Den Haag, Netherlands day 4 of trip
Trip Start
Sep 23, 2010
1
65
96
Trip End
May 31, 2011
Where I stayed
The Hague, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
One of the things that kept recurring on the trip was the question of whether or not to buy tickets for the trains. It seemed like the people who check the tickets on the train never came around and that was especially true for 5 minute trips. It seemed like you could just hop on the train and hop off. Every once and a while we would just hop on and hope for the best if we didn't have to buy tickets. Usually we would buy tickets, especially for longer trips. The trains are very frequent in Netherlands, so it makes it easy to just hop on a train and then get off 5 minutes later without paying for a ticket. Of course you are only saving 2 euros when the train only takes 5 minutes, but that still adds up when you are traveling. However, it seemed like whenever we didn't buy tickets the person who checked for tickets was always right on our tail. On the contrary it seemed like our tickets were never checked when we bought them, even during long journeys that lasted over an hour. I guess my advice is, buy a ticket. It's not worth saving the 2 euros to have to put up a hassle with the person checking tickets at the end. It's always better to be safe than sorry especially when you are traveling. There is no reason to spend time arguing about a 2 euro train ticket when you could be exploring a new city.
When we arrived to Den Haag we started walking around the city and spent the better part of an hour looking for the tourist office. We walked through all sorts of streets and found tons of CD shops. It seemed like everyone was riding a bike and there were all sorts of bikes in the streets that were chained up to anything you could imagine. On the way to the tourist office to get a map and some advice on where to go, we ended up in the middle of a book market. I love books and wanted to see if they by chance had any English books. I wasn't betting on it, but I figured it was worth a look because I need to pick up a new book since I am running out of them at the moment. It was to my surprise that there were quite a few English books at the fair actually. They were all relatively cheap because most the books were used. I came across John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and decided to buy it only 2 euros. I recalled hearing about how Woody Guthrie wrote protest/folk songs about Tom Joad. Tom Joad is the main character in the book, as I have heard. I have also enjoyed listening to Bruce Springsteen's album entitled The Ghost of Tom Joad. I really enjoy Springsteen's The Ghost of Tom Joad as the lyrics are very powerful. I also enjoy Rage Against the Machine covering this song on their last album. It was really cool to see Tom Morello, the guitar player of Rage Against the Machine, play this song live with Bruce Springsteen. You can find the video on Youtube and you will be blown away by how creative and good Tom Morello is at guitar.
After the book fair we finally found the tourist office and the lady gave us a free map and recommended a few places on the map too. We ended up walking around the city and spotted a few things of interest. First we found an old cathedral that was rather interesting, but we weren't able to go in because it was closed. We headed over to the gardens outside of the palace and that was pretty cool to walk around in even though it was covered in snow. We found an outside public urinal. That was pretty interesting because it didn't have anything to cover you with, it was basically just a toilet outside. We also spent a lot of time just admiring the canals and buildings in the streets. It's not often you get to go to a new city and see a new culture, so it's wise to spend time taking everything in. When we went to some of the museums later on in the day all of them had started to close early. We wouldn't have had anytime in them, so we just decided if we were going to see any of them we would come back early the next day. We had been planning on going to Amsterdam the next day, but that wasn't going to be until later in the night for New Years Eve. After everything seemed to be closing we went over to the train station to try and find out the earliest train back from Amsterdam on New Years Eve/New Years Day and the latest train to the city on New Years Eve. We wanted to make sure we wouldn't get stranded in the city.
After a pretty tranquil day in Den Haag, we ended up relaxing the rest of the day in Voorburg too. We researched a few things on the internet about New Years Eve in Amsterdam and grabbed some food in Voorburg around our hotel. Tomorrow was going to be a big day because it was New Years Eve and this was one of the most important days of the trip.
On to the countdown......in at #4
4. Chicago, IL- Even though the Blackhawks and Chicago Cubs are from this city I still enjoy it a lot. The only reason it makes it higher than New York City is because it is closer to St. Louis and I have been there more times. Otherwise I would say New York City has the edge, but I have only been there once in comparison to the 15 times I have been to Chicago.
It has 3 extremely tall buildings and tons of other very tall buildings that make the skyline very impressive. It has roots in old blues music and still shows some of it today. They have an awesome skate park and some other unique ones around the city too. I was able to skate in a park under an old bridge with trains and cars running over the top of it. I enjoyed that a lot because it felt like an authentic big city.
Wrigley Field, although home to the cubs, is a very unique place and excellent for even non baseball fans to take in one game. Wrigleyville is a great area for shopping and it has many unique stores for the non-shopper like myself.
Michigan Ave. is a pretty neat area to walk around in and has a lot of fancy stores and is home to the John Hancock Building. You can take in the big city feel when you are walking down this street.There is a cool beach on Michigan Lake and there are so many neighborhoods that surround the city. You can spend hours trying to find something in Chicago. I know this because I have spent many hours searching for different places like the NBC building for a Jerry Springer show, United Center for a St. Louis Blues vs. Blackhawks game, cheap hotels in the night, venues for wrestling matches I attended, and friends houses.
Chinatown is also excellent. I tend to go there every single time I go to Chicago. It is very popular during the day and has a lot of people running around. I always go to a restaurant called Three Happiness. It's great food and cheap too.
Until next time,
Joey Mueller
