When I first started planning the latter half of this trip, I intended to end in Amsterdam, not only because there was a bus direct from Amsterdam to London, but because I expected the city would take me at least a week. My mother was happy when I had to truncate that visit to two and a half days in order to arrive at the French canals on time. You can make your own guesses why. I would, however, like to revise my original estimation of a week. I expect the city, done properly, would take me at least a month.
Friends I’ve been in contact with over the past few days have had to endure a constant barrage of texts about just how much I love the Dutch. I knew this already from my travels: friends in Ankara, people I’d met on the road, etc. Only upon arriving in a country full of them, however, did the reality of such an opinion hit home. In all my life, I’ve never met a more accepting people, masters of live and let live. The feeling of Amsterdam is not like Copenhagen or the Alps, but it’s a clean, calm, soul deep refreshment nonetheless. A place that makes you feel like you could live there forever. Perhaps you already have.
Of course there’s one exception to that feeling, and I’m sure it’s the exception that worried my mother. I would like to begin with the disclaimer that all things considered, the Red Light District is a perfectly lovely area. It’s not dangerous or scary or even dirty for that matter. It’s full of tourists, many of them high, and there are scantily clad women sitting in the windows, but there’s nothing else to distinguish it from any other city center. The canals there are as gorgeous as anywhere else, lined with cozy old world architecture of brick and stone. Trendy cafes and boutiques line the narrow, winding streets. There are even a couple of churches spattering the neighborhood.
The feeling then comes less from the area than the people populating it. The Dutch by and large don’t go to the Red Light District, and the tourists therefore appear like nothing so much as a bunch of silly kids who’ve decided to go wild because no one’s there to stop them. Even then though, I didn’t find anyone doing anything worse than blocking street traffic by walking too slowly. Perhaps it’s just the vibe of the city that kept even the debauchery discreet and respectful.
My walking tour guide (because of course I took one) gave us three rules by which the Netherlands is run. If it’s discreet, it’s good for business, and it’s not hurting anyone, let it be. I think that ideology tends to rub off, even on temporary visitors. And if it doesn’t, the Dutch are very good at gentle reminders.
My first encounter with Amsterdam, getting off the train on Wednesday afternoon, was a pleasant surprise. I mentioned I was taking a chance staying in a brand new hostel a bit outside the city. If I’m honest, I was worried we might have a repeat of Berlin where outside the city meant in the slums. I’m not sure there are any slums in Amsterdam though - and there certainly weren’t any where I was staying. From the people all around I thought it might be an immigrant neighborhood, but it was by far the nicest minority community I’d ever had the pleasure to stay in. It was only later that I learned just how truly multi-cultural the Netherlands is. Current racial tensions aside, the country has a long history of welcoming immigrants from abroad, especially their former colony in Suriname, and born in the Netherlands or not, the Dutch welfare state prides itself on making sure everyone has adequate food and housing. Housing that, in a woefully uncommon turn, places new and old, rich and poor, black and white in homes side by side. And through the years everyone got along, miraculously enough.
The ten minute walk from the suburban train station, even with my fifty pound bag, was invigorating, including several water features and a park. It was when I saw this sign a block before my hostel though that I knew being here was fate.
So you have to reverse the ‘e’ and the ‘r’ for it to work exactly, but I didn’t notice that at first glance, and regardless, it was too much of a coincidence to pass up.
The hostel itself, while still under construction, was also very nice. As far as I can tell, it’s meant to be an artists retreat when its done, hence the further out location. In addition to dorms, you can also rent studios, and the complex was full of gorgeous green courtyards and inspiring views, modern art dotting the walls of the floors that were nearly finished. They served breakfast free in the mornings, and there were laundry rooms on two floors. If they intend to install a coin or card operated system, they haven’t yet. I paid the requested six euros for my first load then, but might have done one or two more with the extra soap I’ve been lugging around from Florence…
That first evening after checking in, I settled right into sightseeing, quite aware of my severely limited amount of Amsterdam time. It was a forty-five minute walk to the Anne Frank House, which didn’t close until late, so I decided that was as good a place as any to start, and the walk gave me another chance to take in the loveliness of the city. This, for instance, counts as just your average, run of the mill, middle class neighborhood.
