I'm a bit behind on my postings, if you haven't noticed. I've had lots of papers and whatnot so I've been pretty busy. The semester is winding down and it's so surreal to think how I'll be home in a little over a week. I was ok with it for a while but now I don't want to leave at all, even though I do miss everybody a lot. It's just going to be weird...ANYWAYS...
The next trip after spring break was our last ISA excursion to The Hague, or Den Haag if you prefer, in the Netherlands. It was our only over night excursion, exciting. It started out somewhat poorly when Dallin missed the train. He had just barely caught the trains for all our other excursions so I suppose this was inevitable. It was quite the hullaballoo. We checked into our HOTEL (NOT hostel) when we arrived and it was wonderful. Hostels are fun and there's nothing wrong with them, but it really makes you appreciate hotel rooms with TVs and big comfy beds and your own bathroom complete with a continuosly running guaranteed to be hot shower. Speaking of showers, this place had a floor length window into the shower and bathroom, it was weird. Fortunately, there were blinds. We went to the Mauritshuis first, the museum where Girl with a Pearl Earring is kept. It was a good size, just two large floors with rooms arranged in a circle. It used to be an actual house. After that, we went to the Escher museum. This is the guy who did the mind-puzzling pictures with stairs that only go up, and the hands drawing eachother, or the birds that morph into fish...trust me, you've seen this stuff. I always thought his art was cheesy, probably because it was always in math teachers' classrooms, but now that I've been to the museum I think it's incredible. He was so talented to be able to think of this stuff, it hurts your brain. By the time we finished seeing the museum, Dallin had caught up to us. We had some dutch snacks at the nearby carnival, olliebollen and poffertjes, probably the least healthy things you can eat. Olliebollen is a ball of fried dough covered in powdered sugar and poffertjes are mini slightly puffy crepes covered in butter and powdered sugar, they are mighty tasty. We went to see the Peace Palace and take some pictures, this is where the International Court of Justice is. Then we went to the beach and took a few more pictures, tried to go to the restaurant they went to the previous semester but it had shut down so ended up at a tex-mex place instead. You don't realize how ingrained tex mex is to American culture until you go to Europe where it's practically unheard of. We went back to the hotel and called it an early night.
Day 2 - We got an excellent breakfast this morning. I always try to eat a lot at the free breakfasts I get so I won't be hungry later. I still took almost everything they had in a plastic wrapper and shoved it in my purse for a snack later. After breakfast we went to Madurodam, aka mini-Holland. It was rainy, that was a bummer, but Madurodam is very cute, models of famous buildings and landmarks in Holland. I think it would have been better if I was more familiar with famous landmarks in Holland though. Allison and I spent a good chunk of time coloring in the sesame street exhibit they had set up for small children to avoid the rain. Next we hopped on the train to Delft, home of Delft porcelain, that blue and white kind with windmills and dutch children on it. The rain died down, we split up for lunch, tried to get into the old church but it was closed (on a Sunday?) and then wandered around waiting for our boat ride. The boat ride was nice. The canals in delft are just completely open, you could easily just hop in and go for a swim, though I would NOT recommend it. Apparently the canals are filled with bikes, people chain them up next to a canal and eventually they just fall in, it's weird. We shopped around a bit after the boat ride and then rode back to The Hague to pick up everyone's bags. More train drama to come...Sabine disappeared right as our train arrived and we didn't know whether she was on the train or not, Dallin called her and she said "get on the train" in a huff and hung up, we were just really confused and stayed off. Well, another call revealed she was ON the train, uh-oh. Basically, a whole mass of confusion and some stress later, during which we thought we had the tickets and then learned she had the tickets, they let us on the next train (in 1st class too) without tickets and we met up with Sabine at the first stop. Phew. When we got home, (after I left my expensive umbrella on the train :( ) I went to meet my parents at their hotel.
My parents probably chose the worst week possible to come visit me, I had The Hague trip the first weekend and then was leaving for Poland on Thursday for the next weekend. On top of that, I had papers galore and a quiz so I couldn't really miss class. Oh well, what can you do. We went out for a late dinner at a swanky restaurant and agreed to meet at the Grand Place the next morning. Good thing I don't have classes on Mondays. They got a bit lost, but I found them and we mostly wandered around the area going in and out of shops for the day. I showed them the Cathedral and the Place Royale and Royal Palace too. We tried to go to mini-Europe, which I've been looking forward to since I got here in January, not kidding, but it was closed. We had a drink nearby instead and then headed back to the main part of town for dinner. I wanted mussels, another thing I'd been looking forward to since I got here in January. We found a cute little restaurant by St. Catherine's and had a delicious meal. We agreed to meet at Art-Lois after my classes the next day. I got done earlier than I thought I would and so went to their hotel instead, and then my phone decided to not work so I couldn't get a hold of them. They waited around Art-Lois for an hour while I waited at their hotel for an hour until I finally found a phone place and got a hold of them. In Brussels, they have places where there are landlines just hooked up in wooden booths in convenience stores or internet cafes, it's very convenient. We had dinner near the Grand Place at a place with very Belgian dishes, mmmm. The next day I only had one class at 3 and I just planned to stop in and drop off some papers, the prof knew my parents were in town and I hadn't missed a class all semester. I finally go to go to mini-Europe, woo! It's expensive but very extensive, all 27 member states of the EU are represented by at least one landmark. It was really cool and we ended up spending almost the entire day there. We had lunch and I realized I wouldn't have time to drop my papers off, oh well. After stopping back at the hotel for a little while we went to my host family's house for dinner. Everyone had a really good time and dinner was (of course) delicious. I decided to spend the night with my parents and so packed my things for the weekend while my parents skyped with my grandma and brother. They didn't have cots at the hotel, so all 3 of us squeezed into the bed. The next morning we had breakfast and then they saw me off at the train station where we caught our bus to the airport. It was a short visit, but sweet. It's bizarre to think that I'm going to be graduating college in a year and officially be out of the house. I don't even know what I'm doing this summer yet, buh. I might have another interview on Monday though so, keep your fingers crossed. I should probably register for my summer class too, which requires an override, oy. AND I have finals to study for.....sigh
-Lauren :)
No comments:
Post a Comment