Keukenhof & Leiden

Chris and I love to celebrate our wedding anniversary by getting each other traditional gifts. I guess I should clarify. I like to celebrate our anniversary by getting traditional gifts. Chris likes to go along with it to make me happy.

When I saw that the fourth anniversary gift is "fruit and flowers" I knew I had a winner. We live near Holland, and flowers abound in our anniversary month - April!

I have had a love of tulips since I was a child. Love really probably doesn't describe it enough. Obsession, maybe? My mother used to read me a children's story about the history of tulips, and I was hooked at that young age.

I really was not picky as a bride about my wedding details. The one thing I absolutely had to have was a tulip as our wedding flower. So, we got married in April.

This year, to celebrate the "fruit and flower" anniversary, we decided to take an entire weekend to follow the tulip in Holland. We were originally going to go toward the end of April, but decided to move it to last weekend when we booked a trip to the United States. So, off we went.



It was heavenly for me. I have decided that Heaven MUST include gardens full of tulips, along with my favorite lemon and orange trees from Italy.





First of all, we found a great kid-friendly hotel. In fact, this entire trip was child-friendly. Bonus! We stayed at the Holiday Inn Leiden. It turned out to be more expensive than we liked, but worth it. Did you know that Leiden was the city where the first tulip bulb was planted in Holland? I did!

We drove the tulip route, spent an entire day at Keukenhof, and enjoyed every minute of it.

There was a petting zoo at Keukenhof. Jackson got to see his first cow, goats, bunnies, and chickens up close!



There were also all the extra trappings of a traditional Dutch scene at Keukenhof - a man making wooden shoes and a windmill to name a couple.



On Sunday, we checked out the city of Leiden. Not a must see, but pretty. Leiden is known to Americans as the city the Pilgrims lived in for a decade before sailing to America. It's also the city where Rembrandt was born. However, trying to find the Pilgrim landmarks is not easy, as they are not well-marked. I heard once from a fellow American that if you were to ask a resident of Leiden about the Pilgrims that they would have no idea what you were talking about.

So, we spent about an hour walking in a circle until we finally found William Brewstersteeg - an alleyway apparently - where William Brewster had his printing press. I was not wanting to give up on finding this, as Jackson and I are both descendents of his. Luckily, we did find it, snapped a picture, and our weekend was complete.

Now begins our whirlwind packing and organizing to get out of here by Wednesday morning! We will travel to the United States so that Jackson can be properly introduced to his country. We can't wait!

Kinderdijk

Today we drove about two hours away to Kinderdijk to a park to see nineteen working windmills in the Netherlands. I have always really appreciated the stereotypical symbols of Holland, and so I was really excited to get there.

The weather today was not the best for this outing, as it was windy and cold. But, it was still nice to get out and walk along the canals to see what was going on.

It was definitely a big tourist day. Lots of French people, particularly the elderly French in large tourist groups. It was also a big day for nine-month-olds and their tantrums. However, we stuck it out and saw what we wanted to see.

The windmills were constructed centuries ago to pump water out of the land. The canals, themselves, were dug by hand in the 1200s before people got the idea to build the windmills.

People actually live in some of the windmills today, and one has been converted into a museum of sorts. There are cafes and souvenir shops to go in too. In colder weather, when the canals are frozen, you can go skating on the ice! It is an incredible place to gaze at these structures, and we will definitely return on a nicer day. We thought about driving a further twenty minutes to the town of Gouda, but decided against it. Adding cheese to the list today just seemed a tad too touristy, and we can always return.

Child-Unfriendly

We have had a really great holiday weekend so far. With Chris working for NATO, we get some pretty non-standard holidays. As an example, we will not get Independence Day off, but we do have a four-day weekend for Easter.

There were some things that we wanted to get done around the house today, and so we decided to take it easy. We started off the day at the Sittard market, just to get out this morning. The Saturday market is a smaller version of the weekly Thursday market, but there were vendors out with their Easter best today.





After looking around, we decided to get some lunch at Bagels & Beans, the most fun little coffee and bagel shop around. I have said before, and I'll say it again, it amazes me to see how child-unfriendly restaurants are in the Netherlands (really, in most of Europe).

I have really been thinking about this a lot lately, as we are planning a trip back to the States very soon, and I have started to get excited about all the ways I will enjoy carting my child around once we are home. The doors that are welcoming for strollers! The changing tables in the restrooms! The high chairs in the restaurants! The grandparents who will watch our son for a few hours! That last one has nothing to do with dragging the baby around, but I am really excited about it.

Today, I just happened to have my camera with me, so I want to point out a few things for you to illustrate what we put up with here. There are two things I want you to keep in mind. First of all, this outing to a "restaurant" is very rare for us. I have decided, generally, that Jackson is just not fun to take out anymore so we just don't eat in restaurants. A coffee shop was OK for today though. Secondly, Bagels & Beans is actually more roomy and child-friendly than most other restaurants. Just to give you an idea.

The following picture is of Jackson sitting in a "high chair". There was one standard high chair in the whole restaurant. It was taken. So, there was this other thing that you strap to a normal adult-sized chair. Not very sturdy. That was what we found for Jackson, and it was also the only of its kind in the restaurant. [This was very generous, though, as most restaurants have absolutely nothing for your children.] You can also possibly see from this picture that there is not much distance between our table and the one across the aisle. This is also typical. You can only imagine how long it took us to get our stroller to the table and then find a place to stow the stroller.



You might have no clue what you are looking at here - it's the women's restroom. No, not a stall, the whole restroom. There is a sink right behind me. Beneath the changing pad is the toilet. So, you are expected to pick up the changing pad off the ledge, and place it on top of the toilet to change your child. I must emphasize that the fact that there even is a changing pad available is incredibly generous, because there typically is nothing.



I really hope all my expectations about the United States come to pass!

St. Vith

Set against the rolling hills of beautiful Belgian countryside lies a town strewn with buildings that, to me, are like precious gemstones. These buildings contain furniture for purchase.

Typically, I favor Belgian antiques, and I definitely have a style that draws me in like a moth to a flame. I love the Flemish style of pretty much any furniture, topped with Italian marble. However, we have been planning on getting a new dining room table for a long time - pretty much as long as we have been married - and I didn't want something antique.

So, we drove to St. Vith yesterday where there are several modern furniture stores from which to choose. We picked Moebel Krings Maraite. We really got the best deal with this store, too. If I had closed my eyes, I probably would have thought for a moment that we were in the United States, what with all the ease of purchasing and customer service offered there.

We ended up with a beautiful new dining room table and chairs, and also purchased a new coffee table and matching end tables for our living room.

So, here's why I really appreciated this place. I ran the saleswoman ragged looking things up for me, and she was very helpful and friendly through all of my indecisiveness. She offered us something to drink and when she came back with our very tasty cappucini, she also gave us snacks. Since we forgot our VAT forms, she supplied us with two self-addressed stamped envelopes so that we could just send them to her. And, the company is going to deliver our furniture to us an hour-and-a-half away for FREE. I am loving this company.

As I mentioned VAT forms, I do need to mention that the thought of them made me smile out of sheer irony. As Americans, we get to deduct the 30% Value Added Tax that the Europeans pay on furniture at this store. This is pretty standard across Europe. However, now that we have "health care reform" in the United States, we can start getting used to having to pay this same tax, as I am positive that it is the only way our country will be able to pay for anything from here on out. I should enjoy not paying the tax while I can.

But, it was a nice day in Belgium. And, in eight to twelve weeks, I will receive my new furniture!