The wait to get into the museum when I arrived was about an hour and a half. Considering that was half the average wait time during the day, I considered myself fortunate, and settled in to watch the tourists pass on the canal boat tours - which unfortunately I never got to take. When I reached a sunny part of the line, the museum staff were even handing out umbrellas to make sure everyone stayed comfortable. It was very thoughtful of them, which seems pretty characteristic of Holland in general.
The museum was, as you might expect, both fascinating and heart wrenching at the same time. They’d done a spectacular job mixing information with emotion. Unfortunately, the house didn’t seem to have the same effect on its visitors as the concentration camp, and by the time we were touring the hidden rooms there was a lot of bored chatter and inattention. This was alongside some very passionate people too, however, and the distinction was clear as day on each and every face.
I finished the tour in one of those pensive melancholy moods, but considering the sun was still high, I figured I’d wander for a bit before heading back to the hostel. The Anne Frank House was much closer to the city center than I’d realized, so I headed inward to pass by the Royal Palace, the New Church, the National Monument, the first stock exchange, the Old Church, and finally to get my first glimpse of the Red Light District. By that time the sun was going down though, so I caught the train back to do my laundry and go to bed.
The next day touring began in earnest. I made it into town early enough that I reckoned I had time to see something small before my walking tour started. I had planned for that something to be the Central Library, but I decided at the last minute that the New Church was a better idea. It was located right next to the tour meeting point on Dam Square and closed much earlier than the library, which I could visit at a later time. In the end, this was judged a good decision.
If I hadn’t gone then, I would have gone at all, and I quite liked exploring the New Church. I hadn’t planned to see many churches in Amsterdam because you have to pay to get into them all, but I have since realized that that is because they are no longer churches in the way I have come to understand them. Sure, they hosting religious services, but they’ve taken secularism to a whole new level, hosting museum exhibitions, concerts, and even fashion shows. At the moment, there is an historical exhibition on the Dutch Royal family, which I very much enjoyed because… you know, royalty. I finished just in time for the tour too, even without rushing.
My tour guide was a Dutch man named Robbert who was a lot of fun, mostly because he was full of sarcastic asides that most people seemed to miss. I’m not going to lie, I missed a couple too, but that made them all the funnier when they were caught. As usual, he taught us a lot of the history of the city - how it was reclaimed from the sea and built on piles, for the first time creating a European state to which there was no heritable claim, and thus instituting the importance of equality that would serve as a social bastion through the ages.
After the tour, I accompanied Robbert and a few others to lunch. I love the Durch, remember? And I’d been dying to try traditional Dutch Stamppot, which is more or less mashed potatoes and vegetables. Can you say yum? There was a bit of a mix up ordering when my “no meat, please,” was interpreted as no meal and they didn’t bring my food with the rest, but it was only a minor embarrassment, and we worked it all out.
As having lunch at a restaurant does, the short social interlude ate a lot of my time, and I realized I didn’t have time for all of the museums I’d planned to pack into my afternoon. In fact, seeing as it was already three and they all closed at five, I wasn’t sure I had time for any of them… except perhaps one.
And that was how I found myself at the Our Lord in the Attic Museum. Remember how I mentioned churches in the Red Light District? This is one of them. After the Protestant Reformation when Catholicism was outlawed - but in true Dutch fashion still tolerated, as long as it was discreet - a large number of secret Catholic churches were founded in the Netherlands. One wealthy merchant bought up a row of three canal houses and converted the top three floors into a massive church, henceforth known as Our Lord in the Attic. For such a tiny space, the museum was very well done, and gave me a chance to see the inside a more or less preserve 17th century canal house. Have I mentioned how much I like seeing old houses?
When that museum closed there was only so much left open that wasn’t restaurants. I spent longer than I expected at the Prostitution Museum, which my Australian friend from Hamburg had recommended. It was actually fascinating, getting a first hand look into the daily lives of Amsterdam’s working girls. Then I finally made it up to the library, which was a treat. Seven floors of books overlooking the river and the city center. I sat and read until another tourist showed up with her children, who were loud and distracting to say the least, so I decided to call it a night.
