a sea of orange

april 30, 2009:

spent queen's night (evening of april 29th) in the hague. i had my doubts as to how "wild" things would get. i'd been told that it's quite a change from the usual "scene" in the hague. i was totally dubious. and totally wrong. scads of people, more people than i thought lived in the hague emerged in the evening and converged in nearly every nook and cranny in this city. it was quite the spectacle. the crowd was fairly young. an australian friend of E.B.'s call them "ferals". so apt. ferals from god knows where were running around and being rowdies. our group started off strong, but we lost people as we made our way around town. the evening capped off in front of the escher museum where we took a ride on a ferris wheel. super awesome. (the other highlight was the slushy pina colada that came with a flip-flop key-chain. a beverage + a prize!)

got up late on the 30th. met up with E.B. and his friend from work to head into amsterdam at 2 pm. got to amsterdam about an hour later, having traveled in a car on the train that appeared to have no ventilation. thought we might die because oxygen was running out. made it in to the city fine and joined the thousands of people streaming out of amsterdam centraal station into the city. wandered the streets of jordaan and checked out the crazy costumes (orange, orange, orange) and the stuff people were selling on the streets (yard-sale style). saw one super cute dutch girl with pippi longstocking hair playing a mini accordian. omg. so cute. E.B. commented that kids speaking a foreign language always seem cuter, somehow. so true. ended up at a houseboat party that i'd been invited to (one of the other interns threw it on his new houseboat in a'dam) and hung out there for a while. met a whole bunch of new people. wandered back to the train station, after pit-stopping for pommes frites en route (doused in ketchup, not by choice). due to deft footwork by E.B.'s friend, we ended up getting seats on the train. yay. a considerable coup considering that the entire city was emptying out of amsterdam and heading back onto trains at the station. we were in a fairly rowdy car (but by far much better than being at spring break anywhere in north america), but arrived unscathed in den haag. (except that my eardrums were battered by the loudest and most obnoxious couple seen in a very long time).

home sweet hague.