Knowing we had an 11 hr. day we were up and out by 9:15AM in order to beat the crowds (only 15 minutes late!). A chilly day but sunny, we opted to head for the flower fields and beautiful gardens of the world famous Keukenhof. This is a three month exhibition so we were lucky to make it before it closes in 5 days…the reason being, the flowers die. We loved the tulips and rhododendrons the most but surprising to Joy were the beautiful azaleas still in bloom. The sweet sweet smell of the hyacinths and lilies was wonderful. It was all breathtaking even though the daffodils were gone. A photographer’s paradise but Mary had our second disaster. After charging her camera battery overnight it did not make it back to the camera but Joy made up for it by taking over 100 pictures. We spent 2 ½ hrs there, not only seeing the gorgeous flowers but watching the filming of a Bollywood (Indian) film complete with handsome men and beautiful women dancing amongst amid the tulips. There were few American tourists, mostly Indian, Asians and the Dutch, of course. Except we did meet a guy from Columbus, Ohio complete with an Ohio State Buckeye sweatshirt. For you Andalusia people, Alan Cotton was outdone!

From there we drove to Delft, a lovely city. Being Saturday, everyone was downtown in the square for Market Day. Lots of stalls with fruits, vegetables, bakery goods, cheeses, antiques….a massive garage sale….of which Joy could not get enough.
We ate lunch at the King’s house where we had good Dutch sandwiches (too hard to explain) complete with a Delft toilet seat. (Picture) We went to several Delft factories to search out just the right piece and for Jeff to find just the right T shirt. The square is surrounded by the two Dutch Reform churches, the New Church, where the royal family’s crypts are located and the Old Church which was built in the 3rd century. As we left the market square the bells chimed and the rain came.

We decided to drive an half an hour out of our way to see Kinderdijk where there are 19 well preserved working windmills. They were built in 1750 to drain the swamp. In the 1920s the steam generated pumps were installed. The whole purpose was to pump the water up to the North Sea. By walking out on the dike with the windmills in the background, David had planned this to be the picture perfect spot of the Dutch countryside. Even the sun came out but Joy had her sinking spell and never came out of the restaurant/gift shop. Too bad!

It was 7PM by the time we got back to David’s for a quick refresher and a warm jacket to head out to catch the tram for restaurant row. We picked Chicanos, a Mexican – American restaurant. We had a cute young Mexican waiter (Rodrigo) who entertained us trying to answer Mary’s too many questions. Par for the course we watched the rain come down and wondered how in the world we were going to get home, as naturally we left our umbrellas in the car from the afternoon. After a great dinner we braved the rain and finally got home before 11…tired, wet and happy.

We still had to sort out all the pictures taken for the day when we discovered Mary and Jeff had not remembered to bring their cords to hook up to the computer so you guys will have to settle for pictures from Joy (287 taken today) and David (61). After midnight we fell asleep listening to the rain on the skylight. The rain was good for David’s beautiful plantings out on his two terraces.

Whew!