The next day, though the unusually fantastic weather (as most of the locals were eager to tell me) was starting to fade, I stuck to my original plan of beginning my day with a walk through the parks. There was a series of three that more or less led from my hostel in a round about way to the Van Gogh Museum: Erasmus Park, Rembrandt Park and Vondelpark. Even with the rain rolling in, they were phenomenal. I would have loved a full day just to bike around them in circles, but alas, there was no time.
I hadn’t decided whether I was planning to go into the Van Gogh Museum yet or not, but decided against it on the walk. Not only was it expensive (for some reason the Dutch rarely do student discounts), but I got lost so many time between parks that the excursion was bordering on three hours. The way I saw it I wasn’t going to have time for two major museums that day, and I refused to miss the main Amsterdam Museum.
To be fair I enjoyed the getting lost. Not only did I get offered a job with an herbalife company, but I accidentally wandered through a photo shoot with a half naked man painted entirely blue for some #showyourtruecolors campaign. But sacrifices had to be made, so I glanced around the grounds of the Van Gogh Museum, as well as the other art museums that surrounded it, and continued on the nearby Albert Cuypmarket, a place that could not have made me happier that I didn’t buy a ticket to Van Gogh.
You see, the Cuyp is an Amsterdam tradition - a street market selling anything and everything. Of course I’ve been to plenty of street markets on this trip, but never have I been to one so gloriously cheap. For the price of that ticket to the Van Gogh Museum I ended up purchasing a skirt, a top, a pair of shorts, and a strapless bra, all things I needed because some of my clothing has started getting inconvenient holes in it. The new skirt, which I’m wearing now, already has a hole in it from washing it, but at least it’s on the seam and I think I can solve that with a safety pin. I really should have invested in a sewing kit.
After my success at the market, I finally made it to the Amsterdam Museum I mentioned. It’s main attraction is an Amsterdam DNA exhibit, covering the history of the city with lots of films and interactive displays. That led into more detailed histories of Amsterdam arranged by century. I made it to the very beginning of the twentieth before the museum closed, but that means I also missed the temporary hijab exhibition they’d put in for the summer. Alas, I probably know enough about hijabs, truth be told.
Because I had the same after five problem I’d had the day before, and I didn’t fancy hanging around downtown on a Friday night, I headed back to the hostel early. That gave me time to wash my new clothes and eat dinner in the hostel cafe. It was the first night they’d offered a vegetarian option, pasta with vegetables and bleu cheese cream sauce. Eating there also gave me the opportunity to chat with the chef, a veteran restaurateur who seemed very excited to be working in a hostel now where he could meet people from all over the world.
After dinner I intended to do some last minute work on my computer before bed, but got sidetracked by an Iranian man returning from a conference in Delft. He was staying in the room, and while I should point out that he was not in the least bit creepy, he did get rather excited when he realized I knew more about Iran than most Americans, including where it’s located and that it has a massive number of ancient ruins that would be spectacular to visit if tensions between the two countries weren’t so high. That led him to begin showing me slideshows of all the pictures he’s taken on his domestic travels in Iran, which was nice and all… but we know how I feel about pictures.
I did make it to sleep eventually at least, and the weather had cooled down enough that I even got to curl up in my blankets.
The next day was a day I had been looking forward to for a while: my day trip to The Hague! For those who don’t know, The Hague is kind of unofficial legal capital of the world. Any sort of international judicial function, with the exception of a spare few that go on in Geneva, happens there, and so me and my love of all things diplomatic was drawn like a wasp to a flame. Even when I had to start cutting days to shorten my trip, the Hague was never an option. Sure, there’s not that much to see because things are happening in the important parts, and thus they can’t be visited. But things are happening!!
