Den Haag

I had originally thought I'd show up in The Hague, wander around the city for a bit, make my way to the beachside suburb of Scheveningen, tram down to the ParkPop festival, and call it a day, taking a tram to Antwerp next for a few days in Belgium. I dropped my stuff of in the hostel and, putting the citymap away in my back pocket, starting aimlessly ambling through the city. I saw lots of great buildings whose names and functions I had no idea, just soaking in the atmosphere of thi city, which was, frankly, nicer than Amsterdam. Amsterdam is big and touristy and 95% of the tourists are there to see/experience two things; those things are not the Van Gogh museum and the tulips. This gives Amsterdam an air of rushed expectation. The Hague was much more laid back, much more charming with a more authentic feel, and much more empty. I was really digging the city when, walking down some street I heard a kid's voice call out "Abba." Now, I don't know Dutch, but almost a week here has given me the ability to recognize the phonetics, and I knew that Abba is not Dutch. I turned round and saw a man walking with two young children, and he had a kippah on! I went right up to him and said to the effect of "nice to see another kippah here;" I assumed he was also a tourist as I didn't think there was a Jewish community here. I was quite wrong. He told me he lives here in The Hague, that the Jewish community was having a BBQ, and that if I wanted to come run a few errands first, he'd take me to the BBQ. I eagerly accepted and made friends with his two kids in the car on our way to the hardware stores (Iyrgalen, 6, and Ronit, 3). The BBQ was fun and, and to increase the funky cooincideces of the day, I met a young couple who, three months before, moved to the Country Club area of Teaneck, not an 8 minute walk from my parents' house, who are living for two years here in The Hague for work. Wild! We even got to talk about the Young Israel of Teaneck!
After the BBQ we all went to Scheveningen, to the beach, where I played with the kids and, finally, ate some amazing herring. The beach was, well, a beach. Nice sand, decent water, tons of people, nothing new. The herring was though. They sell entrie fish that are beheaded and lightly salted and covered in chopped onions. You hold them by the tail, tilt your head all the way back, drop the fish in, and bite of a nice chunk. The texture is soft but the flesh is quite firm, not like the nasty cream sauce-mayonaissey stuff in the states, and it is not overly salty like our matjes (and I had matjes here as well as the normal herring). Final opinion: awesome. I will never eat herring the same way again. Eat that old Hungarian gys from Rabbi Friedman's shtiebel! (And no kichel here!)
After the beach I went back to the hostel to shower (did I mention, by the way, that the hostel I am in here is amazing?) and then I took the tram to the ParkPop festival. I got there with just two hors to the end, but I got to see Alpha Blondie, Nena, and Danko Jones perform. The festival itself was huge, a nine hour music extravaganza spread out over three massive stages set up over a grand expanse of field, covered in hundreds of thousands of people, soda and beer cups, and food wrappers. I've never been to Woodstock, but this was the closest I'll ever ever get. The sheer size of the it and the amount of people in attendance was staggering, and at least 80% of the people there were stoned or some level of drunk. It was pretty intense. I have never heard of any of the performers either, but they played some pretty good music.
Today I wandered around a really nice 15th centruy town called Delft. It was sooo hot, and after a few hours of walking and seeing some really nic buildings, I lay down on the grass in one of the parks and passed out for half an hour. The heat drains you, especially when carrying around a bunch of stuff and walking a lot. After the nap I felt better, and I went back to The Hague to walk around a bit more, and to go back to Scheveningen to sit on the beach and read (it was empty today) and have a last herring. As I dangled the herring over my mouth, actually already in my mouth, a seagull divebombed and grabbed the fish right out of my hand, whacking me in the face in the process. It was pretty hilarious, and I started cracking up; the bystanders who saw what happened laughed as well, and I got a new herring at no extra charge. I went to the shul for mincha/maariv, and called it a day. Tomorrow I go to Antwerp.
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