Keukenhof, Springtime, and all the bulbs.

"It is like heaven."

Holland in the springtime seems a bit like an experience beyond this present life. One of the big exports of this country is bulbs, so there are literally fields (and fields and fields and fields) of bulbs. Last Friday, Owen and I biked through some to get to the Keukenhof, one of the most prestigious gardens in the world. When we went, the tulips were just starting, and many of them were still closed, but there were many daffodils still and the hyacinths were at their peak.


We biked there and back (about an hour each way, supposedly, but we took our time and kept getting a little off track, so it ended up being a lot more) and the whole time it just felt like such a gift. Being here in this country is a gift. Being able to bike is a gift. The existence of such a park is a gift. Life itself is a gift.













They even have the park arranged so that every time you turn a corner there's something more to look at, and there are benches and fountains and places to just chill if you're getting sort of overloaded by the extreme amounts of beauty everywhere.






Another lovely thing about the Keukenhof is that they are pretty careful to make it pretty normal looking. It's not garish or overblown, and while it looks incredible and luxurious it doesn't seem like too much. It's like any chunk of it would seem like a normal park, except it's thousands of those chunks all out together, and carefully scheduled so that it will look good for a long while. Crocuses and tulips planted in the same beds so that they can tag team the display or some places where they have like five types of flowers all mixed together in long lines.







 There were (in addition to the gorgeous bulbs and generally impressive landscaping) an amazing number of flowering trees, many of which were raining petals, so that the air swirled with them. The immaculate grass in the whole park is off limits, but there are so many little walk ways and stepping stones that you never feel the want.

 We were so happy the whole time. We'd look at the map and ask each other "where do you want to go?" and we couldn't even answer. "Everywhere! Anywhere! We can also just sit on this bench for the rest of our time!"









And everywhere we went we discovered more beautiful parts of the park.












 Some of the tulips were so elaborate I had to check the sign to make sure they were actually tulips.












They had all sorts of things besides just flowers, too. There were playgrounds, a turning windmill you could climb up into, a petting zoo, a zip line and this excellent hedge maze.

There were also a lot of just interesting pieces of landscaping with an an adventure style flair. Zig zag ladders are surprisingly scary to climb.

















Many places along the edge of the garden were lookouts, where you could see the fields of bulbs.












We had biked through some on the way there. The fields of hyacinths are something beyond description. You smell them before you see them, and then you can't smell enough of them.

They also had some greenhouses with plots of specialty flowers, all patchworked in close together. I'm looking forward to learning more about tulips and their history and impact on this country. There's a museum in Amsterdam all about tulips that I'm looking forward to visiting.














But for now, I'm enjoying them in windows, in the grocery stores and markets, people's little gardens and in the parks. If you'd like to hear a little bit about tulips, here's a nice video by John Green about tulips and The Netherlands.

The cows say... what? Visiting a farm in the springtime.

Every week I babysit two little kids, and sometimes I tag along with them on adventures like going to the farm. This farm is free, open to the public, and in a park in a residential area just outside of Leiden, and it is complete with a little cafe (I got hot chocolate made with fresh milk), a playground, sinks to wash your hands, and lots of animals. And let me just say, the spring is an excellent time to visit a farm. So many babies.

Giving the donkey some attention

getting some attention from the baby goats!

Ellie wanted to kiss all the animals. We did our best to restrain her.

there was a whole big area where you can just frolic with the goats

They thought the stroller was super yummy

Some babies were too little to go out and play with the bigger goats.

I've never seen these birds in the US

Or this one.

But some animals are familiar, just say different things here. The roosters say "kukuruku"

The sheep and goats say "maa"

And in the Netherlands the cows say "boo." In Germany and Italy they say "moo" so I'm pretty sure it's just a Dutch thing. 

"boo"

Speaking like a four year old.

One of the biggest adventures of moving to this country has been learning to speak Dutch. I've mentioned it on this blog mostly as a struggle, but I should say that it is also becoming a joy. Here are some examples.

While nearly all adults in the Netherlands speak a bit of English, and most are fluent, the children are another story. In our church there is sunday school during the service and there's a big rotation of who helps out with teaching the children. At the start of the service, sometimes they'll ask for someone to help with the kids (not to teach, just to help), so I have twice now joined the "Kingdom Kids" aged 4-6 with their Bible Lesson. I figured I knew a little Dutch, I would be able to help walk the kids to the bathroom or whatever else needed doing. The kids spoke no English, and though the teacher was fluent in both, the class was conducted entirely in Dutch.

I was delighted both by how much I could understand and by the excitement children can put in little activities. When telling of their weekends, the kids were bright with stories of "oma en opa," (grandparents), "ijs met hagelslag" (ice cream and sprinkles) and "pannenkoeken" (pancakes! often eaten as a meal any time of the day). I felt silly that if I had been able to cram together sentences they would have been dull and lacking interest after such a string of treats. What would I have said? "I have now a dehumidifier. Now is my apartment not wet. I find this nice." So boring! And what kid cares about the humidity?

