Flower Power And Parties!

Wednesday, April 27 was a tale of two activities. It’s King’s Day, or the party to end all parties. More on that later.

We began the day by seeing how Haarlem celebrates King’s Day. We saw people setting up stages for later, heard and saw bands playing, and block after block became a big yard sale. It looked like most people were selling personal possessions, but I saw a few people selling things like jewelry they had made. We saw even more big activities and sales at parks as we were taking the bus out of town.

Where did we go? Somewhere I have been wanting to see for many years, but they are only open for two months, during bulb season. Keukenhof! They plant the bulbs like a lasagna, in layers, so something is always blooming. I thought it would be less crowded on King’s Day, but there were plenty of people there and I don’t have another day to compare it to. The flowers are spectacular. Who would think there are so many varieties of tulips in every size, color and shape imaginable. There were other flowers as well, including other bulbs, azaleas, rhododendrons, flowering trees and more. Then there were water features and plenty of greenery to set off the colorful flowers. The setting is everything I could wish for. It definitely did not disappoint. I took so many pictures and I couldn’t possibly take pictures of everything. Even Jim enjoyed it and he’s not really a flower guy.

I can’t put all my pictures on here, so this is enough. I was hoping to rent bikes to ride through the flower fields, but by the time we got out of there it was too late. We took the bus back to Haarlem. We had to wait about 45 minutes at the bus stop. I think they were operating on a holiday schedule.

Speaking of holidays, let talk about King’s Day. I don’t have anything to compare it to that I’ve ever experienced. The entire country is in party mode. I already mentioned what we observed in the morning. By the time we returned to Haarlem at around 7:00 p.m. everything was in full swing. Parties everywhere. Music, drinking, eating, dancing…you name it, it was happening. There was a huge party just a half block from our house. We should have anticipated how big it would be when we noticed a day or two before that a 4 person pissoir was now at the corner. The party started there on Tuesday night, so it gave us a small hint of what was coming on Wednesday. So many people, loud music (primarily American music from the 80’s – 2010’s), dancing, and a lot of fun. We walked around our area and stood on the sidelines of about 4-5 parties, and the one on our street was the best.