Day 7 was filled with many adventures! We first began by taking a train to The Hague and going to the Mauritshuis Museum. I saw many famous paintings like the Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer and The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp by Rembrandt van Rijn. Another fascinating thing I saw was conservation work done on The Bull by Paulus Potter. The work was needed on the large painting because the varnish had yellowed over time, so now the colors are no longer vibrant. In addition to bringing the painting back to life, they were also removing past restorations.
After the art museum, we met as a large group to eat at a local Indonesian place! This was a great way to experience a side of Dutch culture that not everyone might immediately think of. Traditionally, people might associate the Netherlands with cheese, stroopwafels, and herring- but Indonesian cuisine is actually a major part of Dutch food culture. Our tour guide mentioned that about 1 in 5 people in the Netherlands have Indonesian roots, largely due to the country’s colonial history.
To continue our day, we visited the beautiful Peace Palace. Over time, the Peace Palace has become a powerful symbol that represents the global effort to achieve world peace. One particular fact that stood out to me- and made the experience feel more personal- was the connection to Andrew Carnegie. He played a major role in funding the construction of the building by donating a 1.5 million dollar gift! His only stipulation was that a library must also be built. Today, that very library is the largest international law library! As someone who goes to school in Pittsburgh and grew up going to the Carnegie Museums, it was very interesting to see his impact reach all the way to The Netherlands.
Our final stop of the day was to the Scheveningen Beach! I never thought I’d end up at the beach while visiting The Netherlands, so this was a fun and unexpected surprise. Because today was a colder day, we just walked along the beach, looked for seashells, and of course, got ice cream.
