Canals, Pearls and other Dutch things

So, I haven't been writing much, as I haven't been travelling much, focussing more on enjoying life here in the Hague over the past few weeks.

Queen's Day is a public holiday on 30th April, where the Dutch celebrate the birthday of the previous Queen. Queen's Night, 29th April, is a massive street party everywhere in Holland, with people dressed in bright orange, waving flags, drinking and being generally merry! It was a crazy and enjoyable night, with all the drama usually associated with big nights out - relationship crises, fist fights, and general dancing mayhem!! But great fun!! Amsterdam is the place to be on Queen's Day, if you're on a canal, however after battling the crowds on Queen's Night in the Hague, I decided to opt for a more relaxing beach public holiday experience!

Which was lucky, as the past few weeks have been highly unpleasant weather - cold, rainy, windy to the extreme - lucky I haven't sent my winter clothes home yet!!

Friday night a couple of weekends ago we went on a canal tour - it was great, sailing around the various waterways of the Hague, really seeing lots of the city that you otherwise wouldn't get to! Some of the bridges are quite low, however, so we had to crouch in the bottom of the boat!

I finally found my way to the Turkish fruit markets this weekend, and bought so much cheap fruit and vegetables, it was great!

Saturday night we hosted a Eurovision party at my place - lots of fun, laughing at the various acts - our top votes were Georgia, Greece and Ukraine, however Serbia won the day (very political for us, as we are prosecuting war criminals from there!)

Sunday I went to the Mauritshuis, which is the art gallery here - it houses the famour Vermeer 'Girl with a pearl earring', among other lovely Dutch works, so it was a great way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon!!

So, in other news - I will be home in July!!! I decided that many months of vague travel plans with limited funds didn't sound like as much fun anymore, so I will finish my internship at the end of May, travel around for a month (Prague, Vienna, Venice, Croatia, Greece), and then head home late June/early July, to start work at Allens 11th of July. So, Sydneysiders, prepare yourselves, I'm coming home!!