Dutch traditions?

So when you think of the Netherlands/Holland, perhaps a few things that come to mind are wooden shoes, windmills, and tulips.

I'll start with with the bad news first...I'm sorry to report that the only place I've seen those cool wooden shoes are in the gift shops or as gigantic shoes used to decorate Amsterdam (see below). I've meticulously observed the shoes of my coworkers, hoping for the one day they break out the clogs...but nothing. Windmills are still around, but slowly going out of fashion and mostly non-functional now. Plus in our travels to nearby countries (Belgium, Germany, even Spain) we've seen just as many windmills as in the Netherlands. It may seem like these traditions associated with Holland are simply exaggerations or even false, except for one silver lining...the TULIPS!!

During Kathy and Mike's visit, Kathy and I left Mike and Chris in Amsterdam (not sure if that was a good idea, haha!) and traveled to the nearby Keukenhof. The only way I can describe this place is as a theme park for flowers, specifically tulips. It was just as busy as a theme park too, with ten of thousands of people visiting. Set in 80 acres of wooden park, the 7,000,000 (yes that's 6 zeros!) planted bulbs make for a fantastic visual experience. Not only does the park look incredible, but smells delightful with the scent of hyacinth filling the air. The bulbs are planted in amazing arrangements, combining colors and styles in a beautiful way. Also just outside the park was field after field, as far as the eye could see, of colorful tulips grown in rows by color. My words really can't do it justice, so I'll just post pictures.

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In other news, Chris and I visited our local Friday market yesterday. The market sells fabric, clothing, fruits, veggies, meats, and other miscellaneous items. Chris and I planned to buy some fruit and walked by a stand just as a man was dancing around his fruit stand, cramming bags full for fruit and selling them for 5 euros (an amazing deal!). We were intrigued and couldn't help but buy a bag. The plastic bag was overloaded and of course ripped, making for quite an interesting bike ride home. We're gonna be eating fruit salad everyday for a while, yum!

Heather and Bill

We just got back from Spain, and so we'll have lots to tell about that, but before we left, we had my sister Heather and brother-in-law Bill come visit! After a week full of fun beer tasting, bike riding, and site seeing, we barely had time to pack, much less make a post!

We stuck mostly to the usually dutch activities, and showed them what it's like to live for a week here with us in Maastricht

And of course, we had plenty of vlaai (pronounced like 'pie' but with a vl instead of p)

More to come all about España...

Deutschland

The last couple weeks, Michelle and I were visited by my bother and mom, and we spent the first part of the week doing your typical Maastricht type activities. Bike rides, beer tasting, cave diving. (Pop quiz, is this photo A) mom getting all crazy? B) Photoshopped or C) Mike and Chris sneaking all the bottles in front of her for an incriminating photo op?)

We then hopped into a car and took a road trip!

First stop, Bastogne! You may remember this city from such world war 2 battles as "the battle of the buldge."

We then spent the night in Luxemburg.

And then headed off to The black forest

Where Mike, Michelle and I rode down a crazy "alpine slidesque" roller coaster.

And Basel, Switzerland.

Then we trekked up to Rothenburg ob der Tauber. A cool, walled, medivel city.

(Note, if you drink too much from the medieval keg on the left, you end up wearing the medieval drunk tank on the right...)

Over all, I'd say, a successfull week!

Bad posters :(

Hello! If anyone actually still reads this, which we hope you do, you've probably noticed we've been lacking in the posting here lately. Well, that's mostly because of the influx of visitors we've been seeing! So we'll try to get you caught up in a series of posts.

First, at the beginning of the month, my dad and Betsey came and visited for 9 days. And we all had lots of fun. Here are some photos from around Maastricht and Amsterdam, where we spent most of the time.

We also took a train to Paris for a couple nights, but since I don't have any of those photo's (nudge nudge), I'll have to post them later :) It was really grand to have them here and I can't wait to share some more photos!

More to come...