The Hague

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This is a good bit late, but I will chronicle our trip from Brussels to The Hauge. Allegedly, it is a 2 hour-1 train trek; however due to some power outage in The Hague, it took more like 4 hours and 4/5 trains ( I lost count) and a few miles of backtracking to finally make it to The Hague. And, of course, we came in to the train station furthest away from our stay. On our taxi ride though, we were able to see a few things, such as Chinatown (apparently the Hague is known for indochinese food) and the Queens Palace (more of a ceremonial/administrative place). We finally arrived at our destination, the ISS (institute of social studies). Got my key and headed to my room. And boy let me tell you; I was in for a surprise. My room is essentially a dorm, with a bathroom/shower inside. It is quite spacious, and I have a good deal of furniture and chairs. However that's where the perks end. The sheets arent great, the walls are stained/peeling and the bathroom, well apparently Europeans don't believe in tubs/ shower curtains. What I mean is that there is a seamless flow from toilet to the corner where the shower is!! Over the few days here, I have not got out and done a whole lot. We did take a field trip to the International Criminal Court (interestingly enough it is a converted parking garage). Either way we have walked around the city to dinner etc and its quite beautiful. The roads thru the city are very heavy in foot traffic and even heavier in bike traffic. In fact, there are quite a few areas where cars can't go. But the Bikes are insane. Almost every road has a bike lane on each side, and not a whimpy little line to mark it, but like a 3foot wide red area that you walk across ASAP. The few dinners I've gone out to have been at a pretty good pizza place (brick oven) and a mexican place (where i had a mexican pizza).... I have seen the home of the Dutch Parliament, appropriately enough it seems to be almost underwater... As well, across from our school here there are the Royal Stables, housing carriages and horses for the royalty.... next week I plan to get out and walk around the Hague and see some sights and try to make it out to see some windmills, for now though PARIS this weekend, so blogs wont be up til next week sometime but they should all be good...

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