Flower Land. One good thing about entertaining guests is that I have every reason to visit (again) some of the popular tourist places of my country of residence. One spot that I don't really mind visiting all over again is the flower fields which you can fully enjoy come Spring time. It still amazes me to see carpet like flower fields glimmering with their vibrant colours. Not surprising the late Pope John Paul II would usually say during his Easter Day message "Nederlands, bendankt voor de bloemen" (Netherlands, thank you for the flowers).
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Queen's Day. The whole of the Netherlands celebrated Queen's Day last 29th of April. This year is particularly special because Queen Beatrix celebrated her 25th year as the head of the monarchy--the House of Orange. Compared to the British monarchy, I find the Dutch royal family more "normal", transparent, and seem to be more open to show their emotions in public.
The Dutch people celebrated wearing their outrageous orange (national color) outfits and partied until the wee hours of the morning. Hubby and I, together with some of our friends went to Amsterdam to celebrate Queen's night/day. It was really fun as everyone was just in a party mood.
Queen's Day is also the day when the Dutch would bring out stuff from their attic or storage rooms, and sell it to whoever is interested. The Dutch would look for the best spot at the markt or park, set up their wares, and sell. Rent free! Perhaps you can call this as the national recycling day--simply put, you can buy other people's junk. You might get lucky however, and find some very nice stuff for you or your kids. Should you regret buying, don't worry, just store it, as you have another chance to recycle it come next year's Queen's Day.
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Dutch Landscape. Flat lands and water. The landscape is as straightforward as the Dutch. Need I say more?
3 comments:
Sari, when I here Netherlands, the first thing that comes to mind is a bed of tulips. I love them. The only problem is, the tulips never seem to last longer than 5 days. I love them when they're still about to bloom..
Sari,
Do you know I work near the flower fields? I see them everyday, yes EVERY SINGLE DAY between March to May when the blooming season starts. Come June to July, there will be a different set of flowers blooming.
I also had an entry about them Tulips a few days ago. They actually come from Turkey... and the worlds flower auction market is in Aalsmeer... it is HUGE!
Everyone loves Queens Day :-)
Ting-Aling, I agree--unfortunately tulips do not last that long. Once I attended a wedding in Manila and the bride supposedly paid a fortune for her tulips bouquet, but too bad the tulips were fading away.
MissT, lucky you for having the bloom fields as your view. It must be a pretty amazing sight.
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