Hopefully we will soon be setting up an ISN I Leiden Magazine! If you would like to join please send an email to secretary@isn-ileiden.com

For now I leave you with a brilliant piece by one of our international students after a day in the hague with ISN: HERE IS JULIANS STORY!!

ISN - City Trip to the Hague

Saturday "morning" 1 pm, still an unchristian time for most of the exchange students that yet have to cope with their hangover from Friday night.

After figuring out how to operate the ticket machines (discovering the button for the english menus) a group of students is attacking one of the dutch intercity trains with destination "Den Haag". The journey proves to be a rather unspectacular 20 minute ride, but by the time the train approaches Den Haag central, one is astonished by the sheer size of the bright white new administration building, the hoftoren the pokes out of the skyline. After getting of the train, the group gathers on the het plein?, once the centre of the canal system, known as the Grachten, that unfortunately had to be drained decades ago for reasons of hygiene. But like in Amsterdam, the city started to dig out the canals again, so that since 2003 boat tours through the canals are possible. Everyone also gets the chance to admire the amazing architecture of the city hall, build in 1995 by Richard Meier.

The ISN board manages to separate the students in two groups for the city sight-seeing tour that includes the Bezuidenhout quarter, the Paleis Noordeinde and the Binnenhof.

One group starts of at the lake outside of the Binnenhof, where a small island mysteriously protrudes from the water. The ISN board members, that guide the tour, tell about demonstrators conquering this island from time to time and one also gets to know one special story. A nasty persons, that shall not be named once used a blowgun to fire some cannabis seed on the island - growing hemp there as a silent protest.

The group moves on the Bezuidenhout quarter, where back in WWII a mislead british bomb caused scars to the city still visible today. Nevertheless the British used the new gained space to build their embassy right there.

A hunt for the tiniest building in the city is declared and rewarded with a beer, but although the house is found soon, the successful hunter is not clearly spotted, so the beer is lost. Everyone agrees that the building that is really extremely undersized is either inhabited by the 7 midgets or has the only purpose in housing an elevator.

As the group moves on to the Noordeinde palace, it turns out that the ISN board screwed up the organisational aspects of the trip, as the queen is not in the city on this very day. Nevertheless the Wilhelm I statue in front of the palace finds some admirers and it is also noted, that balls of Wilhelm's stallion a gigantic.

The two sight-seeing groups find together again at the Binnenhof, a medieval complex that houses the dutch government and the famous Ridderzaal. Most of the students try a nice hering at the front gates of the Binnenhof, convincing everyone that eating raw fish is not that much of an exotic concept. During the lunch the group has to suffer from attacks of sea-gulls that due to the North Sea nearby are everywhere around the city.

Next station of the trip is the Mauritshuis, the royal picture gallery established in 1822. Everyone is equipped with an mp3-player like device with earphones that gives explanations to the paintings - astonishingly in almost every language, even very exotic ones, like French, German or Spanish, a pleasant option for most of the internationals. The next 1.5 hours are spent in silent admiration as there are some of the world's most famous paintings exhibited. Especially Vermeer's "Girl with a pearl earring" - the dutch mona lisa, and Rembrandt's "Anatomy lesson of Dr. Tulp" find their admirers, whereas the also very famous painting "the bull" from Potter, a very large picture of a cow, also causes some smirks.

After the museums visit the student group sets of to a walk, through almost the whole city (at least that's what if feels like for tired students) to the peace palace. On the way there one of the girls happens to have a very spectacular fall, but luckily it only looks pretty bad, but nothing serious happens.

The peace palace, the Vredespaleis, a very impressing building, houses the "International Court of justice" and was finished in 1913 - ironically only 1 year, before the First World War. Some nice pictures in the sunset in front of the palace later, the group moves on back to the inner-city for some dinner. The restaurant proves to have a nice cosy atmosphere and everyone is having a "candle-light dinner" with some Schintzel and French fries. The concept of Schnitzel, first being exotic to some students is soon broadly enjoyed by everyone.

After the refreshment the group moves on to the theatre to see a show of the American comedy team "Boom Chiago" from Amsterdam, called "last one to leave the planet - turn off the lights". The show going on a "not so serious" approach to global warming is great fun. Especially one scene of a guy confessing to his parents, that he is an environmentalist (and gay) cause's great laughter and when later in the show the scene is recycled in a horror-movie, Japanese and the Spanish style the audience is almost dying of laughter.

In great mood from the show the student group moves on to a latin club called Havana, to end the night with some dancing action. After some extensive and sweaty dancing to some great music most of the students finally make their way back to Leiden.