A couple months ago, I found out about a writers' festival/convention taking place in The Hague (Den Haag in Dutch) in January. I subscribed to email notifications for the event, and immediately forgot about it. When I started getting emails from Writers Unlimited, I didn't think twice about deleting them. Then, early last week, I was cleaning out my inbox, when I decided to open a Writers Unlimited email before sending it to the trash. "Oh,
this Writers Unlimited," I thought to myself, remembering the festival that had peaked my interest a few months before.
For the next hour, I scanned through the Web site for the
Writers Unlimited festival (formally Winternachten International Literature Festival), and I came across a few talks and events that looked interesting. Some of them were on Thursday night, which didn't seem too practical. The others were on Friday and Saturday. I bookmarked the Web site and decided I would talk to Mr. Traveler when he got home that evening and see if he had any interest in the event. (My secret weapon was a selection of two musical acts -- a Mongolian artist on Friday night and an African/Dutch group on Saturday. Mr. Traveler is an avid fan of unusual music, so I thought there was a chance he would agree to go based on this interest.)
When Mr. Traveler got home, he asked me, "What are we doing this weekend?"
Instead of immediately bringing up the festival, I asked him, "Why do you ask?" He then told me that he wanted to go to the baseball store in the Hague to buy some equipment.
"Really? Well..." I told him about the festival and about the two musical acts. He was most interested in the Mongolian performer because the musical style (and instrument) was so unique.
"Well, the only problem with that one is that it's on Friday," I explained.
"We can spend the night," he quickly responded and it was settled. We were heading to The Hague for an overnight adventure.
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We left late in the afternoon on Friday, and on the way to The Hague witnessed a gorgeous sunset. I wish I could have captured a better shot of the vibrant sky, but the moving train and the filter of the grimy window didn't help much.
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| Sunset from the Train -- The Picture Doesn't Do it Justice |
When we arrived in The Hague, we headed to the hotel and checked in. We then decided to grab dinner next door at a Dim Sum restaurant. Since seeing Dim Sum on TV (such as in Anthony Bourdain's
No Reservations), I've wanted to try it out. I knew it would probably be a little overwhelming, but I didn't know exactly what to expect. The dinner didn't start out to well, when I ordered hot tea and was brought a Lipton Ice Tea (which is like a Lipton Brisk in the States). We were presented with a sheet of paper listing over 200 choices in Chinese and Dutch. While I've learned many Dutch food names from my trips to the grocery store, I still had a hard time deciphering the menu. We decided to ask if they had an English version of the menu; they did not, and the waitress pointed us to the picture menu on the table. The problem was that from the pictures and the menu, we could get a general idea of what the item was, but there was still a lot of information missing. For example, I could tell that some of the dumplings in the picture had chicken (from the menu word "kip"). The problem was that when we looked up the full menu description using the translator in Mr. Traveler's phone, we figured out that these dumplings were stuffed with chicken feet. Eventually, we settled on a few safe sounding dishes and placed our order. When the food came out, some of it was delicious, and some of it was just odd. For example, the tapioca we had ordered came out in 3 pieces similar that must have been shaped in a mini jello mold. At about 2.5 inches in diameter, they were a bit challenging to figure out how to eat with our chopsticks. Eventually, I just picked up a whole one and took a bite. The tapioca was mildly sweet (very mildly) and there was something in the center of the gooey dessert. After a few bites, I made my way through the relatively flavorless outside and into the middle. It only took one bite of the center to figure out that it was a slightly salty slice of hard-boiled egg.
After dinner, we grabbed our tickets to the literature festival, and walked across the street. (Mr. Traveler did an amazing job of grabbing a hotel reservation immediately across the street from the event.) Raul Lemesoff's "Weapon of Mass Instruction" greeted us at the door.
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| "Weapon of Mass Instruction" |
We had previously scanned the program and figured out a few events we wanted to attend. The first one we went to was a film called "Great Expectations: A Journey through the History of Visionary Architecture" created by Jesper Wachtmeister. I really enjoyed seeing how architects have tried to solve problems (such as housing crises, overpopulation, and pollution) through their own medium of architecture. I took a Utopian literature class a few years ago when I was working on my master's, and this film reminded me of many of the concepts from that course.
Next we attended a talk called "In Search of the Truth in Russia" in which Andrei Nekrasov (a Russian documentary maker), Jelle Brandt Corstius (a Dutch documentary maker and Moscow correspondent), and Thijs Berman (a one-time correspondent in Russia and now a European Union MP) discussed the problematic concept of truth in Russia. It was both fascinating and horrifying to see how truth is still distorted in Russia today, maybe even to a greater extent than it was 10 or 15 years ago.
The last event we attended was a concert by
Mongolian musician Epi. At first I wasn't sure I would enjoy this very different type of music. However, during the concert I was very moved by the emotion in some of his pieces. Also, Mr. Traveler pointed out after the concert that Epi was actually vocalizing two notes at once during the singing portion. Even if you don't like this style of music, I don't think anyone can deny that Epi is an extremely talented musician.
After the concert was finished, it was after 11pm and time to head back to the hotel and get some rest.
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On Saturday morning, we had breakfast at the hotel, grabbed a
Strippenkart and began our trek to the Escher museum and baseball store. (As an aside, the strippenkaart is a uniquely Dutch system for getting around on trams and buses. You just stamp the card based on the length of your trip. As of the beginning of February, they will be discontinuing the use of this system and everyone (including tourists) will have to by an chip card to scan on entry and departure from all public transportation.)
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| One of the Many Theaters Surrounding Our Hotel |
The
Escher museum is located in an old palace where
Queen Emma resided. While Escher sketches and artwork are predominately featured in each room, there are also panels displaying information about the palace and the royal family. Another feature of the museum is the presence of interesting chandeliers in each room: a guitar, skull and crossbones, shark, etc. I'm not sure if this is a temporary exhibit or a permanent feature of the museum, but it definitely added a level of interest to the already multi-faceted museum. We spent a while exploring the museum, reading about Escher, enjoying the artwork, and trying out the interactive exhibits. I never realized that many of his pieces that incorporate
tessellations are actually created with a word carving and then stamped onto the paper.
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| Bird Chandelier, Escher |
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| Mr. Traveler and His Favorite Escher Piece |
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| Interactive "Impossible Triangle" |
After we finished at the Escher museum, we found the tram station (which was a bit of a challenge because it was actually underground) and headed to the baseball store, where Mr. Traveler grabbed all the necessities (like a bag, an infielder's glove, cleats, and batter's gloves).
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| Underground Tram Station with Hardwood Floors |
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| Baseball Store |
We took the tram back to the central train station, grabbed a snack, and hopped on the next train back to Utrecht. "I'd say this was a successful trip," Mr. Traveller said. And, I'll have to say, I agreed.
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