Intocht van Sinterklaas
Arrival of Sinterklaas
Saturday, November 17, The Hague (harbour Scheveningen)
Traveled by tram towards the harbour with brother Jaap, sister in law Gayleen and nephew Ruben; after we changed trams half way we discovered my other brother Hans in the same carriage! Together we walked the final bit to the already very crowded harbour of Scheveningen. What I love about Sinterklaas is that everybody has the same sweet anticipation; young and old, we're all there to enjoy the party, it's such a wonderful atmosphere.


Before the steamboat arrived, Ruben already had his first encounter with a couple of Zwarte Pieten (black Petes) - initially he wasn't too sure about these painted and colourfully dressed creatures, but when they handed him some candy, he warmed up to them *grins*. He clearly loved the pepernoten (candysized ginger cookies).


There's the boat! Can you see Sinterklaas?


(As close as I could get with my camera;)


<+:-)>


Pepernoot, mmmm


"It's really good, you want a bite?"


While we were sitting down for some hot chocolate, across the street a Zwarte Pieten orchestra started playing!


Of course we went over there to join the party:)


They played very cool renditions of traditional and new Sinterklaas songs


Ruben enjoyed the music a lot:)


A final alp of the whole gang before we went home. (made by Hans with his long arm, thank you!)

For those of you who are interested: more on the history of Sinterklaas and Zwarte Pieten [Wikipedia]