Keukenhof - AKA "Tulip Heaven"

What is more Dutch than a tulip? How about 4.5 MILLION of them? :)

Today, my friend Siba and I drove to Lisse to visit the famous Keukenhof Garden. First of all, who is Siba? Funny, small world story... In the summer of 1998, I spent about 6 weeks studying Spanish at la Universidad de Toledo in Toledo, Spain. Siba was in the same program, and was rooming with my friend Fayza. We became good friends during the program, and, although she returned to her home in Aachen, Germany, and I returned to school in Toledo, Ohio, we remained "pen friends" for the next 9 years! Strangely enough, she ended up doing a post-graduate program in Amsterdam, and now lives and works here, and I'm here too now. We've seen quite a bit of each other, and it's certainly nice to see a familiar face. :) Who would have guessed where our lives would have taken us so many years ago?

Anyways, the drive to Siba's house actually took me longer than getting to Lisse. My crazy TomTom kept trying to make me turn down the wrong way on one-way streets. I seriously wanted to throw the stupid thing out the window! Siba lives about 10 mintues away, but it took me 40 minutes to get there! Anyways, once Siba was securely in my car, we made our way through beautiful tulip fields (yes, it really is just like what you see on tv) to get to the amazing Keukenhof garden. The parking lot alone was amazing - there were license plates from all over - Poland, Germany, Great Britain, Czech Republic... I'd venture to guess there are over 1 million people that visit this place every year. Although there were a ton of people there, it didn't feel too crowded - there were only a few bottle necks where I felt like it was a mosh pit rather than a garden.

The flowers were amazing... it was definitely more of an organized garden rather than just fields and fields of flowers like I had pictured. But, still impressive! We had a lovely picnic in the garden, and just enjoyed the afternoon walking around. I think pictures can definitely speak better than any words I can write, so I'll let you see what I experienced today:


Some interesting "art" in the garden

Yours Truly

Fields across the water

Siba!