Dutch Bucket List (Flower Auction)

Flower Auction. Check.

We dragged ourselves out of bed at 6:30 on a summer day to go to Holland's primary flower auction. Our visit was strangely satisfying--the auction house is so big and such a well-oiled machine, it's hard not to be impressed.

 

It's a teeny-tiny country, but the Netherlands is world's #1 grower and exporter of cut flowers:

This is THE place through which ALL cut flowers pass when moving from grower to market. Every day, there's a fierce, but civilized bidding process called the auction clock. It operates according to a system called the Dutch Auction, which means going from a high price to a low price.

Skip ahead to the 44 second mark on this video, and watch A & R do some crazy flower distribution of their own!

And check this out. Tell me it's not mesmerizing!

We LOVE Holland!!!!

Dutch Bucket List (The Tulip Fields)

Stop and smell the TULIPS. √

Today, June 1, marks our third-year anniversary in Amsterdam. We're leaving soon (sniff, sniff), and even though we've explored The Netherlands extensively, our bucket list is still rather long.

It seems like the term 'bucket list' has suffered from a bad image lately, criticized because people fill up their buckets with all the things they'd like to do and then never do any them. I understand this point of view, although for the most part I think I'm pretty good at seizing opportunities to fulfill my life wishes. Off the top of my head, I think my novel is the one BIG thing I haven't competed yet, which is probably because I'm too busy doing the other things on my list, but that's a topic for another time.

For now, I'm focused on my Dutch bucket list. The whole family has items on this wish-list, kids included, and I plan to post once a day as we check things off. Some of our wishes are simply that, a desire to check something off. On the other hand, some of our wishes aren't even concrete but are much more meaningful, such as a desire to relive an experience or conjure up a feeling that reminds us of Holland. Some of our wishes are to do something for a second or third time. We'll see. I don't think we know the full scale of this list, as I'm sure the list will beget a more extensive list.

Bicycling through the tulips is a quintessential Dutch experience, and admittedly I have a small obsession a few tulip souvenirs--my favorite of which is this vase.  The window to do this is brief, a six week period in the spring while the tulips are in bloom. I've done it once before, with two amazing women I had the joy of sharing two of my three years here in the Netherlands, and it was high time to come back with the family. So, just days before leaving for Morocco, we got out and did it (poor DS even had to fly back to NYC that day, only to turn around three days later and fly to North Africa . . . .crazy!).

We logged a 4 hour loop, first through the fields, then out to the North Sea dunes for a picnic lunch, and finishing at the ever-so popular Keukenhof Gardens.

Windy wind. Unless we were on them, our bikes spent much of the day like this:

In the middle of the tulip fields, one stumbles upon Keukenhof Gardens--a formal showcase of tulips and other seasonal flowers, which is only open in April and May. It's a big tourist destination, for good reason. The park is a delight of gardens, cafés, playgrounds, and windmills. Each year they center their creative gardening efforts around a theme, and this year was the Dutch Golden Age.

I just love these Amsterdam houses and canals. Holy crocus.

It's a good day when your outfit is identical in color to a vibrant spring flower.

See you tomorrow with Bucket List, Wish #2

Tulip Tipsy

Tulips make me happy, even when they've worked themselves up into a state.

Happy Birthday Grammie

Happy birthday to my tulip-icious mother-in-law today!

Back in October, we brought tons of tulip bulbs to the US to give to friends and family all across the country.  Many of them planted the bulbs last fall, and it has been fun to get pictures from all over the States showing them blooming!!  I feel like we've given new meaning to the Dutch-American friendship treaty!

Here's D and the kids planting them last fall at Grammie's house.

And voila!  A springtime connection with loves ones thousands of miles away.

When Grammie sent us messages with pictures of hers blooming, she titled her emails "family love" and "pure happiness."  I think that certainly says it all!  Happy birthday Grammie. We love you and are so happy you and your "little boy" get to share this birthday together--in person!!

#rootofourlove

Tulips always seem to find us, or perhaps we find them because we love them so much.   We're chasing them all over the globe. Haven't we all had a crush on a bouquet of tulips now an then, or on a single bulb of the most magnificent strain of colors we couldn't imagine nature produced such a thing?  I certainly have, it's even been "our" flower as a couple.

And so, it was downright punch drunk love for us while living in Seattle and experiencing the intensely colored fields of Skagit Valley nestled in the Cascade Mountains.  Then, we moved to Holland and things got more serious.  It's real love this time, our field of vision so flat that there is no horizon in sight, just endless fields of color and love.

It seems, though, we've gotten to the root of our love, now that we find ourselves on vacation in Turkey.  The Dutch are the most celebrated tulip growers in the world, but they weren't the first to fall in love with the bulb, called the "King of Bulbs" by the Turks.  In truth, the Dutch discovered the tulip while trading with the East, specifically in Turkey, during the 17th century.  The tulip became so popular in Holland during this era that one bulb could sell for as much as one house.  But it was the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire who adored the exotic, fragile and fleeting quality of the tulip bulb.  Our hotel is right next to the gardens of Topkapi Palace (centuries-old residence of the sultans) where the annual tulip festival is in high gear.  We could have been at Keukenhoff Gardens . . . but we are definitely not!

But of course, #rootofourlove offers up a double entendre, for it is these two playing in the gardens of a 15th-century Ottomoan palace amid the tulips who are the true root.of.our.love.