At one point however I was astonished to discover secret English lurking in one of the children's storehouse of knowledge. After coming back from the bathroom with two of the kids, I saw another waiting. I tried in Dutch, "Wil je ook te ga naar de WC?" or "want you also to go to the bathroom?" to which she blinked, smushed her knees together and blurted out in perfect English, "I need to pee!"

When asked what they were going to do for their "krokus vakantie" or spring break, one of the boys mentioned he was going to England with his family. So they had a whole discussion about how were they going to get there? Because England is an island you can fly over the water (complete with whizzing hand motions), go under the water in a tunnel,  or go on the water in a boat! They were very disappointed that I didn't come from England. The teacher tried to make it sound amazing that I came "uit Amerika!" but they were having none of it. When having these conversations, I am continually struck with fun things to say if I had the words for it. I could have made a joke about there still being boats that go across the ocean, and that I came on a plane, but that there's no tunnel to go all the way to the US. Instead I contemplated saying that I had lived in England for a bit in college, which I could nearly say, but I'm just now getting a firmer grasp of past tense, so I held off and said nothing. Don't worry. I soon won them over with my papercrafting.

It has been a real joy to learn a language with a friend. And learning with Owen has been like having an in with the TA. Although Owen professes to know "not that much" German, he has been top of this Dutch class since we began, despite the other members of the class knowing so many more languages than we do. I do fine most of the time, and both my pronunciation and grammar are improving. Early on, it was a bit overwhelming to have a complicated grammar rule laid out for us entirely in Dutch, as I watched completely not understanding what was being said she looked around and asked in Dutch if we understood, followed by the only English sentence she'd uttered the whole class, "It's very important." So Owen has helped explain the grammar a great deal, and after I had struggled on one of the tests, Marleen (our teacher) came to our house to tutor me on the grammar. We recently had our end of first course exam, and I passed just fine. Owen scored a perfect 10.

We laugh a lot, sometimes over choosing the wrong words and sometimes because we mispronounce them. Recently at the end of a long day I said, "I am very tired," only to have Owen laugh out loud, kiss me and agree. My attempt at "Ik ben heel moe," had sounded more like, "Ik ben heel mooi." I had announced not that I was very tired but that I was very "beautiful." And so it goes.

Note: If you go to the Netherlands and think that people are calling you a "whore" all the time, don't freak out! When it first came up in Dutch class, someone asked what "hoor" meant and our teacher said, "It's just a thing you say to put someone at ease." So "gaat u gang, hoor!" means "oh, go ahead" in the grocery line or whatever. There were some snickers from the Italians at the table. But now, I use this phrase all the time. See how much I've acclimated.

Let me conclude with some Dutch words and phrases that I love.

"gezellig" - This is a wonderful word. It means something like cozy, but also means happy, intimate, and is perhaps best translated as full of "WARM FUZZIES." A class can be gezellig. An old shop. The bustle of the market. Being reunited with friends. A party. A chair with an afghan and a mug of tea nearby. Pronounce it: he-SELL-ik. But those Gs are pretty tough, and sound a little throat-clear-y if you're not careful.

"graag gedaan" - This is the best of all possible responses to "thank you." It means literally, "happily done."

"alstublieft/alsjeblieft" - It's like "please" except you can also use it as a "you're welcome" or "here you go." I think it means something like "as you wish."

"winkelwagen" - grocery cart.

"cacaopoeder" - It sounds really cute pronounced. And it means cocoa power. Win-win.

Tour of our Apartment

I promise a more interesting post soon, but people have been asking for actual pictures of our apartment. Wish we could just have you over for dinner, a weeklong visit, or even just some tea, but in the mean time, I hope this little video will give you a taste for our new home. 

This is my first attempt at both shooting and editing film. I trust my skills will improve with practice.

Leiden's Hortus Botanicus

—guest post by Owen

Last weekend, Clara and I went to see Leiden's Hortus Botanicus, the botanical gardens located in the heart of the city center.  We had tried to visit twice before, but only now had we dedicated enough of our Saturday to make a tour possible.

The Hortus Botanicus

Our museumkaarts got us in for free, and the ticketing area opened right into the first greenhouse.  We walked down an aisle, flanked by trees in square containers, to a metal spiral staircase that let us see above the foliage:

The catwalk at the roof of the greenhouse held the garden's "Gallery of Carnivorous Plants", and from there we descended through other exhibits back to the ground floor.

At the far end of the greenhouse was an exterior door.  It still being early spring in Leiden, there isn't a lot blooming outside excepting crocuses and snowdrops (of which, though, there are many), so visiting Hortus isn't yet on most people's radar, and there were no crowds to follow to the next point.  But after trying a couple locked doors (Hortus is also an active research facility), we found the second public greenhouse and entered.

I'd never seen a banana tree flowering.

The leaves of the banana tree are so huge!

These ginkgo leaves remind me of a Calder mobile.

