Holland - visiting Audrey in Den Haag

In November 2013 Jana's and my dear friend Audrey left Oslo and moved to Holland. Since her departure we had luckily managed to see each other a few times over the past year: in Hamburg with the other girls (Jana & Sarah) for our traditional Christmas market trip, New Year 2013/2014 we celebrated together at my home in Germany, a couple of times Audrey came for a quick visit to Oslo and end of August/beginning of September we spent a week of summer holidays in Portugal.
What was still outstanding, though, was a visit at her new home town/country: Den Haag/Holland.
This was now taken care of this autumn when Jana and I flew end of October to Holland to spend some days together with Audrey, getting to know her new geographical and social environment.

Wednesday, October 29th:

From the office straight to Oslo airport to catch my afternoon flight to Amsterdam and further on by train to Den Haag central station where Audrey picked me up.

Together we went out for dinner in a nearby restaurant, waiting for Jana to arrive as well. She was booked on a later flight (which was cheaper for her the moment of booking).
Late in the evening we finally arrived all together at Audrey's apartment which is located at a 15 minutes tram ride away from the central station.

Thursday, October 30th:

The first day in Holland we didn't actually spend in Den Haag, but left by train to the city of Haarlem, a 30/40 minutes train ride north of Den Haag, west of Amsterdam near the coastal dunes. Haarlem is a typical Dutch town, with beautiful canals, bridges, manor houses and with its windmill "De Adriaan".

The "Grote Kerk" (= the Big Church).

Located right next to the "Grote Markt", the "big market square".

Cheese shopping! Just passing by this little cheese shop in one of the little side streets and we couldn't resist.

In between, a late sandwich + cake lunch in a nice café in the city centre.

Haarlem is also famous for its many old "hofjes" (= courtyards) that one can visit.

Windmill "De Adriaan" - so typical Dutch.

Heading back in the late afternoon and spending the evening at home, cooking, having a nice dinner, chatting...

Friday, October 31st:

After a breakfast we headed downtown Den Haag. Right in the cultural heart of town lies the Binnenhof, the political centre of Holland, the Parliament.

 

Not far from there is "het paleis" which hosts a fantastic exposition of the graphic artist Escher who is famous for his impossible constructions.

From this old part of town we take a tram towards the sea side of town, to the quarter of Scheveningen.

A short walk along the sea-front boulevard takes us to "Simonis" a typical and well known fish food restaurant. Not a very fancy place, but offering really good and super fresh fish.

THE occasion to get (in good childhood memories) a good quality classic dish: kibbeling :-)

After this mega portion a digestive walk long the beach was well appreciated!

After the stroll along the beach we quite had to hurry back home. In the evening we were invited to a birthday party of a friend of Audrey and we had promised to bring a cake that still needed to be prepared.
At the party we also met Stef again, Audrey's boyfriend, who we got to know during our holidays in Portugal. He is currently extreeeeemely busy with work and studies and managed to take some hours off from his books to join the party.

Saturday, November 1st:

Another day in Den Haag. Breakfast in town (at the cosy "De Bakkerswinkel" with yummy scones, delicious home made jam and more), strolling through the streets, shopping, a coffee here, a snack there, eventually some more shopping and last but not least a nice hot chocolate to relax...

One point on our "to do" list in Holland was to go out eating pancakes. During the birthday party the evening before we were recommended a good place outside Den Haag, in Leiden and the plan was to go there together with the birthday boy. He had a car and offered to give us a ride.
When leaving the house to pick us up, he remembered that he had bent down the back bench of his car and he had to discover that in somehow the bench was blocked. For some reason he didn't manage to flip it back again into its upright position. This meant that he was no longer able to transport 5 people and thus we unfortunately had to give up on our pancake plans.
Instead we remained downtown and found a table in a nearby Italian restaurant where we spent a great evening in a pleasant atmosphere.

Sunday, November 2nd:

Time to leave - first for Jana. Audrey and I accompanied her to the central station to take her train to Amsterdam airport. After a short coffee (or better hot chocolate) stop we headed back home to Audrey's place.
We had some lunch together and I finalized packing my suitcase trying to squeeze in all those yummy things and new clothes I shopped. And before it was also time for me to leave, I took some pictures of Audrey's cosy home.

I left Den Haag after lunch time in order to be at Amsterdam central station by 3 p.m. After many years I was going to meet Frederike again :-) We met each other during our time as au-pairs in Bologna/Italy in 2002/2003 and we both became friends together with some other girls (Amandine, Chiara, Roos...). We had great times and spent fantastic moments together those days in Italy!
Since our time together in Bologna we had met 2 maybe 3 times, but not very often. Now that I was in Holland I had the occasion to finally meet her again. Frederike is Dutch and lives in Amsterdam and she had just returned from holidays an hour before I passed through Amsterdam on my way to the airport. This gave us time just to have a coffee together and chat a little bit. Of course, the time was faaaaar to short to catch up with all the news and everything that happened in our lives since we met last time. But even this short it was such a pleasure to meet her again. Grazie, cara, per questo breve incontro. È sempre un grande piacere rivederti. Così tanti bei ricordi che ci uniscono da quei bei tempi insieme a Bologna con le altre ragazze! Spero di rivederti presto. Un abbraccio, Fede!


So, a long weekend with my girls (Jana and Audrey) is over and yes we missed out on the pancakes (this will be for a next visit), but it was 4 fantastic days! We saw each other again, had a walk on the beach, visited Den Haag and Haarlem, had good food and simply a good time together. And just to set myself back into childhood I had my portion of vla (a kind of pudding/custard), a piece of frikandel, some kibbeling and drank cassis. On top of that my suitcase was stuffed with typical "must-bring-along" items such as Dutch cheese, hagelslag, stroopwaffels, pindakoeken and kruid noten and (simply for its price compared to Norway) wine... plus some new clothes. All that rounded off by meeting Fede. Just perfect! Now I was ready to fly back to Oslo.

Thanks, girls & groetjes!