L Rizzy's Adventures: Holland: L Rizzy's 5th Country

Blogurus:

Judging from the lack of posting in the recent days, it certainly has been a very busy time for us here. Way back when L Mama was gainfully employed at Philips Medical in Cleveland, she was PAID to fly overseas to Holland for some training. During this time she was able to visit Keukenhof, which she reported to be beautiful (it was hard to believe due to the lack of photographic documentation). She had always said she wanted me to see it. Well, hello opportunity, nice to meet you.

A few months ago we found out that around Easter weekend in Germany the Friday and Monday are national holidays. We considered this the perfect opportunity to head up to the Netherlands. So we trained to Berlin, caught a way overcrowded bus to Tegel Airport, and a quick one hour flight into Amsterdam. Naturally, the weather was not the best, but our attitudes were bright. We had found a deal on a nice (nice?) hotel near the airport with breakfast included. After enjoying the hotel room, and L Rizzy bouncing like a Super Ball on the large bed, we had breakfast and caught the bus down to Keukenhof.

The first 2 hours we were there it was raining and 40 degrees. Eventually the weather got a bit better, but not perfect. We enjoyed walking the grounds and taking many pictures. L Rizzy enjoyed all the colors and was especially happy standing in his large wooden clogs (see below). Exhausted from a long day of walking and crowds, we bused back to the hotel and again enjoyed a trampoline session on the bed.

The next morning we took the train into the city to see the sights. I know the question in your head and the answer is yes, we were in Amsterdam on Easter Sunday morning. In fact, we moseyed over to the red light district on Easter Sunday morning. Thankfully, there were no red lights and no women in the windows. There was, however, many hung over (and some super stoned) groups of college age kids walking around and a strong stench of whiskey and honky-tonk. We enjoyed walking around downtown and also did a bus tour of the major sights including the Anne Frank house (with an enormous line wrapping around the block that we did not wait in) and the Van Gogh Museum (with an enormous line wrapping around the block that we DITCHED after skillfully finding tickets around the corner). We really enjoyed seeing the original Sunflowers (we had a print hanging in our living room in LA) and his self portrait. For dinner we saw an advertisement for teppan-yaki Japanese that we had to try. It was... awful. What's worse, though, is it was expensive. I would have had more fun (and maybe felt more full) taking out a stack of 10 Euro bills and making a small bon fire in the street. We trained back to the hotel, but not before we found a convenient store that sold Poptarts, Doritos, and A1. In the morning caught a really early flight to Berlin, a WAY overcrowded bus to the train station, and a train to Leipzig.

When we got home we had received some really great cards from Uncle Mitch, Aunt Nancy, and Carly. In the card was an index card with Euro coins taped to it. L Rizzy had a ball trying to get the coins off the card using all the tools at his disposal: hands and mouth. While he worked on the card, we relaxed and rested our feet from a long weekend of sightseeing.