We had a free weekend before our next two crazy weeks began so Justin and I told the kids we were going to visit The Netherlands. Ellie wanted to know two things, "Are we going to sleep there and do they have any kids for us to play with?" What.....? Oh! Ellie, the Netherlands is a country... not a family named the Netherlands. :) hee hee hee!
The kids had a half day of school on Friday so we packed up our rental car and headed off towards the land of windmills, tulips, and the place where I am officially the shortest adult in the country. No, seriously... even the 5 year old Dutch children are taller than me. I was the designated driver for this trip because I am the only one in our family with an international driver's license. (Always have yours before you travel overseas.) Justin has to wait another five weeks or so to get his. I had my trusty navigator by my side and our three children squished in the backseat with their booster seats which they have to use until they are over 4'11" in Germany. Whew! I just barely made it past the mark! This trip, by the way, reminds me why it is so important for us to have a minivan. Distance. It is all about distance between the children. Ow! Stop touching me! She won't scoot over! Stop leaning on me.... oy vay! Could someone please get me a DVD player to subdue these children?!
Now let me tell you, driving along the autobahns of Germany is really something. The Germans certainly know a thing or two about constructing roads. It is like cruising along on butter, fast and smooth. As we drove towards Belgium, the breathtaking scenery was... well... breathtaking! We marveled at the forest-covered mountain tops, rolling green, lush farmland with dairy cows and horses grazing peacefully. Pointy church steeples poked above the rooftops of quaint villages that dotted the hillsides as we drove across bridges that had impossibly deep gorges and valleys below. Seriously breathtaking. It made us want to break out in song, "The hills are alive..... " I know, I know... wrong country. As we cruised along the sleek German autobahn we saw a sign and told the kids, "Look kids! We're in..." thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, "... Belgium." Note to Belgians, please attend German road engineering school. :)
We pressed on through Belgium, again, very beautiful, until we leveled out and hit the flat, flat, flat, and more flat country of the Netherlands. It isn't any less beautiful... just flat. Lots of dairy cows, sheep, trees, open fields, and canals. (More on those canals later.) We stopped at McDonalds for a bathroom break and a quick bite to eat.
Okay, now we are not one of those American families that say, "I would never eat at McDonalds outside of the US!" and we are not one of those American families that says, "I will only eat at McDonalds outside of the US!" (Oh, trust me, there are people like that!) When we are hungry and need a free place to pee (because you have to pay in many places for the bathroom in Europe), then Mickey D's it is! The kids were also pleasantly surprised at the differences between American and European Happy Meals. They got to drink a strawberry banana smoothie for their drink and got a yogurt for dessert. I just tried to think of the price of the Dutch McDonalds in dollar and Euro terms as equal because if I convert the actual Euro price into actual dollars, it gets depressing. Oh, our poor, weak, little dollar....
Back in the day, when Justin and I were footloose and fancy free (sans kids), we used to look for a hotel right in the middle of the hustle and bustle of the city. Now with three kids, the priority is 2 words: swimming. pool. We found a Holiday Inn with a GREAT price and it actually turned out to be a like a Holidome with a play area for the kids, a restaurant, and of course, a swimming pool. Once we got our bags into the room, the first order of business was to get to the pool. Our kids (including Justin) had a great time splashing around with the few other Dutch kids that were swimming. Apparently cannonballs into swimming pools are just as popular with the Dutch as they are with Americans. :)
We ate dinner that night at the restaurant in the hotel. It was a Dutch version of Italian food buffet. That means it was a buffet with Italian-ish kinds of food that are made with ingredients used mainly in the Netherlands. We were expecting spaghetti and meatballs, fettucinni, etc. No, more like lamb chops, veal with brown sauce, giant shrimps with the bodies in tact, (Remember, Americans do not like to know where their food actually comes from but Europeans do not mind, literally, looking their food in the eye as they eat them.) ;) fish, fish, and more fish... you know, things the Dutch like to eat. Not so popular with our kids, per say, but when they got ice cream at the end of the meal, it was all good.
Justin and I had another lightbulb moment when we got the bill for our meal. *ding!* Oh yeah.... this is why we used to travel with our cooler and pack sandwiches everywhere we went... The cost of food in Europe can give you some real sticker shock, especially when you pay more for a meal than you do for your night at the hotel! ;)
The next morning we were up early and after a quick breakfast, we headed off to the Keukenhof Gardens. Quick history of Keukenhof: There was a castle and land that was originally used back in the early 1400s by Jacqueline of Bavaria as a hunting grounds. She lived a short but busy life filled with waging war, being captured, and four marriages. She died of tuberculosis at age 34 and the land was passed down through family. In 1949, a flower and bulb exhibition was held on these grounds and a new tradition was born.
The weather was really chilly and overcast but the gardens were still beautiful. We always like to get to our destination right when it opens because, well, you know what they say about the early bird getting the worm... Tourist sites get really busy in Europe and we would rather be finished by the time it gets too crowded.
Unfortunately, most of the tulips were already finished blooming by this late in the season. Keukenhof opens late March and goes through May but the really beautiful weeks are mostly in April. The vast majority of tulip beds and the tulip fields were already cut down. The park does still set out flats of tulips they have grown especially for this time of the season so we did get to enjoy some. But please, don't get me wrong, with or without the tulips, there are still many, many other flowering plants, bushes, and trees, so the park is still so, so lovely!
F.Y.I.: Did you know that tulips are the only flowers that continue to grow once they are cut? At first the stems are nice and straight but by the end of their bloom, the stems are much longer and they droop over out of the vase. Also, the tulip bloom opens each morning and closes in the evening. Pretty cool!
