The Hague

Get ready for many many many photos coming your way...

This weekend, 3 girlfriends from work and I went off to The Hague in The Netherlands.  We set off on Sunday morning, and it took us two and a half hours to get there (not too bad at all to get to a different country).  It was absolutely pouring with rain when we arrived, and there was a severe weather warning for wind (4 umbrellas ruined between us).  I had booked the hotel online for a really good deal, but when we arrived we couldn't get in.  We couldn't get through to them on the phone for 2 hours (spent in a bar, obviously), and when we did, they said we were booked into a different hotel in their chain, in a different city!  and that we should have had an email with the door code.  No email.  Anyway, Sian and Laura volunteered to take our bags to the room while Al and I stayed with the drinks.  Half an hour later I get a phone call saying that the front door now wouldn't open from the inside, and could I please rescue them!  They were being wimps, because I could open it every time!  Anyway, the room was nice - a studio apartment with bunk beds, a double, a kitchen and our own bathroom - clean and tidy.  We headed straight out again for Nachos and beer, and ended up in a bar where the live music didn't even start until 11pm (on a SUNDAY!).  The music was great, and it was a brilliant spontaneous evening - the best kind of evening in my opinion.

On Monday morning, we were up and out by 11, and on our was to the Keukenhof Gardens, which are enormous tulip gardens, only open for 7 weeks a year.  They get a million visitors per week!  It actually wasn't too busy when we were there, probably because it was so windy and cold, although no longer raining which was a bonus.  The gardens were wonderful, and I got seriously snap-happy, taking over 300 photos!  Sian is big on photos too, and the other two were content to wander and humour me with the many photo opportunities (It was after all, the day my article got published, so my friends were being very nice to me).

The park's outside areas are full of formal beds of flowers - tulips, crocuses and hyacinths mostly.  There were some lovely budgies (below) and a maze and a windmill...

On a side note, when we agreed to go to The Netherlands this is how the conversation went:

Me:  I want to see some Tulips

Al:  I want to see a windmill

Laura:  I want to see CLOGS!

We saw all of these at the gardens... 

The park has 4 indoor areas, the first one is full of cut flowers, and flower displays including competition flowers, and quirky arrangement ideas. This was where I got my 3 favorite photos, which I will point out...

 Below is favorite photo number one.  These flowers were just wonderful.  The colours were perfect.

Below is favorite photo number 2: 

Another indoor area was the Orchid house.  The theme of this house was LOVE.  and boy did they go to town on it.  I'm a huge fan of the mushy-mushy but even I thought it was a bit overwhelming!  The Orchids though were fabulous.  I'm even more interested in them now that I have my own - Matt bought me one a few weeks ago.

Another indoor area was full of Freesias all themed around Van Gogh.  There wan't much light in this hall, so the photos didn't come out as well, but I can still imagine the intense smell of the flowers when you walked in,  Wonderful.

My third favorite photo.  They smelled wonderful too.

 We went out for a lovely dinner (I had a cheese fondu - AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS - and a couple of glasses of wine, before having an early night.  Our train was at 10am today, and it was meant to take us 2 and a half hours again, but it actually took 5 hours, because of the below photo...

Yes that's right, a tree fell on our train!  We had been delayed by half an hour before then anyway, and told that we wouldn't be allowed to cross back into Germany because the wind weather warnings were so severe.  We had to swap trains after this, and then some more trees fell on the track, so we were stuck on the new train too.  Luckily our train was cancelled at Duisburg, which was our stop anyway, and the local trams were running, but I still didn't get home until 3!  One of the girls lives in Dusseldorf, but all trains had been cancelled, so she ended up going to one of the others houses, and getting a lift from her fiance after he finished work.  She didn't get home until 7pm, poor thing!

A really fantastic weekend was had by all, and it was much needed, after a bit of a crappy end to the working week, and the Spring term.  Positive thoughts looking forwards though.  Matt will be home tomorrow from Dublin and then we have a lovely relaxing week at home on our own.  How wonderful.