Orange everywhere.... Must be the Netherlands

Sinking much?

Next stop - Den Haag, Netherlands.

We have a friend here, Vinny, who lives in Den Haag, so we decided to pay him a visit. Dean had also never been to NL so we explored the little country from here.

We checked out Den Haag with Vinny when we arrived, including Vinny's local market, which is HUGE! and CHEAP! Then we checked out the town of Den Haag, which on this particular day was celebrating Queen's Day. The Queen of NL had been in town earlier and had since left but everyone else was still around dressed in Orange and having a bit of a party. [Historical note - the Royal family of NL is the family of Orange, hence the national colour i guess].

That night we headed to Vinny's parents and had a beautiful home-cooked dinner (thanks Janet) and heard lots more about NL from Vinny's dad, who i'm pretty sure knows everything about NL.

We spent Sunday (the next day) checking out Delft, a cool little town with lots of canals and numerous tilted buildings which is what happens when you build on water i guess. It also had an awesome museum where Dean and I actually learnt something about the histoy of NL and a cafe with yummy cakes.

Delft entrance gate... pretty nice

Vinny had to head to work on Monday (awh) so Dean and I headed to Amsterdam for the day - it poured!!!!! We both cued in museum lines for ages getting soaked. Dean headed to the Van Gogh museum (i went there a few years ago) and 'found it interesting reading about his whole life', and i went to newly re-opened Rijksmuseum. Thankfully, this museum had english info everywhere which is always helpful and many masterpieces as well. Lots of Rembrandt. I followed this up with a visit to Rembradt's house, now a fan.

We headed to Amsterdam the following day as well and thankfully the rain had finished. Much nicer! We wondered around the usual haunts and by Irish luck bumped into Evelyn (a friend from work in Galway) and her beau John! How's that?

Crazy buggers Bungy jumping at the beach. Dean was contemplating it, i
definately wasn't!

There are tulips everywhere too. The train between Den Haag and Amsterdam went past lots of fields of tulips of every colour. Loved it!

Many thanks to Vinny for looking after us, hope to see you back in Aus soon.xx