Freakishly Happy

So as I said in the last email, we went to the Netherlands this past weekend. It's pretty nice when the weekend lasts from Wednesday till Monday, huh? I am such a lazy bum!
Anyway, the Netherlands was FANTASTIC. I really felt at home there.

We arrived in Rotterdam on Wednesday afternoon, and met our friend Michiel, who John worked with last summer in Minnesota. He has a really nice apartment in Rotterdam, one which he has done a lot of work on since moving in 4 months ago. Upon arriving we chilled out for awhile, played with his juggling impliments and helped him measure his windows for curtains.

We wandered about the town a bit, saw the church that the pilgrims left from (the currator was really excited to have Americans I think) and walked through a park before decided that we were famished and went to a swank restaurant for dinner.

Michiel was a great host and had a lot of really cool things planned for us. Stuff that a normal dutch person really probably WANTS to do, but can't because it'd be too touristy. Having two Amis visit was a good opportunity for him to catch up on his Dutch culture ;)

The next morning we went to Madurodam (http://www.miniatureparks.org/parkinfo.asp?ParkID=9)
which I guess is the smallest city in the Netherlands. It was pretty insane seeing crows land on buildings that were less than half their size and hop through the streets terrorizing tiny citzens. The Madurodam is a collection of miniature replicas of famous dutch sites and scenery along with an ice exhibit. I realize that ice exhibits should be cold, but this was a little "extreme" (Michiel's catch word of the week). -10 is darn cold.
We went home and took it easy that night. Who knew that tourist attractions normally reserved for retired people and Japanese tourists could be so tiring?

The next day we woke up late-ish (at least I did. I wasn't awake so I can't vouch for the guys) and went to see tulips. John and I brought our coats back to the states with us last week, and were really not prepared for being in the Netherlands. When we got to the Keukenhof, it began to drizzle and was frigid. The tulips were INCREDIBLE though. As we drove in on the bus, there were fileds just filled with strips of color going for miles and miles. The Keukenhof itself was brilliant gardens filled with all different kinds of tulips, daffodills, hyacinth and a whole bunch of other unidentifiable flowers. I was so excited and overwhelmed by all of it. At one point I said, "this would be paradise if there was a petting zoo." and sure enough around the next corner was a petting zoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Kismit is great!

We all had a pretty short attention span that thankfully seemed to wax and wane at the same time. We left the gardens and headed down to his friends house outside of Utrecht. Sunday was Queens Day (Koniginnendag) but since it was a Sunday the holiday was moved to Saturday. But since the dutch party hard the night before, we decided to oblige.

... (to be continued)