Den Haag, Netherlands

It snowed pretty much all night last night, so I woke up to a snow covered city. Snow was a major theme of pretty much all the photos I took today.

We spent a very long day at The Hague. We're lucky we even made it there because the snow was causing trains to stop running all over the Netherlands. We were stuck in one spot on the train for a very long time. Long enough to get in a good nap even.

The Hague was so beautiful and snow-covered. It was a city as beautiful as Amsterdam, but much cleaner and more impressive. Our first stop on our day trip was the hall of knights, a castle where Queen Beatrix gives a speech every year in September about the plan for the government that year. We got to see the throne, many crests, and the seats of the parliament and the royal family.

After we learned about the hall of knights, we made our way to the house of representatives where I was not allowed to take pictures. I snuck some pictures in the lobby though. 

From there, we went to lunch where I almost fell asleep on the bench I was on. Walking through the snow is so exhausting. We walked to another museum after lunch. It was a really interesting art museum that I wish I would have had more time in. We had a guided tour and then 15 minutes to explore on our own. In those 15 minutes, I got to see a Rembrandt, a Monet, a Picasso, and a Van Gogh. I could not believe I was actually looking at works of art from some of the most famous paintings in history. It was quite surreal. 

After the museum, we went out for drinks inside a nice warm bar and unwound from the long day of walking. We hitched a train back to Utrecht after getting some appelflappen at a vendor outside Den Haag Centraal and headed back home.