Yesterday night we went to the best fish place in Holland- it's a local joint with fish you can't find more fresh- it is on the harbor and the warehouses where the boats bring in the fish and they get it ready to ship is across the street. Charlotte and I had Kipling. I was so full when I walked out that when I got home I ended up laying down, playing "Flow" (check it out- a great iPhone game) and falling asleep dismissing all my plans for the evening.
Today was my Leiden day. The day looked as if it could rain at any point, but luckily it held off.
I walked around a market that was by the canals downtown- everything sold from shoes, lace and thread/ sewing materials, cheese, dresses, toothpaste and toiletries, small clog shoes, fresh produce...a little bit of everything! I went to Stedelijk Molenmuseum de Valk (a windmill you can climb up into the different levels and see the rooms in the bottom where some people used to live). I got to go out onto the terrace part as well! The stairs, that is a story in itself. I thought the stairs in the houses in Holland were steep, well these were killer! You had to go down backwards and no joke the angle was probably about 5 %. Also, after climbing in front of where you would step off the stairs there was a trap door- not literally, but they used to open them to move things to the top or top to bottom with a pulley system. It made even me a little nervous to step on and I usually don't mind those things. Very interesting though!
After that, I went to the National Museum of Ethnology/ Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde (which had displays for Korea/ Japan, Asia, China (including a Budda Room- filled with 5 large Buddas), Indonesia, and Afrika. There were artifacts (pots, jewelry, clothing remains, trinkets, etc.) that dated back thousands of years. Also, there were 3 stone samurais that were borrowed from China- 7,000 were found and they are displayed in different museums throughout different countries.
I saw their Town Hall (Impressive Italian style building), as well as Hartebrugkerk (I went inside as well) church, and one on the corner of Rapenburg. There were a lot of people about depute the weather and also it being a Thursday.
The train ride was only about 10 minutes, and I lucked out with the transportation because I arrived to the train station in the morning with a 5 minute wait, when I left a 3 minute wait, then home on the bs about 5 minutes.
When I was back in Den Haag I visited the Peace Palace. There was a half hour audio tour and I learned a lot. Andrew Carnegie built about 300 libraries and also donated a very large check that covered the designing and the start to building the Peace Palace. They had a contest to see whose design would win and a frenchman won. They altered the design a little so that it wasn't so strongly french influenced, but still it is lovely. It has the largest law library in the world, and also I found it interesting that countries from all over the world send gifts to decorate it (even now) as well as when they were building it different pieces were donated to the building of it- for example Germany built it's gate. Unfortunately just after it started ruling the World War broke out but it still remained. To this day it has help settle a lot of cases, and also outside it there is a peace flame where 5 countries flew fire over to put it all together to light the World Peace Flame that still burns. The first World Peace conference was held in the Hague!!
Tonight we had dinner with Loti- Charlotte's babysitter. She is a very lovely girl who is getting her Masters and is working with the organization of the elections (very busy as Europe has around 50 different political parties where as the US has about 2 that are the big runners). We had a deluxe salad dinner with everything you could think of and then watched some of a famous concert afterwards. The weather is still super rainy/ windy (the worst summer for Holland in 35 years). Tomorrow I will start packing for France this weekend!! :) Also, I was told tonight at dinner that we are going to Bruge to see that on our way! I have heard that is an amazing little town (Belgium), and I didn't make it when I was there before so I will be happy to be able to go!
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