Anyway, I’d plotted out a route for my tour around town, starting at the Peace Palace, home to the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ). As far as I understood they had a visitors center with a free audio guide that was open to the public, but we weren’t allowed to go in to the palace itself. From there I was meant to take a self guided walking tour of the royal sights in The Hague that would end at an old prison where there was a guided tour at 2:15. Well, all that went out the window as soon as I arrived at the Palace of Peace.
I don’t know how I missed the information about guided tours, but guided tours there were, and for only one euro more than the one at the prison museum. Well, I like prisons, but international law! Naturally I signed up immediately. I had to wait an hour or so, during which time I wandered the center with my audio guide, learning all about the history of Peace Palace. Exhibits included everything from the theoretical foundations of arbitration as an alternative to war to detailed descriptions of how the PCA and ICJ work. Though I finished before the tour, there was also a display of books we were welcome to page through. I began to read one that has caught my eye multiple times in the past, “A Little History of the World.” It’s as much of a page turner as I expected it to be, and while I can guarantee it will be in my library someday, I am exercising mass amounts of willpower at the moment not to give in and buy it when there’s so much else to read.
The tour itself was a-mazing. It reminded me of just why I’m so determined to pursue a career in diplomacy. The things that happen there matter, and have far reaching consequences the world over. Coming off my Amsterdam high (though not that kind), I definitely started to consider how lovely it would be to live and work in The Hague, taking trips out to Amsterdam when the fancy struck me. It’s an appealing concept, just to keep in mind.
Having taken time out for the Peace Palace, my hopes of touring the prison were shot, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t continue with my walk as planned. Wandering from street to street I managed to see Lange Voorhout Palace, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands, Kloosterkerk, Grote Kerk, Noordeinde Palace and Gardens, and the Binnenhof Houses of Parliament.
I even managed to find the Gerard de Graaff tobacco shop, which Winston Churchill used to frequent whenever possible. Does it count as a selfie if you can see me in the window?
I finished with perfect timing to catch the earlier of the two trains I’d jotted down to take me on the Brussels. It left from a different station than I’d arrived, but I’d already been there to store my bag because the lockers at Central Station were out of order due to construction. And now I’m on a train! It was suspiciously empty when I got on, but filled up nicely at Rotterdam, and then not so nicely at Antwerp. Just three days and I’m going to miss the Netherlands dearly. In fact, I think I already do.
Friends I’ve been in contact with over the past few days have had to endure a constant barrage of texts about just how much I love the Dutch. I knew this already from my travels: friends in Ankara, people I’d met on the road, etc. Only upon arriving in a country full of them, however, did the reality of such an opinion hit home. In all my life, I’ve never met a more accepting people, masters of live and let live. The feeling of Amsterdam is not like Copenhagen or the Alps, but it’s a clean, calm, soul deep refreshment nonetheless. A place that makes you feel like you could live there forever. Perhaps you already have.
Of course there’s one exception to that feeling, and I’m sure it’s the exception that worried my mother. I would like to begin with the disclaimer that all things considered, the Red Light District is a perfectly lovely area. It’s not dangerous or scary or even dirty for that matter. It’s full of tourists, many of them high, and there are scantily clad women sitting in the windows, but there’s nothing else to distinguish it from any other city center. The canals there are as gorgeous as anywhere else, lined with cozy old world architecture of brick and stone. Trendy cafes and boutiques line the narrow, winding streets. There are even a couple of churches spattering the neighborhood.
The feeling then comes less from the area than the people populating it. The Dutch by and large don’t go to the Red Light District, and the tourists therefore appear like nothing so much as a bunch of silly kids who’ve decided to go wild because no one’s there to stop them. Even then though, I didn’t find anyone doing anything worse than blocking street traffic by walking too slowly. Perhaps it’s just the vibe of the city that kept even the debauchery discreet and respectful.
My walking tour guide (because of course I took one) gave us three rules by which the Netherlands is run. If it’s discreet, it’s good for business, and it’s not hurting anyone, let it be. I think that ideology tends to rub off, even on temporary visitors. And if it doesn’t, the Dutch are very good at gentle reminders.
