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In preparation for our trip to Europe, we purchased a travel alarm clock. The alarm clock did not take batteries, but instead needed to be wound by hand.
We thought ahead enough to try it out a couple of times and make sure we knew how to set the alarm, but we didn't realize that the clock needed
to be wound every day. So far we had been winding it every night anyway, but on the night of May 18th, 2004, we were so tired that we didn't
think of it. This combined with the fact that our bedroom was a long hallway away from any windows meant that we slept blissfully unaware until
2:30pm. Originally when we woke up, we were pretty upset because our time in Europe was so valuable to us, but we also realized that we were probably pushing ourselves to
total exhaustion if we could sleep for more than 13 hours and not wake up once.
We had made plans for our afternoon and evening, but figured we would wait until after breakfast to plan the morning's events. It turns out there
was no morning for us that day, so we skipped breakfast and headed right for Centraal Station. When we got there we went to the Tourist
Information center where we learned that we should wait until arriving in Leiden to buy a combo Keukenhof entrance/bus ticket. So we bought a train ticket to Leiden,
and found the right station at which to wait. A train arrived and we were not sure if it was the correct train, but we got a confirmation from another
passenger and got on.
We went to the information center in Leiden and bought the combo ticket, and then continued to the bus loading area. We saw that our bus wouldn't
be leaving for a while, so we went back in and bought an order of curry fries and a Fanta.
We ate quickly and then boarded bus 54 for Keukenhof.
Every year Keukenhof exhibits the best and most beautiful flowers in the Netherlands.
In the 15th century, the 32 hectares of the present park were part of the enormous estate belonging to the castle of Slot Teylingen.
This was ruled from 1401 to 1436 by the Countess of Holland, Jacoba van Beieren. Here, every day, the countess personally gathered the fresh
ingredients for her kitchen. It is to this that the present Keukenhof, which literally means Kitchen Garden, owes its name.
In 1949, the then mayor of Lisse, Mr. W.J.H. Lambooy, together with ten leading bulb-growers conceived the idea of a permanent annual open-air flower exhibition.
Keukenhof is one of the most photographed sights in the world, and of course we took lots of pictures.
We took the bus back from Keukenhof to Leiden. Leiden had looked very tempting when we were waiting for the bus to Keukenhof, and since our Eyewitness
Guide had a few pages of information on Leiden as well as little bit of a map, we decided to look around a bit.
Leiden was beautiful and was an
interesting contrast to Amsterdam because it showed us a look at a smaller city in the Netherlands (Population 117,196 -- 2000 Census).
Leiden is probably best known for its University. The University was founded in 1575, by William I, Prince of Orange, as a reward to
the citizens for withstanding a long siege by the Spanish. William I had offered a choice of 10 years free from taxation
or the building of the University.
Our ultimate destination was Pieterskerk and we had a general idea which way to head. We missed our turn and had to retrace a couple blocks, but we eventually found the church.
The Pieterskerk in Leiden is where the
Mayflower Pilgrims worshipped during their years in Holland (1609-1620). When we finally arrived at the Pieterskerk, it became evident
that some kind of special occasion was occuring that night. It looked like everyone in Leiden had come to the Pieterskirk; there
was a line all the way around the church, and bikes were chained to every possible structure. We briefly considered trying to see what was going on, but everyone in
line had a little sheet of paper (we assumed some sort of invitation), and we were not sure when the last train left for Amsterdam, so instead we hurried
back to the train station.
While walking back, we were stopped by a guy on a bike. He proceeded to ask us something in what we assume was Dutch, and we just kind of
shrugged our shoulders and said in English that we didn't understand. He realized we were tourists, said he was sorry, and hurried on to the
next person down the street. It was only a few seconds later that we realized he had said "Pieterskerk" and he had been holding the same piece of
paper we had seen everyone else holding earlier. We realized he must have been asking directions, and amazingly we actually knew how to get there,
and probably could have told him, but by that time he had gotten too far away.
We got back to Amsterdam with no problem, and decided to head down to Leidseplein, because we had read that it was a center of nightlife
in Amsterdam and we figured it would be a good place to find some dinner.
We were both pretty hungry because we had eaten only the curry fries and some dried apples we had brought from Colorado, but it
still took us about 90 minutes before we decided on some
indian food because it was too hard not to "look around just one more corner".
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