Holland and Tulips for Jennifer's Birthday, April 2011

Recent reports claim that homes and work spaces are too clean.  They are lacking in the good germs.  Now antibacterial products are discouraged as well as harsh cleaners.  More than ever it is important to let your children get dirty. It is time to make mud pies, let them play in beach sand, or plant a garden.

Neil was gone to Ohio doing his flight training to transport injured soldiers.  He came home with a wealth of new skills as well as a flight suit.  He is enthused about his new duties.  Unfortunately he had to miss my birthday for the second year in a row.  Do not feel too bad for me.  Our nanny Maria stayed back in Germany with us and helped celebrate my birthday by bringing out the Schnapps and toasting the occasion at midnight.  Then I woke to breakfast, fresh cut flowers, and a decorated planter of pansies.  Then for lunch she gave me an ice tray that makes diamond ice cubes.  To further completely spoil me, she made a cream cheese and chocolate ladyfinger dessert.  The children sang happy birthday to me as the dessert glowed with sparklers instead of candles.  No one has ever put that much thought into my birthday minus my husband and mother of course. 

To make up for the lost birthday, I requested that we take a family trip to see the Kuekenhof Tulip Gardens in the Netherlands.  We decided to make the five-hour trek for Easter. 

The first leg of the journey we wanted to visit Neil’s place of ancestry, Heinsberg, Germany.  In the mid 1800’s German immigrants came to Eastern Nebraska on both sides of his family. Yes, his parents are very distant cousins.  Perhaps this explains the quirks in our children. 

We stayed at the Holiday Inn, heeding recent advice from a friend describing American chains in Europe as safe bets and secret gems.   This Holiday Inn exceeded my expectations because it was Easter weekend the children received chocolate foil bunnies the size of their heads as we entered the door.  The Holiday Inn was in Aachan.  We thought this was a typical German village but when we got home we consulted our guidebook and found out that Aachan was the home of Charlemagne’s tomb.  (Oops, just a minor detail we overlooked)

That evening we head out to Heinsberg and discovered it was a sleepy town of perhaps 5-20 thousand with impeccable kept brick homes and farmland stretching out in all directions.  We went straight to the cemetery to look for family names.  The gravestones were meticulously carved and artistic.  Each gravestone was an original design.  No family names were found.

The next morning we woke up to a European breakfast not to disappoint:  eggs, fresh bread, sausage, lunch meat, fruit, yogurt, and even Champagne. 

Colin 8 months

Then we drove the 2-½ hours to get to the Kuekenhof.  Indeed the gardens were splendid.  Tulips of every color were carefully laid out in patterns, planted surrounding a lake with man made meandering waterfalls.  The reflection of the water in the lake doubled the flowers’ display. 

We found a hedge maze and the toddlers pretended we were in Alice and Wonderland as we tried to make our way out of the hedges. 

One of our first views of the Kuekenhof

As we sat down for a snack and ice cream, we should have been looking at the tulips and the windmill but instead we were looking at the colors of humanity.  People gathered from all over the world to see the tulips.  As we looked at the cars in the parking lot we scoped out all of the European countries present.  We decided the world was in fact becoming a melting pot.  Races and cultures were mixing almost as fast as technology is changing.  What will our new more homogeneous world citizens look like in fifty years?  Time will tell even over the course of our lives. 

Ansley age 4

We spent the day in the gardens and left to head out to dinner in Lisse.   We found a mouth watering Italian restaurant with salads that had fresh sliced tomatoes mixed with giant slices of mozzarella, olive oil and fresh Basil. Neil and I had high hopes of a night out on the town.  Instead,  we caved and spent the evening looking at the store case window of Thomas the Train set accessories and playing in the downtown playground. We ate at the local Donner Kabob.  In most European towns this is the fast food option.  Turkish immigrants start these take out places that have spiced rotisserie mystery meat, served with yogurt sauce on a pita.  Now we are Donner Kabob connoisseurs and I cannot say that I am a fan of the mystery meat lead balloon in my stomach. 

The sun was beginning to set, and I convinced Neil to head out to the fields of tulips to watch the sunset.  The Netherlands is desperately flat farmland reclaimed from the sea.  A canal surrounds each plot.  You can even go on a boat tour of the tulip fields.  Neil and I preferred to walk.  The toddlers preferred to run, through the fields of tulips, kick up the dirt and just get plain dirty.  Oh to be a kid again. 

The sunset over the tulip fields was my idea of heaven.  The light of dusk was reflected off the water in the canals.  Tulips stretched in every visible direction, planted in approximately five-acre plots of the same color.  First we visited the hot pink section, then the orange and finally the lilac ones.  The fields were a quilt pattern of tulips.  The children ran themselves ragged till the sun went down at 9:05pm.  We headed back to our hotel room of Der Nachtagaal (the Golden Tulip) with peace in our hearts and in need of a bath.

The next morning we went to an English speaking Easter mass in a vibrant church in Amsterdam.  Many African immigrants wore native clothes made out of gorgeously patterned cloth.  Afterwards in the social hall, the African crowd sang hymnals in their native tongue.  We took it all in and enjoyed the uplifting spirit of the mass, the booming voice of the male canter, and being drenched by the priest with holy water.

Last we departed for home.  We stopped at the rest stop to let the children out to run.  I gazed at the gas tank.  “Honey do we need gas?”  No not yet I am going to wait for an Esso station in Germany where we get the government discount $3-4 a gallon instead of $9 a gallon.  Not concerned I leaned my head up against the window to take a nap.  When I woke up we were in the middle of nowhere.  “What are you doing Neil?”  His response was “getting gas.”  I bit my tongue.  This is practically a first for me.  I knew on an Easter Sunday everything in Germany is closed including gas stations.  It would have to be a large village to have an open gas station.  After circling the country roads for about five kilometers we reached the gas station.  Sure enough it was closed as tight as a drum.  The Germans are religious about observing their holidays.  All business ceases on these national holidays.  I respect this tradition but it becomes a little more precarious when you are trying to get gas. We were down to 12 miles on our tank.

We see a young couple on a moped.  Putting our faith in the teen couple we ask where the nearest open gas station is.  They mumble Prum (not prune).  “Are you sure?”  They nod yes. They are our last hope as we head off blindly to Prum.  I am thinking the chances of Prum, in the middle of nowhere having an open gas station on Easter, is slim to none.  Meanwhile Neil lets off the gas on the hills, at his first attempt at hyper mileing.  Neil mumbles to say a couple of prayers.  I break out the faithful rosary. I am on the last prayer of the rosary as we reach Prum an enormous Basilica church with a gigantic stature of Mary comes into view.  Now I know we will get gas.  Having witnessed an Easter miracle we fill up our tank that only had five miles of gas left on it.  Neil buys ice cream bars at the gas station and we prost (cheers in German) to Mary and God with our ice cream bars.

Our handsome camera man