This weekend marked 5 weeks since these feet stepped on Belgian soil – and they were itchin’ to go somewhere else… so ~natuurlijk~ we had to move them.
Saturday, September 19th we embarked on our first international trip to The Netherlands! Specifically Holland, but I would like to point out that the two are not interchangeable; Holland is just a region within The Netherlands.
We spent all day Saturday in the Hague, home of the Escher Museum and the Peace Palace. Then on Sunday, we hopped on the bus to visit Delft a college town and Kinderdijk, a village in South Holland that has the most beautiful windmills!
First stop: the Escher Museum, which (fun fact!) is an old winter palace of the royal family.
M.C. Escher, if you’re not familiar, is a Dutch graphic artist famous for his optical illusion work. The museum showed of many pieces similar to the one below, as well as a room that was a life-sized optical illusion… And obviously we had a photo shoot.
Then we went to another palace, The Peace Palace, established in 1913 thanks to our very out Andrew Carnegie, who donated 1.5 million dollars to have the building constructed (USA! USA! USA!). His main objective was to fund the Peace Palace Library, which has grew to be the best collection of international law. Now, the main purpose of the palace is to host organizations like the Permanent Court of Arbitration and the International Court of Justice.
And I can’t help but point out the irony that this temple of peace – symbolizing cordial conflict resolution between nations – opened just a year before the First World War… Funny how the world works, isn’t it?
In front of the palace there is a wishing tree, with sheets of papers hanging from the branches with different wishes in all sorts of languages. The majority were wishes for peace… being that we were at the Peace Palace ‘n all.
Well, I have no idea what this says… Maybe it’s about peace? Maybe not, but let’s just say this particular wish was made by a humanitarian just to prove my point.
Of course I made a wish && they say they never remove them… so maybe I can come back to find it one day??? Yeah, right.
The Hague is located on the coast of the Netherlands and from where we were located in the city, I was shocked when 5 tram stops got us to the shore.
Now, the weather was no where near appropriate for the beach, but that didn’t stop every single one of us from sprinting towards the ocean, taking off our shoes and putting our toes in the North Sea. The North Sea!!!
See?? That’s my foot. Aaaaand according to Inés (pictured below) and Ma, a couple of kilometers behind my foot (okay, maybe more) is England.
Like I mentioned previously, Sunday we made our way to Delft. It’s a cute but swampy little city, that has canals so polluted with algae that they look like tiny fields of grass. We went on a guided boat tour and were lucky enough to have a student as our guide, so all of the facts he provided us were extremely entertaining.
Delft was founded 1200 years ago and, like I said, it’s a pretty marshy area. And this is proven by the old church that is so obviously leaning. Literally, the first thing we said when we got into town was – “Is that tower lopsided? That’s not safe, right?”
Correct. The Old Church is sinking and after many attempts to fix the structure – attempts that have failed, might I add – Dutch architects said “forget it” and started using optical illusions to trick people into thinking it was sitting upright. I have come to realize that the Dutch are all about their quick and quirky solutions.
So this is the church’s clocktower. I guess it looks pretty straight from here… But, I can assure you it’s not.
There are four “illusions” that they added to the tower in hopes of making it appear straight. The first is that the towers at the very top all vary in height; the right side is taller than the left. Second, the clock is off-center and not only that, the iron around the clock is also different lengths. Finally (and less noticeably) the two lions at the bottom of the clock are different sizes – the right is bigger than the left.
Needless to say they didn’t do a very good job, but I digress. Below is a closer look:
They don’t ring the bell in the tower unless there is a birth/death in the royal family, because they fear that the building may collapse. I believe they said in the past couple of years they had to ring it, so they evacuated the area beforehand to ensure the town’s safety.
During the boat tour I was shocked at the fact that there no guardrails along the canals. You know that in America there would be ropes and very tacky “DO NOT FALL IN” signs all over the place.
But no, actually our guide told us that it isn’t rare that bikes, people and even cars fall into the water. No worries, the canal is only waist deep – but very slimy.
He went on to tell us that an average of 300 bikes fall into the canal per year. The number one cause is beer (as you can imagine)… But also there is a fun tradition at the end of each year that holds the bulk of the blame.
When students graduate from university their friends take their bikes and chuck them into the water to celebrate. It’s believe that since you’ve graduated you can now afford to replace the bike because of that fancy new job you’ll be getting.
Finally, we ended the trip with a bike ride through Kinderdijk. Ariāna and I were feeling adventurous so when they offered up the tandem bike we jumped at the opportunity.
How Dutch, am I right?? At first, we were a little shaky and I was nervous how we were going to be able to do however many miles… (I want to guess 10) but we got our act together and it was a real bonding experience.
Just awesome. I got to go inside the one pictured above. Very tiny – y’know some people have converted these windmills into homes now that their original purpose (to pump water) is antiquated. I would be afraid of one day getting too comfortable and having one of the propellers catch and fling me across a field…
Yep, so that’s The Netherlands for you! Next weekend I’m off to Dublin!!! For the rest of this week, though, my nose will be shoved in a textbook.
xoxo
Bethany en Belgique 