The Hague

This weekend brings us a trip to the Netherlands, and a visit to one of Julianna's friends from her summer at the Carter center. Erik and his girlfriend Olivia were having a birthday party on Friday night, and invited us to come -- so we headed out on the train. First, a little stupid language humor, we're not quite sure why the people who put this on the German train don't think it is a hammer...

Ok, back to our 'serious' blog :) In addition to it being Erik and Olivia's birthdays, the weekend was also a major national holiday for celebrating the queen's (named Juliana -- note the slight spelling difference) birthday. The occasion meant that in The Hague on Friday night was 'Queen's Night' which meant the street were filled with concert locations, small amusement parks, and lots of drinks for sale. It was fun to walk through the streets from the train station towards Erik's apartment and watch all the people enjoying themselves.

After navigating through the city to Erik's apartment, we were greeted by our gracious hosts - who even set aside a room for us to sleep in (we brought our sleeping bags to be on the floor). We arrived around 10PM, and many of their guests were already there. We spent the evening sampling Dutch beer, Julianna learned how to salsa from a gay Ecuadorian lawyer (he was quite the character with many interesting stories and ideas), and Dustin made some new friends. All in all, it was quite a full night (and lasted until 5am the following morning) - dancing, discussing the definition of genocide and the impact of international criminal courts, and watching people enjoy the evening.

The next morning we walked back to the train station, picked up a chocolate crossaint, and snapped a quick picture of a nice fountain near the city center.