Ok. Moving on :o) So today Rachel, and her friend Jaclyn and I explored the Haag.. again. But it was way better today. Wait.. lets back up... So I wake up so full of energy, my cold is pretty much gone, I just have the lingering cough, I feel really rested the sun is shining, I know today is going to be a great day. So I hop on my bike and head to town.. *side note.. I haven't ridden to Den Haag by myself yet, I've always taken the bus because of the weather, and I'm not Dutch enough yet to brave the rain on my bike* But I think to myself, just go straight, look for familiar landmarks and we'll be just fine. So in go my ear buds, on goes to praise and worship music, along with the occasional country song and off I go. Full of confidence. About 10 minutes into the ride I start thinking, I don't remember this.. but I'll keep going until I see a sign that says Den Haag.. a couple min later I see the sign so I follow it, but nothing is looking familiar. But I think to myself, I must have just not been paying close attention I'll keep going.... 30 min later (it's only supposed to take maybe 20) I have no idea where I am.. but off to the left I see a building with Leiden University on it.. OH NO I think! There is No way I'm in Leiden! This is just not possible. (remember, I've only been here 2 weeks and I have no sense of direction) I start freaking out a little, but I calm myself by thinking, you are following the signs, it's ok.. So I stop this man (why is it always a man I run into? weird.. anyway) and I ask him where Central Station is so he tells me I'm about 2 k away, so then I say, and how far am I from Leiden ( just to make sure I was indeed in Den Haag) and he chuckles (now.. pause here... in the 5 seconds he laughs about a million dreaded thoughts fly through my head about how I'm probably in Leiden now and how stupid am I and I thought it would take longer to get to Leiden etc..) then he says, Oh you are about 20k away. WHEW! Oh but I felt so dumb, because then I realize that Leiden is the other way. Lol. Oh gosh. So I FINALLY make it to Central Station where I meet Rachel and Jaclyn (15 min late.. it took me 45 min to get there!) And off we go. We are ready to conquer this town!
We start wandering around aimlessly ( like true tourists) and stumble across a very looong line of people waiting to get into this building. Turns out it's Parliment! Today was our lucky day! Most of the major buildings that are not open for tourists were open for today and some were open tomorrow! It was so so cool! Here are some pictures:
Inside Parliment building.. this is not where parliment meets though.
This is where the Queen gives her speech that opens Parliment on the
3rd Tuesday of September (which I'm going to by the way)
I think this is the Queens Chair..
Parliment with the looong line of people to get in
I give this experience 2 thumbs up!
The outside of Parliament*side note.. Pien, just told me that the building I was just in is called the Ridderzaal. Also called the Parliament building, but people get confused and thing this is where Parliament meets all the time. It is not.. I have no idea where they actually meet.. just thought you should know that bit of info.
He's important. But I don't know who he is.. The caption below was in Dutch. Darn it!
Eerste Kamer Der Staten Generaal.. aka Assembly hall. This room is used as the assembly room for the Senate of the Dutch Parliament. But again, this is not where they hold the whole session (or so I'm told)
Pretty ceiling huh? Maybe someday I'll paint something like this on my ceiling. HA!
Not 100% but we think this is the Peace Palace...
Ginormous doors! Right after we took this someone started talking on the intercom.. we ran away :o)
Post card picture :o) This is the backside of the Peace Palace, if that's what it is..
Pretty building in the pretty garden.. It's probably important, but we had no idea what it was..
Look! The queen and I are so close she lets me hide in her skirts! ;o) Actually, this is in the Tweede Kamer Der Staten Generaal.. Aka REALLY COOL BUILDING! This was one of the only pictures that I was allowed to take, so I'll just describe the building. It looks like a plain old boring downtown city building. Inside. MAJOR security! We waited in like for almost an hour to go into this incredibly cool room full of books. I mean full full FULL! 4 levels of wall to wall, floor to ceiling on 3 walls with a staircase off to the side so you can get to the books. These books go back to 1815 and they are all of the word by word documentations of all the House of Reps meetings. There are over 30,000 books! If you want to see pictures/read some of the documents you can go to www.tweedekamer.nl so far they only have from 1995 until now on, but they are working on getting the rest on the web as well. It was really really neat!That was the last place I saw because I had to get home to babysit at 4 and I wanted to leave early so I had pleanty of time to get home.. just in case.. Good thing I left early, because somehow.. and I honestly don't know how, I got lost. Well, sort of lost. I kind of knew where I was... but it was not the most direct route home. I think I'm going to have to take directions to the haag for dummies next time! Seriously. I believe God gave some people a good sense of direction, and some no sense at all.. he gave me no sense of direction what so ever! Good thing I left early!! Sheeish. Never a dull moment for me when I'm in Holland! I really think I'm going to take Maurien with me next time so she can show me exactly what to do.. I'm pretty sure where I went wrong, but not 100%. Oh well. There are worse things!
Well everyone. I'm off. My uncle Jim comes tomorrow for a few hours, yay! Can't wait to show him around.. I think we'll take the bus so we don't get lost though. Lol!
I think you need a GPS application for your fancy iTouch! So glad that you have a great sense of adventure and yet a peace in knowing that God will help you find your way back home. :0)
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