Holland is Blumen

A day after getting home from London, I was on a coach bound for Holland to see the famed Keukenhof Gardens with later stops in Volendam, then Amsterdam and Brugge, Belgium. My traveling companion on the four-day trip was a friend from here, Randi. We really had a good time and talked A LOT! We were on a full coach with about 40 other olde ladies and men and were by far the youngest pair. I wanted very much to take a photo of my view inside the coach so you could see all the grey-haired heads but I couldn't include myself (lol).

The first day was a full travel day and included my first ride on the Chunnel train from Dover to Calais. The coach just drives into the train car, the train takes about 30 minutes to get to Calais and we drove off. It was easy. I tried very hard not to think about the fact that I was underwater. In a tunnel. Sealed in a train. shiver Twelve hours later, we arrived at our hotel which was very new and clean in a town which looked very new and clean. In fact it was so new and clean that the town looked completely unlived-in, like there had been a zombie apocalypse or something. We spent most of the evening watching all of the coverage regarding the assassination of Osama bin Laden.

The second day we headed to the garden. It was just beautiful as the photos will show. Since we have had incredibly amazing and sunny weather, the tulip fields were past their bloom which was a bit disappointing. Here are some pretty pretty pictures:
That evening, Randi and I went to an all you can eat sushi buffet which was phenomenal and the wine was a great idea too.

The next morning, we were off to a cheese and clog making factory/farm. It was an interesting learning experience.
I learned that clogs are very uncomfortable
and that freshly made cheese is delicious.
A cheese press

Then we visited a nearby town called Volendam. Nothing special, sort of touristy, but it was situated on the Zuiderzee which was neat.
Randi and I then spent the afternoon and evening in Amsterdam, taking the train back to our hotel and escaping the granny coach for the rest of the afternoon. We went to the Rijksmuseum, had dinner and got boxed in by the Remembrance Day march which seemed to be occurring in every direction we attempted to take. Large groups of people joined a walking parade which traveled throughout the city for what seemed like two hours and ended up in a stadium area. A non-Dutch person actually stopped his bike and asked Randi and I what was going on. I guess we blended in well AND we knew the answer thanks to our tour guide. The Dutch do this to remember those who have died in conflict since WWII. Very moving and extra-special since Queen Beatrix was leading the parade. Note: The Dutch do love their royals as was witnessed by all of the postcards of photos of the royals in a variety of daily life activities. Has anyone ever seen a postcard of Barack Obama playing basketball or skiing or smiling and hugging his girls? If so, then we Americans are just as bad. However, I don't think this is the case. We were on the train at 20:00 to witness the two minutes of silence which was nice to watch, especially when pretty much the whole train station froze.

We started home bright and early the next morning, got stuck in some stop and go traffic near Antwerp, had a (litruhlee)
short
and sweet visit to Brugge,
experienced a Chunnel train delay, got caught up in more traffic in SE England and finally made it home almost exactly 14 hours later. I rode on the following travel options yesterday: a coach, a bus, a train, a shuttle bus (aka "people mover") and a taxi with some walking in between. Darn, I knew we should have hired a horse-drawn carriage in Brugge!