For this trip, I bought each of the kids a sketch book and some colored pencils so that they could draw their favorite scenes at the garden. We went into one of the pavillion areas where they were having a lilly show. Oh, my, oh, my! The most beautiful displays of lillies I have ever seen. This is where the kids wanted to sketch first... plus, it was much warmer inside... that may have had a little something to do with their decision. ;)
Since it was so early in the morning, we were pretty much the only ones in the pavillion except for the Japanese tourists. Lots of Japanese tourists. Let me tell you a little something about the Japanese tourists because I have a long history with them. When they see something they like, they want to take their picture with it. When Justin and I were stationed in Germany twelve years ago, we had a cream-colored standard poodle named Toni. We took Toni with us on a lot of trips and wherever we would go, people would ooooh and ahhhhh over her. She was our goodwill embassador anytime we took her somewhere. Always a conversation piece, she was. Except the Japanese tourists didn't just want to pet her. They ALWAYS wanted to take a picture with her. And sometimes with us too. I can't tell you how many scrapbook pages our dog's photograph must grace in the Land of the Rising Sun. I always imagined that a good caption to that photo would be, "The dog we never had..." It always kind of made us giggle.
Apparently, however, Japanese tourists also like to take pictures of American children who are drawing pictures of flowers. This was not something we were aware of before we took this trip but alas, we now know this to be true. Now our children's photo will be next to Toni's photo in their scrapbook. I guess they could entitle the picture, "The American children we never knew...." hee hee hee
The kids really had such a great time at the garden and there was so much for them to do from playgrounds to a petting zoo. Andrew's favorite part was getting pushed (more like thrown) down a zipline swing by his daddy. Actually all the kids enjoyed getting thrown down to the end and then traveling all the way back on the zipline so we visited that area of the park several times. One time a group of Indian men stood watching for a while. One guy said that it looked like fun. Justin asked him if he wanted a turn. Sheepishly, the man asked Justin if he would push him. Well, you know Justin is a good sport, "Sure! I'll push you..." Ooof! He was a lot heavier than the kids... but the dude had fun and was grinning from ear to ear. Justin, you are a good guy!
One of my favorite parts of the park was the calliope. A calliope (cal-i-o-pee) is a musical instrument that sends air through whistle pipes and is usually associated with circuses or carousels. (No kidding, this is an actual Trivial Pursuit question so don't forget!) The calliope at Keukenhof is encased in a beautifully carved wagon and the kids got to go behind to see how the sheets of music are fed through the instrument to make the sounds. An unusual sight for sure, but a memorable one.
After lunch and a little bit more time sketching flowers, we walked back to the parking lot, loaded ourselves into the rental car, and drove to a windmill called Molen de Valk (Falcon Mill). After driving around the public parking lot and waiting, waiting, waiting for a super duper narrow parking place, I reached into my purse to get some Euro coins out of my travel wallet. And I reached, and dug, and hunted, and dug some more. No wallet. No travel wallet with all of my Euro and credit cards in it that I brought into the park at Keukenhof! After searching through every crevice in the car and our luggage, we raced back to Keukenhof to see if, by chance, it had dropped in the field where we parked. (I knew I had it when we walked back to the car because I bought something as we left the park.) Ugh! Panic... the headache of having to cancel all the credit cards... all those Euros gone...
We got back to Keukenhof and searched the field where we had parked. Nothing. We went to the information office at the entrance of the park and praise be to God! Someone turned in the wallet. It must have fallen out of the back on the car as I was loading things in to leave. The lady at the information office said that a man found the wallet in the field and turned it in. She took down his name and number so Justin called to thank him and let him know we received it. We are still saying prayers of thanksgiving for Richard Bethleham of the Netherlands and for his integrity. All of my money and credit cards were still there. It is comforting to know there are good and honest people throughout the world. Thank you, Lord!
After that stress event, we returned to the Molen de Valk and hoped to see a bit of the windmill before it closed in an hour. Would it even be worth the trip there to see it for such a short amount of time? Why yes! Yes it was... because did you know that that day was actually National Mill Day in the Netherlands so our visit was... free! What luck we were having! The Molen de Valk was built in 1743 and was used as a mill to grind flour. At one time, Holland had over 10,000 working windmills but with the dawn of steam powered engines, the number dwindled down to just about 950. Today, the windmills are seen as national treasures. The engineering is quite amazing, actually. The windmills had different uses. For instance, some were used to mill grain into flour while others were used to move water from lower areas into the canals. Moving water via a windmill is really an impressive engineering feat to me... since I am not particulary smart about engineering and mechanical stuff. And they figured all that out hundreds of years ago.... ! Those Dutch people were pretty darn smart!
You can't talk about windmills in the Netherlands without talking about the canals. It seems like they are everywhere! The interesting thing is that much of the farmland is lower than the canals. The windmills pump the water out of low-lying areas and up into the higher canals. Amazing to see... but it would make me really nervous. Haven't they ever heard of floods before? The Dutch seem to have things under control....
We got back into the car and began our journey back home. We stopped again at the same McDonalds. This time, however, it was Saturday night and the place was PACKED! In fact, we noticed that all of the McDonalds that we could see on our way home were packed. Hmmmm... is there something we don't know about in the Netherlands on a Saturday night? Mickey D's is the place to be! ;) Home.... bath... bed.... relax. Dank ju wel Netherlands! (Pronounced Dank-you-well.... means thank you) Until we meet again next spring for more tulip and flower fun. :)
Peace be with you,
The Hickmans
