Holland

Well, here it is. The long awaited Holland portion of our trip. Sorry it took so long but with a trip to Madrid and finals looming I have fallen way behind. So where did I leave off? Oh yes, we left Belgium and drove to Holland. We arrived at our hotel (the Marriot was our most "American-like" hotel of the trip) and went to the local town to find a store to stock up on food. And then we got some Chinese take-out and went to bed early so that we could get an early start to Amsterdam the next morning.
The next morning we took the train into Amsterdam and headed straight to my favorite part of the day. Museums!! I figured it would be best to get the painful part of the day over for James and Brian early. We started at the Rijksmuseum which houses an incredible collection of one of my all-time favorite artists (Rembrandt). Luckily for Brian and James the majority of the museum is closed for renovations and so only the major works are on display. It actually worked out for me as well so that I could see what I really wanted to see without having to run around the whole huge museum. (And it is huge). James did amazingly well in this musuem. And Brian was such a huge help taking over James (and adding his own comentary on the pictures) while I enjoyed the art at my leisure. (Well, maybe a bit faster than at my leisure but still it was awesome). Here is my only documentation of being at the museum since photos are not allowed on the inside. A view of the Rijksmuseum from the park right behind it (Muesumplein).After the Rijksmuseum, we walked a block to the Van Gogh museum (also one of my favorite artists). Again, this is my only documentation of the visit as no photos are allowed here either. I did buy a couple of prints here to brighten our bare apartment walls. James was great and actually fell asleep Brian's shoulder and then actually stayed asleep when we transferred him to his stroller. He had a pretty good nap and I was able to spend a good 3 hours in this museum (much to Brian's disgust but he did enjoy making his own commentary about these amazing works of art as well). I didn't know it but apparently Brian can whip up a painting just as good as these masters. Who would have known? James woke up at the very end of our visit in the museum and we headed back out to the park for some lunch and to play with some rocks. After lunch we decided to walk through Vondelpark on our way to catch a canal boat tour of Amsterdam. We took our time but I guess I didn't take any pics cuz I can't find any. Oops. Following are some pictures from the canal boat tour which was perfectly timed as it started raining (the only rain we suffered the whole trip) but we were safely tucked away in a covered boat. And it was warm rain anyway. Amsterdam actually got hot by mid-afternoon. The canals of Amsterdam are lined with these beautiful old houses with the most lovely architecture. I could totally live in a house that looks like that. And I really loved how the houses conformed to the canals (notice the curved buildings). Just a cool shot of a church from the boat. The only thing that I wanted to do in Amsterdam that I didn't get around to was the Anne Frank house, but we did go by it in the boat. Basically we saw the line to get in and I decided that seeing the outside was good enough for me. That's it with the tree right in front of it. More pretty row houses lining the streets/canals of Amsterdam. A gratuitous picture of James. I can't help myself. Prepare for lots of them. Here he is as a happy little guy on the boat. He was again super happy about the "wa wa". A view of downtown from the boat. More James. He really liked looking out the window. Amsterdam has some pretty cool bridges. Including this fun drawbridge. Typical, amazing Amsterdam architecture. A view of the canal as we left the boat. Isn't it beautiful? James was kind enough to fall asleep for a second great nap at the very end of the boat ride and again went into his stroller to continue the nap. After the boat ride we went in search of a bathroom and drinks and we decided to take some cheesy pics by the Iamsterdam sign in Museumplein. Here I am. And Brian. And James (he is asleep in the stoller but you can see his feet hangin out). And the whole sign. I know cheesy but that is what family vacations are all about. After some refreshment we decided to head downtown to Dam square in downtown Amsterdam to see the palace and to check peek into some shops for me. Me in front of the Royal Palace. A view of the Royal Palace from across the square. Notice all the bikes? Wow. I have never seen so many bikes in my life. (Boy, you could live here. They even have legalized drugs.) There was a huge carnival going on in Dam square and it was so loud and the road was made of really bumpy cobblestones and it was hot but guess who just kept on sleeping? Yes, James slept through it all until we went into a little shop to get me some wooden shoes. I did buy wooden shoes. Don't knock it till you try it. They totally rock! After Dam Square we walked back to the train station and called it a day. We got back to the hotel and had some more Asian take-out. (Can you tell what kind of food we really enjoy?) Then we just enjoyed another semi-early night. Here is James enjoying his favorite time of day. Being naked after his bath romping on mommy and daddy's bed. Life is such a game for him. He thinks it is very funny to get away from us as we are trying to put on his diaper and jammies. The next day, Easter Sunday, we got an early start and drove an hour to a great little place called Kinderdijk (fyi: all j's make a y sound in Dutch). It is a large canal lined with 17th century working windmills. What do the windmills do? Well, they regulate the water level in the canals, of couse. The day started off a bit cool and gray as you can see from the pictures. Here are James and Brian with a view of canal and some of the windmills. Same view but with me in the picture.At Kinderdijk we rented bikes and went riding down the path to catch a view of the windmills and to say we biked in Holland. Here are Brian and James on their bike. James had a special little seat and his own handle bars which he really liked as we were biking out toward the windmills with the wind behind us. Here they are in action. James decided the bike was less than appealing on the way back when the wind was coming at us and was a bit cooler than he wanted. Not to mention he really wanted to get down and play at the water's edge. A close up of one of the windmills. They are "owner operated" and the owners actually live in them. They are not like the modern windmills that we see now. They are actually houses with a big windmill attached to the top. Just beautiful! About halfway back we had pity on poor James and let him get down to play for a few minutes. And so I could take more pictures like this one. And this one. And this one. One funny thing we learned on this trip is that there are actually things that the GPS says that you never want it to say. For example, when you are about 5 minutes from your destination you don't want to hear the GPS say, "In 200 meters (yes, we deal with metric here) turn right then enter ferry." But alas we did hear those words and we were both thinking that we were surely buggered. Fortunately when we did turn right there was actually a ferry and it was actually running on Easter Sunday. So, 15 minutes and a few Euros later, we made it to our destination and we even got to watch on the GPS as our car "drove" through the water. It also told us to exit the ferry on the other side. Duh!!
