Day 7 was a very touristic and educational day!
My day started off with a very pleasant breakfast from our new hostel in Rotterdam; I was very happy to see that I had more options than just oatmeal (which is actually not even offered at this hostel) and I was able to enjoy a breakfast of bread, vegan margarine, and apricot jam! After breakfast, we all took a train to Den Haag, or The Hague, and had a few hours to explore the city. There, we walked around for some time and explored some local bakeries and then decided to visit the Mauritshuis Museum. Inside the museum, we spent over 2.5 hours exploring historical paintings created by various artists including Vermeer and Rembrandt. I finally got to see Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring” painting Rembrandt’s famous self-portrait in a frame on the wall! After exploring all of the paintings and the few displayed sculptures, we went to the second half of the museum to learn about its history during WWII. I learned that the museum did not support Nazi policies and offered free entry to Jews while also putting up “No Jews Allowed” signs in order to comply with regulations. The museum was also able to save many valuable paintings by ranking all of its exhibitions based on their value and switching/mixing up the order in which they were displayed. After exploring the historical exhibition, we peeked into the restaurant inside the museum; I bought a vegan brownie which turned out to taste very mediocre.
When we walked out of the Maritshuis Museum, we noticed that the museum had two free stands: one for ice cream, and one for fried, sugared dough balls. After I finished my brownie and my friends finished their ice cream, we walked over to our meeting point for lunch. On the way, we noticed that there was a free-entrance tourist tower which hosted an observatory, bird’s-eye-view platform to view the entire city of Den Haag; we climbed up the tower and took some cool pictures. We then walked back to our meeting point–we had all ordered food from an Indonesian fast-food restaurant called Trio Eethuis which was generously covered by the program coordinators; I had ordered a salad without egg, and I was happy to see that they had gotten my order correct. I was sad, however, when I found that my food was not fully satisfying and I looked for more places to eat as I went along my day’s excursions.
Once we finished eating, we all went to the Peace Palace where we were able to walk through the history of the United Nations with a self-paced audio guide and learn about its roots in Rotterdam. I was surprised to learn that Andrew Carnegie, whom CMU is named after, has roots near the Netherlands and was actually the main reason why the Peace Palace was even built. Carnegie donated enough money for the Peace Palace and other similar, more small-scale buildings to be built across the world. Outside of the Peace Palace building, there is a tree with messages of peace and love written along paper strips hanging from each branch (presumably written by tourists and other visitors).
After leaving the Peace Palace, we were free for the rest of the day and decided to go to the Scheveningen Beach as it is a very famous beach in the Hague. After a combination of walking and taking a tram, we finally arrived near the boardwalk and spent around an hour simply wandering the markets. I bought some very-decently-priced jewelry from the street vendors and am excited to wear them for the first time during this program! We then walked into the mall that was also on the boardwalk near the many restaurants and bought some candy from the supermarket that was there. We then wandered the mall and the boardwalk some more while enjoying the live music that was being performed inside one of the restaurants on the boardwalk! We finally walked towards the sand, on the sand for about 20 seconds, and back onto the sidewalk next to the sand. We sat down and munched on our candy while watching the waves and admiring the nearby dogs and puppies who were also exploring the beach. Before we headed back, we picked up dinner from the nearby Eazie, a Korean restaurant, where I ordered a vegan poké bowl. We took a tram and a train to head back to Rotterdam Centraal, from where we walked back to our hostel for the night. On the walk back, we stopped at an Albert Heijn where I bought a vegan cinnamon roll for dessert. We ate our dinner once we were back at our hostel; my poké bowl was the best that I have ever had! The cinnamon roll was alright–a bit dry and missing some flavor–but I absolutely loved my poké bowl.
Overall, today was full of walking and exploring the Hague and I really enjoyed it! I am excited to visit more museums and companies over the next week!
