Keukenhof

This past weekend I was feeling some better (thank goodness) and we decided to go ahead with our "small trip" idea. The destination was Keukenhof. Keukenhof is a large garden in Holland - here is there website. I believe the garden is open year round, but from March to May is the prime time of when the tulips are blooming. I don't know much about gardens or plants, and really I don't care. I tend to have a black thumb. But. I do love tulips. Tulips are by far and away my favorite flower. I wanted to go to Keukenhof last year but it never panned out. We decided on a bit of a whim to go there. Of course we picked high season, the most expensive time of the year for a hotel. I spent over an hour searching for a hotel... and even after that I feel like I paid waaaaayyyy too much. Oh well.

We drove over on Friday afternoon. When we checked into our hotel, we were advised by the front desk to try and get to Keukenhof early. It was my plan to get there when it first opened, but this confirmed my plan of an early start. The gardens open at 8, and we were there right when it opened. For the first two hours we were there it was heaven. The gardens are huge, and laid out along many different winding walking paths. We walked and walked and walked... and still saw new flowers around each bend. Beautiful doesn't seem to cover it. So many colors, shapes and sizes. I can't describe it, so here are some photos. Josh gets the credit for the photography on this trip. Don't let the sunshine fool you - although it was sunny, it was COLD!

Okay, so you get the point. I really had to restrict myself from posting more pictures.

As I said, the first two hours of our visit were amazing. We were able to leisurely stroll along. Around 10 or 10:30 the tour buses arrived... and suddenly the place was jam packed. Wall to wall people. It really started to suck all the joy out of the experience. I was happy we had gotten there early and were able to see a lot of the garden before the crowds got there. Saturday was suppose to be the Flower Parade, which is a well-known event. Originally we were planning to stick around to see the parade. However, we were going to have to hang around the packed gardens for another four hours before the parade got started. As much as I want to see and experience things... I couldn't really see this as being something I was going to enjoy. The crowds would have ruined it for me. So we left and did some shopping instead, which as it turns out was  lot of fun.

I'm glad we had a chance to see Keukenhof. For anyone who is interested in going, I highly recommend it. However, I would suggest you go early when it first opens, and (unless you really want to see the Flower Parade) go on a weekday. I think this is something my mom would enjoy. Hopefully in the next few years she comes out here when the time is right to see the blossoms.

Catching up...

A terrible March of blogging. I blame the lack of internet - which, for the record, I am still waiting to get in my house. Sigh. It will be soon.

But. To do a very brief catch up of what's been going on...

When Josh and I finally got back into the "swing" of things travel-wise, we took a weekend trip to Rothenburg. I had already gone to Rothenburg with my parents when they were here, and I loved it. It was one of the places I really wanted Josh to get a chance to see. We were looking for possible places to go, and I just happened to find a reasonable hotel for the weekend in Rothenburg. So. That's where we went. As with a lot of our more recent travels, I didn't have any set plans. We were mainly just going to check it out. We spent most of our time wandering around the town (which isn't very big) and shopping. We did go see the Medieval Torture Museum, which I didn't see when I was there before. Creepy is a good way to describe it. It was really just a nice, low key weekend.
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The next weekend we took a trip through base to do a Medieval Dinner at Cochem Castle. This is a trip the base does about once a month. I've heard good things about it, and Josh and I have always wanted to go... we just haven't made the time for it yet. I finally put my foot down and decided we were going. We took our friend Cody with us. We got to the town of Cochem in the early afternoon. I think if we went on this tour from late spring to early fall there would be more to do within the town of Cochem. As it was, the weekend was still cold and dreary, so many shops were closed. We wandered around town for awhile, then had coffee. We got to have a tour of the castle before dinner... and then our feast began. We sat at tow long tables which lined the hall. We drank wine from stone cups, and our food was served on slabs of wood ("plates") and we ate with our fingers. As we had dinner there were minstrels who performed. It was a lot of fun. Cody was selected to "compete" as a knight. He had to cut a log and sing (both of these parts of the competition he lost, badly). But the final leg of the competition was to chug a beer. Cody won that part easily. The whole evening was a lot of fun, and I think many of our visitors would enjoy it. The only un-fun part of the night was the bus ride back to base. Dinner was about a three hour even, and the ride home  is about an hour long.. yet somehow there were people who were extremely drunk who couldn't seem to keep it together for that short ride. It made for a... uh... interesting ride home.

Don't you just love him? He's so cooperative for pictures 

After two busy weekends I had to prep for my trip home to the states. I had not been home since my grandma passed away. A good friend of mine from college was getting married... so I used this as an excuse to go home. My friend Cody went with me to "check out" Montana before going on to see his family in California. I had a chance to spend time with my family, saw some dear friends, drank one of my favorite beers, and shopped shopped shopped. I haven't gone clothes shopping in a very long time... and well, let's just say I made up for lost time. As with all good trips my time home was over too quickly and now I am back in Germany fighting off jet lag and a nasty cold I must of picked up in my travels. 

But. There are things to look forward to. 

If I don't feel like death this weekend (which I could or could not... we shall see) we may try to get out and do some sort of small day trip. Then the first weekend of May I am going with my co-workers to a dental conference in Wurzburg. I'm not so overly excited for the conference part, but I'm really excited to check out Wurzburg. It's a spot I've been wanted to get to since last summer. Josh and I also have a wine tasting tour scheduled for a weekend in May. We live in the middle of wine country, but haven't yet taken full advantage of it. I'm hoping we have good weather. 

Now here is a minor rant. We were planning to go to Normandy for Memorial Day. It is within driving distance for us, and it is something we both really want to see, but we pretty much need a long weekend to do it (because of the distance). So I figured hey! Memorial Day! I coordinated with a co-worker to get that Friday off so that as soon as Josh is off work that day (which typically for a long weekend they get done a little early) we could get on the road. But. Silly me for making plans... Josh just found out he'll have some work things going on at that time... so not only will he most likely NOT get the weekend off, but he'll be working 12 hour shifts. Welp. There went that plan. 

However. I have to keep reminding myself to just roll with the punches. Take what I'm given and make the best of it. AND, I keep telling myself, I still have 5 years here to get things sorted out. So. There was March in a nutshell... here's to hoping for a good April (even though it's half over).