Day Trip: Haarlem/Den Hague
Our first little day trip! We decided that we wanted to take little trips every weekend and we found a deal on a day train pass so we hopped on a train and knew that eventually we wanted to end up in Den Hague.
We actually ended up getting on the wrong train so we got off at Haarlem and decided to adventure around a little bit before hopping on the right train towards Den Hague.
Sloterdijk Station has this really awesome rainbow walkwayyy! So much love.
Something legit about the Netherlands is that no matter where you go it seems like the infrastructure was built around bicycles. Coming from America this is something completely foreign to me. (Obv literally and figuratively). Bike parking garages. Tracks for pushing your bike down stairs. Separated bike lanes. Roads where bikes have the first priority and everything else goes around it. Some places even have a vehicle lane/parking/trees/bike path/and then a curb that separates the bike path from the walking path. AND in some parks there's also a horse lane that's also separated!
That took some getting used to for sure. At first I was so scaredy. Like... wtf I can basically get the right away no matter what if I'm on a bike?! Crazyyyy!
Old lady with an owl. <3
Every time we visit these small towns I'm so overwhelmed with the idea that I'm in fucking EUROPE. I'm living within arms reach of all this stuff that is old as dirt. Everything is so compact. That's something else I've really been thinking about: The fact that there's rarely a time in Europe where you're alone. Even when you go out to nature there's always someone else around. In Oregon, Louisiana, and Missouri I had soooo many moments where I was in a forest--alone--with no one around for miles. A swamp where it was so loud with bugs and critters and water but no people. A corn field or farm land with nothing else around as far as your eye could see. Solitude is something that I definitely took for granted in the States.
So yeah from Haarlem we hopped on the (right) train and made our way to Den Hague. We showed up there and it was rainy and gross and we didn't plan anything out. We just planned on walking around and that was it! We started walking away from the city center---then I was a brat and said we should head towards the city center. Which turned out to not be our thing. There was too many tourists...too many fancy shops...all very geared towards consumerism.
We turned right back around and headed back to an area where we had seen a cool park by Central Station.
There was a suuuuuuper cool "Suikerspin" place that sold cotton candy that I took some film photos of. Which speaking of, I need to get that shit developed! Tulips everywhere! Birds everywhere! And then we got to that little park and there was an area that housed a bunch of little animals. Including these demon bird babies--AKA Common Coot, and deers!
All in all was a productive, successful day but we had to get back to our babies. <3