After Kinderdijk we headed off to Kukenhoff. Kukenhoff (for those few who don't know) is an enormous (300 acre) garden that is only open 2 months a year with over 800,000 visitors during that time. It is THE tulip garden of Holland. It was AWESOME!!! We spent over 5 hours there and I felt like I could have stayed longer except that my feet were hurting from all the walking and my back from all the lugging of James around here and there. I must admit that it was very hard for me to narrow down the pictures on this part of our trip so there are lots here. Just cruise through them and pretend like you were there too! Here is James at the beginning of our Kukenhoff visit. He really wanted to get those flowers. And he really didn't want to sit in his stroller. Can you tell how crowded it is? Here is our attempt at a self family portrait. Not too shabby. There are even some flowers in the background. Me and Bubba. We had another cheesy moment here in Kukenhoff and got some pics of ourselves standing in the oversized wooden shoes. See my big muscles? I love purple (my second favorite color) and I thought these flowers were so pretty. And they smelled so good! Bimmy and Brian enjoying some flowers. Aren't they cute? One of my favorite things at Kukenhoff was the beautiful trees in bloom. They were everywhere. It just reminded me of some of my favorite Van Gogh paintings and I could totally see where he got his inspiration to paint blooming trees. Bubba, happy as ever. And still happy as ever. In order to save the flowers from James we taught him how to smell the flowers instead of crushing them with his hands. It really caught on and he decided he wanted to smell all the flowers. He still asks to smell them whenever he sees them here in Geneva too. Just my two favorite people. More practice smelling the flowers. Although one usually thinks of tulips when thinking of Holland and especially Kukenhoff, there were lots of other flowers as well. I think that anyone who has the opportunity to live in Holland should totally take it. Just for the beautiful flowers that are everywhere. Including on the side of the freeway. Me and James in a field of flowers! One of the more exotic looking flowers we encountered. They reminded me of pineapples and Brian thought they were particularly cool. Yes, even Brian enjoyed Kukenhoff. The weather was perfect (not too hot) and the flowers were to die for. I will admit I was a bit of a stickler about the map. I wanted to be sure and see the whole place. Little did I realize that would take over 5 hours and still we missed a few little niches here and there. They actually sell season passes to Kukenhoff as the garden is constantly changing during the 2 months it is open. I'm sure you could come every week and see a totally different garden. Here I am consulting the map. Oh, and this year the theme of Kukenhoff was NYC!! Originally, founded by the Dutch (the Holland people) as New Amsterdam the name was later changed to NYC but many of the original neighborhoods still retain there Dutch names (i.e. Harlem). In honor of NYC they had a huge Statue of Liberty head garden. You can see it below. Apparently there were over 25,000 bulbs in this one garden alone. I could live here!! And they had a free petting zoo and playground for the kids. Bubba particularly enjoyed this part. It came complete with its own Flinstone-mobile. And if you have ever wondered if it is true that there are fields and fields of tulips growing in Holland the answer is YES!!! Here is the proof! The fields were everywhere including right next to Kukenhoff. Just a few pictures of flowers that we thought were of particular interest and beauty. It is hard to narrow it down. Can you get over the amazing colors? These ones were so fun to look at. A small sampling of what Kukenhoff has to offer. There were tulips that had blooms as big as your head and some were up to my waist in height as well. I could not get over the amazing variety. Classic! And next time your kid draws you a brown flower it doesn't mean that it is dead. There really are brown flowers and they are beautiful too! These were probably my favorite flowers. The ones right in the middle with the fuscia to orange blooms. They were just incredible to look at. It just makes you know that God lives as this stuff doesn't just happen by accident. No sir! And He sure must love us lots to give us such amazing beauty in the world for our enjoyment! Brian in front of (well really to the side of) the windmill at Kukenhoff. We could have gone in but it was too crowded. Another beautiful tree in bloom. And another. Brian and I's attempt at a pic of just us. Didn't quite work. Take 2! Success! We even managed to get some flowers in the background too. James playing in the dirt with a stick. No wonder he liked Kukenhoff so much. He is such a little boy when it comes to dirt and rocks and sticks and mud and such. And last but not least, Bimmy in the huge wooden shoe. Bye, bye, Kukenhoff! We miss you!I know this was a lot of pics but we took over 500 so I did pretty good in narrowing it down. Stay tuned for more updates of our travels. I'm hoping to get our Spain trip posted sooner than later!