My first encounter with Amsterdam, getting off the train on Wednesday afternoon, was a pleasant surprise. I mentioned I was taking a chance staying in a brand new hostel a bit outside the city. If I’m honest, I was worried we might have a repeat of Berlin where outside the city meant in the slums. I’m not sure there are any slums in Amsterdam though - and there certainly weren’t any where I was staying. From the people all around I thought it might be an immigrant neighborhood, but it was by far the nicest minority community I’d ever had the pleasure to stay in. It was only later that I learned just how truly multi-cultural the Netherlands is. Current racial tensions aside, the country has a long history of welcoming immigrants from abroad, especially their former colony in Suriname, and born in the Netherlands or not, the Dutch welfare state prides itself on making sure everyone has adequate food and housing. Housing that, in a woefully uncommon turn, places new and old, rich and poor, black and white in homes side by side. And through the years everyone got along, miraculously enough.
The ten minute walk from the suburban train station, even with my fifty pound bag, was invigorating, including several water features and a park. It was when I saw this sign a block before my hostel though that I knew being here was fate.
So you have to reverse the ‘e’ and the ‘r’ for it to work exactly, but I didn’t notice that at first glance, and regardless, it was too much of a coincidence to pass up.
The hostel itself, while still under construction, was also very nice. As far as I can tell, it’s meant to be an artists retreat when its done, hence the further out location. In addition to dorms, you can also rent studios, and the complex was full of gorgeous green courtyards and inspiring views, modern art dotting the walls of the floors that were nearly finished. They served breakfast free in the mornings, and there were laundry rooms on two floors. If they intend to install a coin or card operated system, they haven’t yet. I paid the requested six euros for my first load then, but might have done one or two more with the extra soap I’ve been lugging around from Florence…
That first evening after checking in, I settled right into sightseeing, quite aware of my severely limited amount of Amsterdam time. It was a forty-five minute walk to the Anne Frank House, which didn’t close until late, so I decided that was as good a place as any to start, and the walk gave me another chance to take in the loveliness of the city. This, for instance, counts as just your average, run of the mill, middle class neighborhood.
The wait to get into the museum when I arrived was about an hour and a half. Considering that was half the average wait time during the day, I considered myself fortunate, and settled in to watch the tourists pass on the canal boat tours - which unfortunately I never got to take. When I reached a sunny part of the line, the museum staff were even handing out umbrellas to make sure everyone stayed comfortable. It was very thoughtful of them, which seems pretty characteristic of Holland in general.
The museum was, as you might expect, both fascinating and heart wrenching at the same time. They’d done a spectacular job mixing information with emotion. Unfortunately, the house didn’t seem to have the same effect on its visitors as the concentration camp, and by the time we were touring the hidden rooms there was a lot of bored chatter and inattention. This was alongside some very passionate people too, however, and the distinction was clear as day on each and every face.
I finished the tour in one of those pensive melancholy moods, but considering the sun was still high, I figured I’d wander for a bit before heading back to the hostel. The Anne Frank House was much closer to the city center than I’d realized, so I headed inward to pass by the Royal Palace, the New Church, the National Monument, the first stock exchange, the Old Church, and finally to get my first glimpse of the Red Light District. By that time the sun was going down though, so I caught the train back to do my laundry and go to bed.
The next day touring began in earnest. I made it into town early enough that I reckoned I had time to see something small before my walking tour started. I had planned for that something to be the Central Library, but I decided at the last minute that the New Church was a better idea. It was located right next to the tour meeting point on Dam Square and closed much earlier than the library, which I could visit at a later time. In the end, this was judged a good decision.
If I hadn’t gone then, I would have gone at all, and I quite liked exploring the New Church. I hadn’t planned to see many churches in Amsterdam because you have to pay to get into them all, but I have since realized that that is because they are no longer churches in the way I have come to understand them. Sure, they hosting religious services, but they’ve taken secularism to a whole new level, hosting museum exhibitions, concerts, and even fashion shows. At the moment, there is an historical exhibition on the Dutch Royal family, which I very much enjoyed because… you know, royalty. I finished just in time for the tour too, even without rushing.
