Ode to Tulips

OK, I know I should save the best of Amsterdam for last, but this post just excites me too much and I cannot wait to share pictures with you!

Amsterdam was number one on my list of cities I needed to explore once moving to London last July BUT I wanted us to wait to see the infamous city until springtime. Around late March to early May, you have a 3 week window to experience the world renowned tulips bloom in Holland. It's all really hard to plan out and dependent on so many factors (rainfall, temperature) so I knew this could be like the Northen Lights in Iceland- something I really wanted to see, but really difficult to control. In December, I booked our trip for Easter weekend in hopes that maybe we could see the legendary site with our own two eyes. Now I have a check off my bucket list and some colorful cell phone pics to share! 

Although you can go to the Keukenhof Gardens by public transport, I read too many horror stories about waiting for the bus for hours and standing in long queues to get tickets, so I booked with a tour company. It was a little pricey but worth not being stressed out or having to wait. 

The bus ride took a little over an hour, and you know you're nearly there when you start to see the rows upon rows of brightly colored tulips. 

I literally gasped when we drove past this patch of tulips. So pretty!!! And to think- all of this hard work, just for a few weeks of beauty. 

The garden itself was very crowded, but not so crowded that we couldn't soak in all of the spectacular colors and smells. 

 Y'all, these were not your run of the mill, grocery store tulips. They were brilliantly massive- some as tall as my hips! And the flower was larger than my face. And don't even get my started on all of the colors.... innocent lavendar, blushing pink, hot coral, sunshiney yellow, deep blood red....

 ...speckled orange, striped pink, ombre peach. And no, I don't know why I'm cradling our water bottle in half these pictures. Don't question my awkwardness-I was too happy to care! 

          

 And the petals. Fringed, pointed, curved. Two petalled, six petalled, or twelve. Some as large as a wine glass, some as dainty as a thimble. Some closed tight, others opened wide like the palm of a hand about to give a high five.

 There were some azaleas, daffodils, and hyacinths thrown into the mix, but they paled in the tulip's spotlight. 

          

Even Daniel found this to be incredibly impressive, which made me happy, because frolicking in the flowers is usually not his "thing". We brought along a bottle of wine, some Dutch cheese and these Dutch caramel waffle cookies and had ourself a lil picnic amongst the tulips. 

Why do I love tulips so much? I feel like it's cliché and can be characterized with the similar stereotypes of women loving chocolate, Sex and the City, and long walks on the beach. But there's something so cute, so sweet, so delicate and dainty about this flower. Maybe it's because tulips, with their pointy triangle tops and curved bottoms, were one the first images I was able to draw. Maybe it's because they are one of the signs that spring is here. I can't really explain why they make me so happy, but they do. Yes, along with chocolate and other girly things. 

It just makes me in awe of the gardeners. I appreciate the months and months of hard work that goes into such a short timeline of beauty, before the flowers are all beheaded and fed to the animals (true story!). I think there's something so extraordinarily beautiful in this- every year, going back to the same spot, replanting the bulbs, knowing that it won't last- it's futile. The beauty will die. But the gardeners still do it. Year after year. The handful of glorious, vibrant, spectacular weeks of yellows, oranges, reds, and pinks make it all worth it. 

This is the Delft tulip vase I bought while at the gardens, now showcasing some plain old tulips from my neighborhood flower stand...not the same as the gigantic, possible steroid induced tulips from Keukenhof, but they still make me smile and think of our Easter in the gardens. 

Sunny Skies and Full Bellies

Hi! I know I'm a day late....I babysat all day yesterday and was too tired to blog once I finished. 

This weekend was great. I feel like we were all over London. Side note: I've been playing around with Retro Camera on my phone. It makes some of the photos cool, others lame. Sorry!

On Friday, I met my pal ToniAnne on the South Bank for some celebratory prosecco to start off our weekend. It was a gorgeous day with perfect weather, but we couldn't hang out for too long, since we both had plans with our husbands for later.

Daniel and I had a date night to eat loads of pizza at our favorite neighborhood joint, and then go for a couple of beers at our pub. Nothing too exciting!

Lame. Hate the frame around this picture. 

Saturday was our day of nothingness. The highlight of it was homemade enchiladas! My friend Erica gave me a can of verde enchilada sauce (that stuff is a rare commodity here). I paired that with some hard-to-find corn tortillas (no, really. tortillas aren't sold here like they are in America. I had to go to a speciality store) and presto, pure greatness. We ended up with the most delicious enchiladas ever, and ate 'em all up in one sitting. Oops!


Sorry for the hipster frame. Ugh. But I still want to share these pictures. On Sunday, we went to Shoreditch, a neighborhood in east London. I'd been wanting to explore the area for some time now, and I really enjoyed it! It is the cool place to be for the young, urban crowd.

