Saket Vora

Woke up at 6:00am today and we all got dressed. We were down for breakfast at 7:15am. The breakfast included in our bill is surprising full featured. Breads, cheeses (including this different but really nice cheese I hadn’t seen before), cereal, etc. We also made some light sandwiches and kept it with us, thereby saving us the cost of a lunch. We took a tram to the Centraal station and bought tickets to Den Haag. We timed it fairly well, didn’t have to wait more than 15 minutes. The trains here in Holland are double-decker, so we took the top level to get a better view. The train ride was uneventful. I read my Economist and such. Sachi slept a bit, which was a good idea. We arrived in Den Haag but forgot to pick up a map or something at the train station. The Europe guide doesn’t have a map of it, so it was a bit of just free exploring. Once again, someone came by and asked us if we needed any help. We just started walking to the city center. I wanted to see Den Haag (The Hague) because I had read about it a lot in the papers and I heard from Frank it was a nice city that wasn’t so touristy like Amsterdam. I dunno if it was because it was Monday, but the city didn’t really feel busy. It was ok. It was nice by the canals. We did not get to see the International Criminal Court because it is located out side the city. WE did see the Peace Palace and some other old buildings. We learned that the town of Delft was reachable by tram ride, and that city WAS mentioned in the Frommer’s guide to Europe that my sisters brought along. We rode a tram to Delft and walked around a bit. It is a nice small town that has canals running all through it. We read that there is some famous blue and white porcelain made here, but unlike in Prague where they were selling bohemian crystal on every street corner, we couldn’t find anyone selling the porcelain. We must have spent 15 or 20 minutes following these signs to a porcelain place, but really didn’t feel like it was going anywhere. We took the tram back Den Haag and then boarded a train back to Amsterdam. It was about 3pm when we got back to Amsterdam, which meant it was the first time we saw the main city with light. Fortunately for us it was both not very cold and not rainy. The city along the canals does look rather nice when the sun is out. We set out west of the ‘Red Light District’ and worked our way down until we reached the King’s old palace. There was this very impressive very large structure that turned out to be a shopping mall! We turned westward and started crossing some of the four main canals that encircle the old city of Amsterdam. We soon found Anne Frank’s house and took the tour inside. When my parents were in Amsterdam so many years ago, they did not see Anne Frank’s house and my mom has always wanted to. It was a good museum – not a huge variety of information because the topic is so focused, but I mean come on, we got to stand in Anne Frank’s room and see the pictures and postcards she put up on the wall. It was a good experience. Afterward there was only one hour left before the van Gogh museum was to close so we made our way back to the ‘shopping mall’ and took a tram back to the hotel. The Frommer’s Europe guide has to cover all of Europe, so the restaurant recommendations are quite limited. One inexpensive vegetarian apparently made the list in Amsterdam, so went there after a brief stopover at the hotel to drop off the backpack and such. We were able to re-use our tram ticket. The restaurant had dishes for about $11-13 per plate, and had Mexican, Indian, and middle eastern dishes. We had one of each. The food was good and we ate our fill. We walked back from this restaurant at Fredicksplein to our hotel, which is a short walk from Leidseplein. We felt rather tired today, so I had some Tylenol and spent a bit of time downloading pictures from the camera and writing entries in this journal. Tomorrow I must find an internet café and also call home. Since none of the museums open before 10 and the sun doesn’t come out until 8:30, we are going to push back our wake-up time from 6am to 7am. Ahh, one more hour. Tomorrow we will walk through a bit of Vondelpark, go to the Amsterdams Historische Museum, take a peep at the Red Light district, take a canal tour, and probably try an Amstel and a Heineken, both local brews. Then off to bed early so we can catch the earliest train to Brussels. ‘Night.