Today was a rare day, as we had almost exclusively free time except for one group museum visit. The morning began with us leaving the hostel at 9 AM to board a train for The Hague, which is a city close to the west coast of the Netherlands, where the Dutch Parliament functions in its entirety. Shortly after we arrived, we broke off into groups and decided to go to the nearby Albert Heijn, where a friend and I shared a two-pack of chocolate muffins. I still haven’t gotten over just how cheap groceries are here, the muffins were around 1.60 euros and pretty tasty.
After visiting the store, we took the tram further into the city’s center and visited the Mauritshuis, which is yet another art museum, but this one held masterpieces including Girl With a Pearl Earring and The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp. The building housed hundreds of beautiful paintings, including floral still-lifes, portraits, landscapes, and more, each housed in an original frame (some of which were GORGEOUS). Nearly every room was covered from wall to wall with paintings, with the ‘hub’ rooms, for lack of a better term, displaying beautiful interior design and architecture. On the first floor, we got to witness a museum staff crew working to restore The Bull by Paulus Potter, showing the museum-goers firsthand how such famous works are maintained.
After leaving the masterpiece exhibition, we decided to visit the secondary exhibition, showing how the Mauritshuis kept the works of art safe during World War II. I feel that this section was especially interesting, as it provided me with a new perspective, that of a family who feared art would be destroyed by a tyrannical, fascist people because they lived close to the parliament. There were several exhibits explaining how Menno de Groot, a Dutch citizen born nine years before WWII began, lived his early life and worked with his family to protect the paintings inside of the building. I feel that going to so many art museums throughout this trip has given me a new appreciation for the fine arts, as each museum has provided me with several opportunities to learn just how art is made, protected, and overall kept beautiful.
After leaving the Mauritshuis, we met up with everyone else and ate Indonesian food, and I got shrimp and fried rice; it was delicious, but not very filling. We then visited the Peace Palace and went through their audio tour of the history, purpose, and goals of the institution. I had never realized just how much time and money Andrew Carnegie put into creating the Peace Palace, nor that next door was one of the largest educational libraries for international law students. For as short as the tour was, I feel I learned lots of information during it. After leaving the museum, we stood outside the actual Peace Palace and admired its beauty from behind a gate.
After the Peace Palace, we had even more free time, so some of us decided to travel to the coastline and see the beach. It took around 45 minutes and a missed bus, but we eventually made it, and I think the unique experience was well worth it. When we arrived, we ran to the coastline as close to the water as possible. The area right next to the sea was adorned with literal walls of seafoam, which I had never seen before. Meanwhile, it was nearly 50 degrees Fahrenheit and extremely windy, which even made me a little cold, definitely a unique experience for a beach. We walked for around half an hour along the coastline, looking at shells, hearing the waves, seeing ships and wind turbines on the ocean from afar, and watching chunks of seafoam blow past us like tumbleweeds in a western movie. After leaving the beach, we returned to our hotel and settled down for the night, sandy feet and all.
