Queen's Castle, so we headed over in that direction. We saw this statue that is so very very similar to the statue right outside the Art Museum on Art Hill in Forest Park in St. Louis. I don't know what the deal is with that, if any of you know please be my guest and clue me in on the history of that statue and why there are two of them. It's really cool because I took a picture for photo one last year that ended up being one of my favorites and in my portfolio and I tried to recreate that picture. I want to see how close I got to recapturing the one I took last year haha.

We went to a pub, although I don't remember the name. It was so weird because I think we really offended the waitress by ordering mostly water along with our food, but if we're going by the sentiment from the people at Blimpies it's probably just because we were American. Again I say, whatever. The food was really really good though, I got fish and chips. A favorite of mine from when we lived in London years ago. After dinner we strolled around a bit, and stumbled upon a sweet looking hookah bar and decided to get some drinks and smoke some hookah. Twas lovely! I love my friends, they are great company and I feel really blessed to have them here with me to travel with and share experiences with. Some of our other friends had split off from us earlier in the day in the interest of traveling in smaller groups, since that's easier. Well, we saw them at the Queen's Castle and learned of their endeavor to walk to the North Sea. That's right, WALK. like what? what's wrong with them haha... Needless to say they are boys and very strong-willed. I'll be honest, I didn't expect them to make it, but alas they did. And they brought back a bottle of the North Sea with them to prove it. Brave 'gents, they are.

I have to go for now, but there is some more I'd like to update on but. I wanted to get all this our though so I wouldn't forget our very epic journey to Den Haag. Good times.