Travelog for: Harvie

Today we ate pancakes for dinner! Look at this yummy pancake with apple, raisins, sugar and cinnamon. It tasted as delicious as it looks

Last Monday it was our host's boyfriend's birthday. He got these flowers as a gift from his work. I think they're very pretty.

In the evening we watched the opening ceremony of the Olympics.

Today we went to a country-festival called Floralia in Oosterhout in the Southern part of the country. This is the biggest country-festival of Europe. And do you know what the best part is? My host told me she doesn't even like country-music, but she went there as First Aid volunteer, together with her boyfriend.
We left at 7 am in the morning We walked to the busstop where the bus was supposed to leave at 7:36 am. But unfortunately the busdriver had overslept and we had to wait a full hour for the next bus! We could have slept an hour longer! Our host wasn't too pleased with that, also because it meant we arrived an hour late at the event. But, we took the next bus and went to The Hague Central Station. This is us on the train.

Do you see these big coffee cups behind us? They contained cappucino and they were really yummy

Well, this is me in front of the big stage. I don't know what the band is called that is performing here.

There were lots of people here and lots of them were in Western outfits, like these two ladies. Some of them were also line-dancing. Why do you have to look so solemn during dancing? Is it forbidden to smile in the world of country?

The festival was held in a special garden. The rest of the year this garden is open to the public and people can even garden here themselves. So we walked around a bit and it looked very pretty.

Our host wanted us to pose on the ledge of this well, but then she looked in to see if it was a real one, and it sure was! It was really deep! So we just took a picture this way. That was way safer.

In the afternoon we watched the performance of this English band, called the 'Swing Commanders' at the small stage. It was really a lot of fun. They even sang a song from Jungle Book! The one where King Louis sings with Mowgli and Baloo that he wants to become human and wants to learn how to make fire. It was so much fun. All the women in the band could play all the instruments. They would change instruments with every song. It was truly amazing.

This little tea-house was right next to the small stage. Looks pretty Dutch, right?

Today we went to the cinema! We even met Wall-E and EVE!

We really enjoyed the movie. It's really like a modern fairytale with all these robots. All of us really liked it. We also saw the short Pixar movie 'Presto' before the movie started. We had a great time.


After the movie we walked around The Hague for a little while. We saw this statue.

We also saw these old-fashioned phone boots.

This is me with the statue of King Willem II.




Here I am posing in front of the Dutch flag.


These are all the flags of the twelve provinces of the Netherlands.


This is 'Het Binnenhof'. This where the Dutch government convenes, so all the major decisions are being made here.

Do you think this seagull knows this mountain of ice is fake?


This is a coat of arms of the Netherlands. You always see a lion in these pictures.



And while we were on our way back to the tram we walked past these sand sculptures.


This bird doesn't really care about the figure of Justice.





This is the logo for the city The Hague.



This building is the Peace Palace; or at least a sand replica of it.


There is a statue of this little boy elsewhere in the city.


Here you can see the 'Binnenhof' from another side.


And we also saw McDonalds! With a pigeon on the logo

And then when we came home today it was time to leave already! Has it really been four weeks already? Bellatrix is also leaving today, although to a different destination. She is going all the way to Australia, while I'm going home for a short while to tell my mother all about my adventures in the Netherlands!

Harvie has made it safely home (VA). He had so much fun in The Netherlands that he couldn’t stop talking about his trip. Thank you Charda for hosting him!

Now he is in front of my laptop checking his e-mail and enjoying a cold ice lait.