The Hague, Leiden, & Scheveningen in the Netherlands

Ethan's basketball team had their final NECIS tournament in March in The Hague, Netherlands. He rode the rock star bus again with the teams, and stayed for 3 nights with his team in a hotel! Scott, Griff & I stayed nearby in Leiden. Ethan had the best experience doing this and they even had a dance one night with all the other schools! His team was outmatched in most of the games, mostly because of being such a young team, but they won a couple of games and came in 6th place out of 8 teams. Overall we had a really good weekend and found some cool stuff to do, but there were some very frustrating aspects of this area. First of all, we had the hardest time finding restaurants near our hotel and near the schools where the tournaments were held. These were not places in the middle of nowhere either, these were heavily populated areas without a restaurant in sight. Also, we found driving especially difficult - signs were not as good as we're accustomed to and road ways just weren't that logical. Oh well, hopefully the boys see that even though travel isn't always easy, it's almost always worth the effort.

Ethan's team warming up - he's in the black shirt going under the net

Madurodam

Besides staying in a hotel for 3 nights, this was definitely the highlight of the trip for G. He loves building mini-cities and creating drama within them (usually a battle or a fire) and this place was full of exacting models set up outside, replicating famous places in the Netherlands 25 times smaller than real life.

Had to pose in the big shoes first!

Did we go to a concert?

Yeah, a mini concert! This was Scott's favorite display.

Were the bulb fields in bloom?

Just the mini bulb fields! ;-)

We also checked out a good natural history museum, Naturalis, but I included this picture because it shows our school spirit shirts. Go ISD!

One afternoon I took off on my own for a couple of hours and went into the main city of The Hague to the Mauritshuis museum. As much as I love sharing museums with the boys, it was a real treat to go here by myself and enjoy at my own pace. This was a great little intimate museum featuring mostly 17th century Flemish "Golden Age" paintings.

I saw 'Girl With a Pearl Earring' by Vermeer - really as engaging & beautiful as I'd hoped it'd be! (postcard scan)

Also, 'Anatomy Lesson/Dr Tulp' by Rembrandt (postcard scan)

City shots

On our last night we went to the seaside resort town of Scheveningen, on the North Sea, where we finally found a good meal! It was freezing outside, but still cool to be at the beach.
Kurhaus hotel

The pier