Friday 17 February 2012

New entries from Nederlands

Greetings from The Netherlands. 2012 has begun with a massive move from Brisbane to The Hague. Den Haag is quite an international city and Rene and I are slowly settling into the place. I'm moderately familiar with Den Haag but Rene wasn't really at all, so we've both been learning as much as we can by walking (and walking), using trams and buses to explore the city and generally get settled.

The biggest initial part was leaving Brisbane with 92kg of luggage to check in to Virgin Australia - they were kind enough to not charge excess - we were premium economy to Abu Dhabi with them, then Etihad economy to Brussels. Virgin was superb value, great service; however Etihad was totally full - cramped - tres ordinaire!

My sister in law and her husband - Claartje and Jan - were there to meet us and they drove us to our hotel in The Hague. We booked four nights, but we added two more since it was taking ages to find a short term furnished apartment. We moved in on the Saturday after we arrived and it was an effort to settle into a very small 45sqm place after our 300 back in Brisbane.

We have a small kitchen leading off from the living room. A hallway leads to the front door, a toilet and the one and only bedroom. A very good bathroom leads from the bedroom and this has a washing machine and drier. Adequate, and situated on the third floor of a large complex built around 1931. The suburb, Benoordenhout, is very attractive but dull. There isn't a cafe in the whole suburb, due to the wishes of the baroness who sold the land in 1920. We have a bottle shop so all is not lost, but the cafes are elsewhere. We intend buying in one of those areas.

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