Zomer continues

Summer continues and lately in The Hague it has been like a real summer. Todays high is 34℃. We’ve been at the beach this weekend, and despite now having locals knowledge we seemed to be at the same stretch of beach as the rest of Holland. They really crowd in. We’ve been a few times lately and I love to people watch. There are lots of cute overexcited blonde kids collecting shells in fishing nets and building elaborately fortified sand castles or digging dykes. There are no waves and so the beach atmosphere is very family and yet oh so open minded when it comes to a bit of nudity. Today, for example I got an eye full of an elderly gentleman (white hair, crinkly skin) change out of his Speedos (in full public view with no attempt to hide his swinging-in-the-wind privates). So anyway, out of his Speedos and into his white g-string so that he could sun his already brown pancake bum. But nobody seemed to care a bit.

Beach before the crowds

Another weekend we watched the Varend Corso Westland go by. This is an annual boat parade through the canals showcasing the produce of the Westland, a region in South Holland known for it’s flowers and vegetables grown in glasshouses. We parked our bikes near the Uithof (a big indoor sports facility) and crowded onto the waters edge with all the other spectators including old people on their fold out chairs and motorized scooters, and teenagers swigging beer and dancing to music. The boats were very fancily decorated with vegetables and flowers. It was like a mardis gras for vegetables.

I’ve also been to an exhibition in The Hague, called Isaac Israels in Den Haag. Isaac Israels was a Dutch painter in the impressionist style who lived in The Hague and also Scheveningen for a while, but also Paris, London, the Indies. He was the son of Josef Israels, a prominent Hague School painter. The exhibition has been set up in five museums in The Hague and I have only visited one so far. At the Haags Historisch Museum Israels’ paintings of women in the theater scene, actresses, showgirls and ordinary workers like a nurse and a telephonist were just beautiful. I especially liked Woman before "Sunflowers" by van Gogh for which Israels borrowed the Van Gogh painting from his friend and Van Gogh’s nephew.

Meanwhile, Sean has had his job interview and we wait and wait to find out whether we are here or there.