This aquarium contains exotic underwater plants.

Adjoining this second greenhouse were several additional rooms of orchids, ferns, and carnivorous pitcher plants.

A large part of the botanical gardens are outside; we were impressed by the taxonomical organization of the plots, but they will probably be more spectacular after a few more weeks of warm weather.  But we still had fun roaming the grounds on this beautiful day:

Definitely worth another visit later this spring.  Thanks for reading!

Projects (Big and Little) for our New Place

You may remember from our Christmas post that we moved back in December. Here are some of the projects we've done to make the shell of a studio into more of a home. All of these are thanks to the loan of a powerful little drill from our Dutch teacher. 

Curtains

The first project we took on with this drill was hanging curtains. When we got the apartment we had this giant shopfront window and no curtains, or shades, nothing except some fuzzy contact paper that didn’t even go all the way up to the top of the window! We ordered the curtains from a home-improvement store, and although they are simple, we like them very much. I did all the work of putting up the runners for the curtains. It was hard work, standing on a table on a kitchen stool and drilling up into the ceiling, (sunglasses to keep the dust out of my eyes) and since I was visible to people on the street from the shoulders up, I got lots of funny looks all day.

 Coatrack

Our place has no usable closet so we got this when we went to Ikea. We especially like that you can hang hangers on it when you have wet things to hang, or company.

Light fixtures

Not an impressive photograph, but putting up the light fixtures was a big accomplishment for the two of us. Three places in the apartment there were just wires sticking out of the wall or the ceiling waiting for us to do the work. Once we had a drill we deciphered the Dutch instructions, turned off and on the electricity and DID NOT EVEN SHOCK OURSELVES as we put in the lights.

Under-the-cabinet-bar-and-things

This is a small thing, but our kitchen is not overflowing with counter space so I did some research about how to best use the space, and the biggest suggestion was just to get stuff up off the counter when you can. If you can find a place to put the thing that would go in a utensil crock, put them somewhere else. Hang them up, like we’re doing here, or stash them in a drawer.  The beautiful hanging/folding dish rack was just a lucky find at Ikea (Part of the Grundtal set, if you're looking). I didn’t

feel good about drilling into the tile wall to mount the rail all these things are hanging on, so I drilled into the cupboards instead.

Pegboard

The biggest project by far was the peg board. It took all of one Saturday, both of us working hard, getting all the materials except the pegboard itself (which was its own adventure, let me tall you!), sawing the lumber at the rusty out door saw at Praxis, biking with 200 cm planks attached to our bikes, and drilling all afternoon into concrete. Here are some pictures of the highlights.

We need the planks because if you try to just install a pegboard flat onto the wall, there’s nowhere for the hooks to slide through to and hold on. It looks so easy with the lumber on the floor.

Here we are with one plank up, and the other five taped into place.

There were a lot of hours between that last picture and this next one. They involved tears and questioning of our own sanity and cursing our stupidity at thinking this was ever a good idea.

The last project (also accomplished on that achingly long day we put up the pegboard) was installing this wall-mounted table. I think our neighbors may no longer like us after all the hammerdriling at 10 pm.  It folds open when we need more counter space but goes away whenever it’s not in use.

 

Thanks to Owen’s mom and sister, we have hooks to put on the pegboard and after three attempts at purchasing paint – a story in itself! – we have it all arranged.

Many thanks not just to Marleen, (our lovely Dutch teacher) but also to Samuël and Kindra for taking Owen to the Mega Praxis. It’s really starting to feel like home.

How To: Atlas Luminaries

A couple years ago I did a lot of crafting for a very home-made wedding for a friend of mine. We made bunting, paper flowers, decorated wine glasses and made luminaries for the tables and to hang from the trees outside the reception site. By far the easiest and most impressive part of the decorations were the luminaries, so I've been looking for an opportunity to make some more since then. For that wedding, I used sheets from a book of Shakespeare, which we painted some blues and purples, but I thought I wanted something a little different for our apartment. At the giant thrift store in Leiden I happened upon a 1997 US Atlas and knew I'd found what I was looking for.

Enough story, on with the instructions!

You will need:

• Some glass jars with the paper soaked off the outside (if there's still some glue-y residue that's totally fine). 
• Paper (I used sheets from an atlas, but you can use anything that strikes your fancy)
• Scissors
• Glue
• Tea lights

Directions:

Cut a rectangle of paper to fit around the jar, then glue it.

Drop in a tea light.

And that's it.

I told you it was simple.

The hardest part for me was choosing the pages, because I wanted the pieces of the map to show places that matter to me. Places I've lived or places where people I love live. My little brother lives under the B in Beverly, up northeast of Boston. I've also got luminaries with Rochester, Detroit, NYC, Staunton, Seattle, East Brunswick, Baltimore, Woolwich MN, and DC on them. They feel like pieces of home all around the apartment and it's really nice.

I may use the rest of the atlas to make some bunting for a "return to the states/going away" party.

Do you guys have favorite easy crafts?