My tour guide was a Dutch man named Robbert who was a lot of fun, mostly because he was full of sarcastic asides that most people seemed to miss. I’m not going to lie, I missed a couple too, but that made them all the funnier when they were caught. As usual, he taught us a lot of the history of the city - how it was reclaimed from the sea and built on piles, for the first time creating a European state to which there was no heritable claim, and thus instituting the importance of equality that would serve as a social bastion through the ages.
After the tour, I accompanied Robbert and a few others to lunch. I love the Durch, remember? And I’d been dying to try traditional Dutch Stamppot, which is more or less mashed potatoes and vegetables. Can you say yum? There was a bit of a mix up ordering when my “no meat, please,” was interpreted as no meal and they didn’t bring my food with the rest, but it was only a minor embarrassment, and we worked it all out.
As having lunch at a restaurant does, the short social interlude ate a lot of my time, and I realized I didn’t have time for all of the museums I’d planned to pack into my afternoon. In fact, seeing as it was already three and they all closed at five, I wasn’t sure I had time for any of them… except perhaps one.
And that was how I found myself at the Our Lord in the Attic Museum. Remember how I mentioned churches in the Red Light District? This is one of them. After the Protestant Reformation when Catholicism was outlawed - but in true Dutch fashion still tolerated, as long as it was discreet - a large number of secret Catholic churches were founded in the Netherlands. One wealthy merchant bought up a row of three canal houses and converted the top three floors into a massive church, henceforth known as Our Lord in the Attic. For such a tiny space, the museum was very well done, and gave me a chance to see the inside a more or less preserve 17th century canal house. Have I mentioned how much I like seeing old houses?
When that museum closed there was only so much left open that wasn’t restaurants. I spent longer than I expected at the Prostitution Museum, which my Australian friend from Hamburg had recommended. It was actually fascinating, getting a first hand look into the daily lives of Amsterdam’s working girls. Then I finally made it up to the library, which was a treat. Seven floors of books overlooking the river and the city center. I sat and read until another tourist showed up with her children, who were loud and distracting to say the least, so I decided to call it a night.
The next day, though the unusually fantastic weather (as most of the locals were eager to tell me) was starting to fade, I stuck to my original plan of beginning my day with a walk through the parks. There was a series of three that more or less led from my hostel in a round about way to the Van Gogh Museum: Erasmus Park, Rembrandt Park and Vondelpark. Even with the rain rolling in, they were phenomenal. I would have loved a full day just to bike around them in circles, but alas, there was no time.
I hadn’t decided whether I was planning to go into the Van Gogh Museum yet or not, but decided against it on the walk. Not only was it expensive (for some reason the Dutch rarely do student discounts), but I got lost so many time between parks that the excursion was bordering on three hours. The way I saw it I wasn’t going to have time for two major museums that day, and I refused to miss the main Amsterdam Museum.
To be fair I enjoyed the getting lost. Not only did I get offered a job with an herbalife company, but I accidentally wandered through a photo shoot with a half naked man painted entirely blue for some #showyourtruecolors campaign. But sacrifices had to be made, so I glanced around the grounds of the Van Gogh Museum, as well as the other art museums that surrounded it, and continued on the nearby Albert Cuypmarket, a place that could not have made me happier that I didn’t buy a ticket to Van Gogh.
You see, the Cuyp is an Amsterdam tradition - a street market selling anything and everything. Of course I’ve been to plenty of street markets on this trip, but never have I been to one so gloriously cheap. For the price of that ticket to the Van Gogh Museum I ended up purchasing a skirt, a top, a pair of shorts, and a strapless bra, all things I needed because some of my clothing has started getting inconvenient holes in it. The new skirt, which I’m wearing now, already has a hole in it from washing it, but at least it’s on the seam and I think I can solve that with a safety pin. I really should have invested in a sewing kit.
After my success at the market, I finally made it to the Amsterdam Museum I mentioned. It’s main attraction is an Amsterdam DNA exhibit, covering the history of the city with lots of films and interactive displays. That led into more detailed histories of Amsterdam arranged by century. I made it to the very beginning of the twentieth before the museum closed, but that means I also missed the temporary hijab exhibition they’d put in for the summer. Alas, I probably know enough about hijabs, truth be told.
