THE TRAVEL BUG AND MY TRIP TO HOLLAND

I think if the Army is going to station families overseas around so many interesting places, then they should give us a travel allowance. I dont think it should be just extra money put on your check every month though because some people would just keep the money & skip the once in a lifetime opportunity to see Germany & all of the surrounding countries that are so close to us. They could instead set it up to where you could turn in your receipts from hotels or museums or festivals, etc., and get reimbursed up to a certain amount. Yeah, yeah, I know - never gonna happen but it sounds like a good idea to me!

If money was no object, I would be somewhere new every week while I'm here & have the chance to see places I'll probably never have the chance to be this close to again! While there are some cities I want to see more than others, there aren't too many places you could name that I wouldn't love the chance to visit at least once! I know some people who could care less about seeing Europe & hardly ever even venture off base. I just can't imagine being here for 3 years & going back to the states with my basic impression of Germany/Europe being the American part of it. There are so many historical & beautiful cities to see & even though I love the U.S. and I miss it, I want to soak up as much of the different cultures & experiences of other parts of the world while I have the chance. Until I hit my mid-20s, I was perfectly content to spend the little bit of vacation time I ever got to take either on the beach in Florida or Georgia, at amusement parks once again in Florida or Georgia, and occasionally in the Smokey Mountains. I had basically never been out of the south except for a cruise to the Bahamas! Now, that I've had my eyes opened to just how big the world is & how much I've been missing, I want to see more of the United States once I make it home, but the way I look at it I've got the rest of my life to do that! While I'm here, I'm trying to soak up every little bit of Europe that I can. I know everyone is different & to each his own....I just want my only regret when I leave here to be that I didn't see enough because I didn't have the time & money, not because I just didn't have the interest.

This weekend I got the chance to take a trip to Holland so what did I do? I spent money I didn't really have & away I went! :) Holland, also known as The Netherlands, is famous for 4 things - wooden shoes, windmills, cheese, and flowersweekend, I got the, especially tulips. We got to experience all three by visiting a local farm that makes wooden shoes & cheese, as well as the famous Keukenhof Gardens Tulip Festival.

Knowing that the Dutch people are known for their cheese, I guess it was only fitting that as soon as we stepped off the bus we were officially welcomed to Holland by stepping in cow poo. Ugh! Not exactly the welcome I had in mind but oh well!

Next, we got to see how the wooden shoes are made & learned about their history and purposes....did you know that the clogs with the pointed tip are fisherman's clogs? That way he can pick up his net without having to bend over. See, you really do learn something new everyday :) After that, we were shown how they make cheese & even got to taste samples....yummy! Kraft will never taste the same! The garlic & chives cheese was my favorite! Last, it was off to the barn where we got to pet & feed the cows & the kids got to play on the rope swing in the barn. Devon said the smell of the cows made him miss home!

We spent the afternoon at the Keukenhof Gardens in Lisse, Holland. The gardens used to belong to the 15th-century Countess of Holland but since 1949 has been home to the annual festival that is open to the public for 8 weeks out of the year.  It is the largest flower garden in the entire world where there are over 7 million bulbs planted in a different unique pattern every single year. We were there before the peak of the season, which is towards the end of April, so we were told only about 35% of the flowers were bloomed. My only thought was if it's that beaituful now, I can only imagine how amazingly gorgeous it is during the peak time.

After getting up at 3 a.m. to catch the bus, it had been a very long day & I was all too ready when it came time for the 5-hour ride home. Ideally, I would have loved to stay there a few more days & have time to see even more but I'm hoping we can make the trek back to visit Amsterdam & see the Anne Frank House before our time here is over. If not, I will be thankful for the part of Holland I did see though & when I'm older & watching some channel like HGTV (like my momma does now) & a program comes on talking about the world's flower shows & mentions Keukenhof & how Holland is the biggest exporter of tulips, I can be that old woman yelling at the TV, "I've been there!!!!" :)