Never mind the flowers we saw today. And we saw lots of them. Today, Kaitlyn spoke French. Not to me. And not within earshot. But to the Canadian woman, who rushed to tell me. She wasn’t sure what she was saying, but said that it was clearly French.
Today I told Bill that if I were to choose where I’d want to live in Europe, this is where I’d choose. Leiden is lovely. It’s a city but not a big city so it isn’t packed with people. This morning we went to the market and I just adored the charm.
I never had to worry about communicating with anyone. Everyone was friendly and didn’t mind speaking to me in English. Kaitlyn saw a place selling fish and begged for some. The Dutch like to eat herrings for snacks. Gross. I asked Marjan what she’d recommend for a little kid. I don’t remember the name of what she told me, but Kaitlyn loved it. I’d asked the guy for just one piece and he refused to let me pay for it, since I didn’t buy a whole basket full. Then down the row, Kaitlyn found another fish place that had cooked shrimp. She powered through those! I couldn’t resist some cream cheese stuffed pickled peppers. Oh, they were delicious. We also found someone selling these waffles filled with syrup… they are more like cookies. Thin waffles with the syrup in between, like an Oreo. It sounds gross, but it isn’t. It’s incredibly tasty. We bought a tin as a gift; if it makes it all the way to the post office intact.
The market was just a diversion on the way to the central station to catch a bus. We were headed to Keukenhof. It’s a giant garden with thousands and thousands of tulips and hyacinths and daffodils. Kaitlyn didn’t linger much. Bill tried to take pictures of every shade of flower there. It got a little frustrating being the middle man; I was after a pace somewhere in-between. We spent three hours there and probably could have spent more. We didn’t get to see everything there is to see. But we sure saw a lot. It is amazing to me how lucky we are that we are in Holland while all the flowers are blooming. There were only a few that hadn’t opened yet. (of course, the Delft blue were among them. I kinda wanted to see that) And I had no idea how many varieties of tulips there are. I’ve seen some in catalogs, but that doesn’t compare to seeing thousands of them all together. It really was pretty. Prettier than just an ordinary botanical garden, I thought. Maybe because it has such a short window of opportunity.
Instead of getting to the post office with that tin of cookies, we all ended up falling asleep when we got back to the boat. You’d think the day we didn’t bike we wouldn’t be so tired! I guess it will take some time for us to catch up.
I tried to retrace the steps of the previous evening’s walk for Bill after we ate dinner. Mostly we got lost. And Kaitlyn begged to be carried most of the way, which made a pleasant evening stroll into a real workout for Bill.
Tomorrow, it’s back to pedaling. We go from Leiden to Haarlem, via the tulip fields.