Beachclub Twins

Well, we're back. After an ardeous trip from Tunis, via Frankfurt, to Schiphol Airport, and then by rental car for the last bit to Scheveningen, we made it home, with six large bags and suitcases. Lufthansa lost Rihanna Gaga's stroller on the way, but that one arrived earlier today - Tuesday, three days after we arrived ourselves. Already the day after we came back, we had a breakfast at the beach, together with my mum, at Buena Vista Beach Club. And today, we are going to have dinner at Beachclub Twins - this is the last week that the beach clubs are at the Scheveningen beach, so we are making sure to enjoy that to the fullest, in between unpacking our suitcases and bringing the stuff down that we put in our attic so that they would't be in the way of our subletters.

We arrive a bit out of breath. The wheel of Rihanna Gaga's stroller is flat, so it takes much effort to push it to Beach Club Twins, about twenty minutes walking from where we live. The beach club is located well: right at one of the main entrances to the beach. There's an interesting collection of statues and statuettes here, depicting fairy tales and stories about the sea. Rihanna Gaga remembers the statues from last summer and jumps out of her stroller. As we sit down, waiting for her to finish, she walks among the statues, talking about what she sees and touching each of them before going on to the next statue. My girlfriend and I sit on the stairs, overlooking the beach clubs and beyond that the beach, the sea and the renovated pier of Scheveningen. We've been very lucky with the weather the last few days: beautiful sunny weather, with only a few clouds in the sky and around sunset that typical blue hazy light so characteristic of the Netherlands in autumn. This makes for a beautiful sunset.

When Rihanna Gaga is finished, we walk down to Twins, where gas fires heat the tables. Rihanna Gaga is disappointed that we're not going to sit outside - but even though several people are sitting around the fires already, this is a bit too chilly for us, coming from Tunis where it was about fifteen to twenty degrees warmer than it is here now. So we move inside, but Rihanna Gaga insists that we play outside while waiting for our order. First she goes with her mum, then I take a stroll around Twins' terrace and the beach beyond. We sit down on the beach and the little one plays with th sand. After a while, however, she agrees it's a bit too chilly and we walk back to our table. Twins is what I would call a middle-of-the-road beachclub. It doesn't have a special theme, or anything that makes it stand out among its peers, but it is tastefully decorated and clearly comes across as a more upscale option than some of the othet beach clubs, with furniture and wall coverings executed in white, purple and grey, with bits of silver here and there. The menu is slightly prizier than some of the other beach clubs, but that is also a sign of its central location.

We've ordered the mussels in wine sauce and prawns in a thai curry sauce, with extra fries for Rihanna Gaga. My girlfriend and I drink a Westmalle Triple - highly enjoyable, considering that special Belgium beers is the type of product impossible to find in Tunisia - and Rihanna Gaga has an apple juice. She very much likes the praws, despite the slightly spicy curry sauce. The mussels, however, aren't to her liking, so she sticks to prawns and French fries. It's all very good and tasty, although it is a bit disappointing that the Thai prawns are served with a very tiny quantity of rice. Especially because the sauce is so good and so abundant, it would have been nice to get a bit more rice with it. The mussels are delicious as well - and so are the French fries.

After she's eaten a bit, Rihanna Gaga announces she's tired and reclines on the low couch on which we are sitting. She sleeps much these days - I guess all the impressions are tiring for her, but she also just sleeps better in general than she did in Tunis. And so do I. It's incredible how much less noise there is here in Scheveningen than in our neighbourhood in Tunis: no noisy cars, no call for prayer (that often woke up Rihanna Gaga early in the morning after they turned up the volume at the nearby mosque somewhere during the summer), no barking dogs. Life, for now, is very good.