Almost two weeks have gone by since my return from Canada with my mother.  We have been having a whale of a time.  Tell me, do whales have any more fun than your average land-based mammal?  Or does the cetacean reference merely allude to the size of the fun?  Because if that’s the case, I would vote that our fun has been on more of an elephantine scale.  We’ve been having an elephant of a time.  No whale, but certainly not insignificant.  That’s it.

My mother and I get along very well.  Mostly because she’s a nicer person than I am and manages my tantrums well.  Also because we tend to like (and dislike) similar things.  She spends a lot of time reading books.  I spend a lot of time on the internet.  She finds crowds irritating.  So do I.  She likes museums and their gift shops.  I go for the gift shops and cafes.

Most of our time together has consisted of strolling through the streets of Den Haag and visiting museums early enough to miss the tour buses.  It’s been great pretending to be a tourist here because, as I am inherently lazy, now encouraged by my mother’s visit, I get to see all of the museums and bits of the city that I couldn’t be bothered with before.  And because Mom has actually read some books and pamphlets about the area, she is a great tour guide.

Here she is standing in front of the smallest house in The Hague:

I would love to take credit for this little gem but actually, I had no idea it even existed until Mom pointed it out to me on one of her tour maps.

Here she is enjoying a little side street in Delft:

Delft is a lovely little town and was the home of Vermeer.  We saw more of the inside of souvenir shops than of the town itself.

Here is the spire of the Delft Nieuwe Kerk (New Church):

The building was completed in 1496.  BRAND! SPANKING!

That was such a nice time sight-seeing.

Of course I blew one morning when we went to the Haagse Markt: THE BIGGEST MARKET IN EUROPE!  It’s an amazingly busy and bustling place; great for cheap fresh fruit and vegetables.  We had started to decay from scurvy for days before because I was waiting to buy my fruit at the market.  I knew it would be worth the wait.

So on Tuesday morning I packed us onto the #6 tram to go to the market.

We arrived.

And it was closed.

Dammit.

Thankfully, Mom was fine with it.  We just walked around the huge empty lot and then went home.  Scurvy symptoms still intact.  Hey, people make mistakes, right?  *loose teeth*  Innocent enough.  *muscle pain*  Except that this was not the first time I had tried to go to the market and found it closed.  *lethargy*  The time before, about a year ago, I had arrived on Thursday: CLOSED.  Dammit.  *bleeding scalp*  This time, I was SURE it was open on a Tuesday.  *jaundice* But NO, dammit.  *fever* We’ll try again on Wednesday.  *bleeding gums* I KNOW it’s open on Wednesday, dammit.  *bruising*

There will be pictures to prove it.

*seizure*