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21.3.60
Hi Sweetheart,
It's now 4:50 pm so I might have time to write you before dinner. We just
got back here to the hostel after the day in The Hague, and Bridge has gone into [?]
to buy a dozen eggs, some to fry tonight for a treat, the rest to hard boil to carry with
us.
We went first this morning to the Binmenhof - a sort of palace - administration building
where most official legislative sessions and state receptions (e.g. for visiting royalty or
[?]) are held. And in Septembers Queen Juliana opens officiallt the national
legislative sessions in one of the large halls - it is particularly beautiful, with the flags
of each province portrayed, a throne for the queen, two side chairs for the princesses, seating capacity for 700 (all deep red velvet upholstered chairs), and a beautiful wood -
beamed cieling. The building dates from 1280 about, but this room was redone in 1904.
We ate our lunch in a small park overlooking a huge pond at the side of the
building - boy we really do put away the food too - an egg, 3 slices of wheat bread (3/4" each)
with liverwurst on jam, two slices of a ginger cake, and still not full. After lunch
we went to the minicipal museum, a fairly small one with paintings (late 15th century
to early 18th century) by Dutch artists. Felt good to get out of the cold for a couple of hours,
and made us both pretty drowsy;the art was not especially spectacular to me at least,
although there were several Rembrandts (one good sellpoint and the "Anatomy Lesson"
were somewhat of interest) and Franz Hals and two large Vermeers, among many
mediocre works. But even mediocre paintings are worth seeing, for they provide a
guide to style and to what people of the particular time and place were thinking about.
From the museum we set out to try to find the Peace Palace (of 1918 built by the
U.S.), came accross the building of the U.S. Information Service (and the embassy too I
think) and decided to stop in the library for a while to read. I got a thorough reading
of one day's atlantic edition of the N.Y. Times, and also looked at a month old copy of Life,
so I'm more up on the news now (we've bought Time too, to help keep in touch). The
library was fairly small, but beautifully built and contained a good cross-section
of American periodicals (scholarly and technical as well as popular), a much less adequate
supply of books.
We did get our directions to the Peace Palace, arrived at 4:15 to find that the
building closed at 4. So we just got a quick tourist's look at the outside (as in
American Express tours by bus, where they drive you past all the famous buildings
og Europe's big cities), then biked the half hour our here to the hostel.
I don't think I described the hostel to you yesterday - it's really fantastice. It's an
old estate, on a huge grounds like the front of Stanfors, with a long tree-lined driveway
and huge open grassy fields to the front and sides of the building. There are footpaths,
small canals with wooden buildings over them ets. - all very luxurious and lovely.
I don't know how it managed to become a hostel, but it's such a beautiful spot.
Oh, I forgot to mention - before going into town this morning we took a ride