traveling 14

First off, I just have to tell that we are now in Paris, arrived at 9.40pm last night and I feel so, so excited. to be here. It's 7.30 am now so am going to tell you some more about Amsterdam before I go out and begin to explore.

Before I do that I'll tell you that Emma and Sam have made it back to London without a hitch and  we look forward to seeing them in June.

And now - Amsterdam and our Tulip Farm visit. I felt very excited when I realised that we'd be in Amsterdam at tulip flowering time and we were all looking forward to going there.

One of the neat things about taking a tour which goes outside the city is getting to see outside the city, perhaps I've said that before. The tulip farm we went to is the the Keukenhof  Gardens which are about 45 minutes outside of Amsterdam. this particular garden is open for 3 months of the year - March, April and May and has 800,000 visitors in those 3 months. It is a huge operation with a huge garden area for visitors to walk around in and the commercial tulip growing area. We chose to go on the tour because it was the easiest option otherwise it's a train to the airport and then a bis from there. However, this meant that we were on their timetable which meant that we were on a set leaving time which meant no time to hire a bike a ride through the tulip fields which would have been AMAZING. No, I'm not complaining - the gardens were pretty amazing. As well as the tulips on all their spectacular colourful glory there were daffodils, hyacinths and other spring flowers. The scent from the flowers was lovely and we certainly enjoyed roaming about with Emma and Sam.

taken from the bus on the way to the tulip farm

 I was surprised at the level of pollution. It was a fine day and it seemed the landscape was fading into the murk not very far from the bus.the photo above and this one were taken not long before midday.

 also taken from the bus. It was fantastic to see the miles and miles of brilliant colour stretching out into the distance, just like the pictures and postcards. 

not sure what this little round house is about but I really like it.

 and then we were there

This was one ofthe first things we heard

And now - the gardens

interesting looking lilies

it was a fabulous day and now I've got lots of ideas for my garden.

including this outside light made from an old hose. I got Sam to stand beside it so I would  have the height of it without having to remember it. 

All too soon it was time to be on the bus and heading back to the city which was getting itself ready for the next day - The King's Day which means a lot of orange in the city and on the people. King's Day is a national day and this was first King's Day or Koningsdag in Dutch, in 120 years because now they have a king whereas they'd had a queen. We also bought some orange things to wear - tiny orange hats, Sam and Barry bought t-shirts, and Emma and I had orange leis and we were set for   

Koningsdag. 

After we got back from the tulip farm we sat at a table outside a  restaurant and had a few beers watching  the city life go by, went to a restaurant just down the street from our apartment for dinner  and then we walked over a nearby little bridge to see what was on the other side and we found a street party happening. What could we do but join in and  so we had a few more beers after being enthusiastically welcomed, because we are kiwis and he was originally from South Africa. We couldn't figure out why he was so  enthusiastic except that he was probably drunk.

We left after a while and wandered into a tiny little pub just before the bridge and had some more grog and by the time we came out the street party had really livened up so Emma and Sam decided they'd like to carry on but Barry and I decided to call it a night.

Suffice to say that  they arrived back at the apartment some time later very merry indeed which made for a slow start to Koningsdad the next morning