Saturday, March 26, 2011

Culture phase

We are approaching the 3 month mark in Holland. At first our focus was on settling in. Then we seemed to have had a solid month of sickness and cold weather. Just this week, I realized that we're living a little too much like natives, in that we haven't done any touristy things. And that's a shame! Part of the reason we wanted to live in Europe, is to experience the culture. We almost need to live like natives during the week, and like tourists on the weekend/vacations.

Joe's first semester at school is over, and he has a full week of vacation. Not having to study, opened up a chance to enjoy a little of Holland. Unfortunately the weather wasn't cooperating, so our plans to hit the beach had to be changed for an inside activity. After some research, it quickly became apparent that there are more great museums here than you could see in a year. The yearly museum subscription will the best chance for us to see as many as we can.

We decided to stay close to home today, and visit Den Haag's "Gevangenpoort". It's a 600 year old jail that is located in the city wall gate. But the cool thing about Holland is, that even if you go for a museum, there are so many other things to see right around it. Old buildings, history, typical dutch food stands, and of course tiny cars.

Instead of tearing down old, dilapidated buildings, they gut them, and renovate from the bottom up
at the Binnenhof (home of the parliament)
Enjoying some typical Dutch food: raw Haring with onions. YUM!
Winter was willing to try it, Ginger and Sterling, not so much!
Joe's lesson in pigeon catching.
And of course, the tiny car. Doesn't this just look like a toy car, that was blown up in a magical expansion machine??

1 comment:

Nancy Sabina said...

That car is unbelievable!

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