Because I had the same after five problem I’d had the day before, and I didn’t fancy hanging around downtown on a Friday night, I headed back to the hostel early. That gave me time to wash my new clothes and eat dinner in the hostel cafe. It was the first night they’d offered a vegetarian option, pasta with vegetables and bleu cheese cream sauce. Eating there also gave me the opportunity to chat with the chef, a veteran restaurateur who seemed very excited to be working in a hostel now where he could meet people from all over the world.
After dinner I intended to do some last minute work on my computer before bed, but got sidetracked by an Iranian man returning from a conference in Delft. He was staying in the room, and while I should point out that he was not in the least bit creepy, he did get rather excited when he realized I knew more about Iran than most Americans, including where it’s located and that it has a massive number of ancient ruins that would be spectacular to visit if tensions between the two countries weren’t so high. That led him to begin showing me slideshows of all the pictures he’s taken on his domestic travels in Iran, which was nice and all… but we know how I feel about pictures.
I did make it to sleep eventually at least, and the weather had cooled down enough that I even got to curl up in my blankets.
The next day was a day I had been looking forward to for a while: my day trip to The Hague! For those who don’t know, The Hague is kind of unofficial legal capital of the world. Any sort of international judicial function, with the exception of a spare few that go on in Geneva, happens there, and so me and my love of all things diplomatic was drawn like a wasp to a flame. Even when I had to start cutting days to shorten my trip, the Hague was never an option. Sure, there’s not that much to see because things are happening in the important parts, and thus they can’t be visited. But things are happening!!
Anyway, I’d plotted out a route for my tour around town, starting at the Peace Palace, home to the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ). As far as I understood they had a visitors center with a free audio guide that was open to the public, but we weren’t allowed to go in to the palace itself. From there I was meant to take a self guided walking tour of the royal sights in The Hague that would end at an old prison where there was a guided tour at 2:15. Well, all that went out the window as soon as I arrived at the Palace of Peace.
I don’t know how I missed the information about guided tours, but guided tours there were, and for only one euro more than the one at the prison museum. Well, I like prisons, but international law! Naturally I signed up immediately. I had to wait an hour or so, during which time I wandered the center with my audio guide, learning all about the history of Peace Palace. Exhibits included everything from the theoretical foundations of arbitration as an alternative to war to detailed descriptions of how the PCA and ICJ work. Though I finished before the tour, there was also a display of books we were welcome to page through. I began to read one that has caught my eye multiple times in the past, “A Little History of the World.” It’s as much of a page turner as I expected it to be, and while I can guarantee it will be in my library someday, I am exercising mass amounts of willpower at the moment not to give in and buy it when there’s so much else to read.
The tour itself was a-mazing. It reminded me of just why I’m so determined to pursue a career in diplomacy. The things that happen there matter, and have far reaching consequences the world over. Coming off my Amsterdam high (though not that kind), I definitely started to consider how lovely it would be to live and work in The Hague, taking trips out to Amsterdam when the fancy struck me. It’s an appealing concept, just to keep in mind.
Having taken time out for the Peace Palace, my hopes of touring the prison were shot, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t continue with my walk as planned. Wandering from street to street I managed to see Lange Voorhout Palace, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands, Kloosterkerk, Grote Kerk, Noordeinde Palace and Gardens, and the Binnenhof Houses of Parliament.
I even managed to find the Gerard de Graaff tobacco shop, which Winston Churchill used to frequent whenever possible. Does it count as a selfie if you can see me in the window?
I finished with perfect timing to catch the earlier of the two trains I’d jotted down to take me on the Brussels. It left from a different station than I’d arrived, but I’d already been there to store my bag because the lockers at Central Station were out of order due to construction. And now I’m on a train! It was suspiciously empty when I got on, but filled up nicely at Rotterdam, and then not so nicely at Antwerp. Just three days and I’m going to miss the Netherlands dearly. In fact, I think I already do.
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