 A little grittier than our 'hood, but that just made it more exciting. It was a great place to people watch- an ecclectic assortment of folks roam around Shoreditch. We went to the Columbia flower market (fail- way too crowded) and then explored the Spitafields market and Brick Lane market (both wins, but I wish I brought more cash).

We went back to our neck of the woods to enjoy the rest of our beautiful Sunday. We explored the nursery in Little Venice- much less crowded than the Columbia Flower Market! And I could relax on this cool TeePee swing. 

Lastly, we went to one of the surprisingly few restaurants on the canal to enjoy a couple of drinks, along with the rest of Northwest London. We wanted to eat there, too, but after waiting nearly 2 hours, we gave up...bought a baguette and some stinky cheese from our local delicatessen shop, and called it an early night!

This is a short week, but I hope to write another post before we go to Amsterdam for Easter!

Sunny Day Bliss

I can usually always find the bright side to every situation. I am always that annoying friend whom, after you complain, will come back with a "well, at least...". I think being positive is a choice, and one I try to make every minute of my life. With that being said, I think that I have seasonal depression. Looking back on this past winter, it just feels so dark. Gloomy. Depressing. I didn't have much will to go out and live. This wasn't apparent to me until these past couple of weeks, when I found how happy I was with the sun! I guess this just proves to me that I need to live in a sunny place (Hello, TX! Or, I don't know, Hawaii? Maybe one day?).

I have been outdoors 24/7 to soak up all of the sunshiny goodness. My cheeks are getting rosy and freckled, and I've even been able to run in tank tops! I love how in London, I can make a statement like "I think I am going to go take a nap in the park" and totally come off as being normal, vs homeless. 

Last Friday, Daniel was home by 12:30, and it turned out to be a fantastic day together! I was supposed to babysit, but that got cancelled, so we were able to be spontaneous and enjoy the blissful day.

We saw our very first movie together in London- Grand Budapest Hotel. As far as Wes Anderson movies go, it was enjoyable and I managed to not fall asleep (sorry, I'm not a huge fan normally).

We went to this quirky cinema a block from our flat, Everyman Cinema. It is cozy, filled with overstuffed love seats and little side tables. The screen was tiny! Like, you probably have a TV larger than the screen at Everyman. BUT, we enjoyed seeing an eclectic film in an eclectic theater! 

 Then, on Sunday, the weather was perfect. Daniel needed some down time after a long week of training and Cambridge, so I left him at home while I played in the park. Perfection!

Cambridge Getaway

I'd been wanting to check out Cambridge ever since my grandparents told me about their trip to England and how they loved the scholarly town so much. For some reason or another, it took us awhile to make it here, but I think we came at the perfect time of year! 

We planned the trip very last minute- a week before going, to be exact. Trains are so convenient. We just looked up how often the train to Cambridge was leaving (about every 20 minutes) and from what station (King's Cross), showed up and bought our ticket plus an open return for the next day. With train tickets only costing 35 pounds round trip, was a nice, easy way to get out of London for the weekend. 

Because I booked our hotel last minute, there weren't a ton of choices. We stayed at the Regent's Hotel and I was very pleased. We got the executive suite since we were only going to be there for one night.

I couldn't get over how many bikes there were in Cambridge. EVERYONE rode a bike. The bike lanes were fantastic and if we were there for longer, I would have wanted to rent one for the day.

All in all, I just loved Cambridge. It wasn't as posh or pretentious as I imagined it to be. The town had a very cool, hip vibe because, hello, it's a college town! 

After checking in to our hotel, we wanted to go punting. We were pretty hungry, though, so stopped to pick up some very nonpaleo sandwiches and bottled of water. The cafe was so cute and overflowing with brunching students.

I highly recommend punting if you are in Cambridge. I LOVED it! And I am really glad we went on a tour, vs punting by ourselves. It looked pretty difficult, and this way we got to hear more about Cambridge. 

Cambridge was founded is 1209 by people from Oxford who had a disagreement with the town folk. I wish I could remember all of the different colleges that make up the university, but I can't (Cambridge is made up of 30-something colleges). 

Unfortunately, this was about as close to King's College as we got. I really wanted to attend the Eversong, but the day before was end of term, so no chapel service! Because the term just ended, most of the college's were closed to the public- but we still got to see a couple!

Everything was just so beautifully preserved. Daniel was hoping it would feel more like Hogwarts and was disappointed that it didn't, but I still thought it felt like we were stepping back in time being in the university area.

Our guide was fantastic and I'm guessing a student. Watching other people try to punt their own boat made me SO thankful we didn't even try. It was like bumper cars in the river! And I am surprised we didn't see anyone fall in.

How did Cambridge get it's name? The river Cam runs through the town, the main bridge being in the city center back in the day. People would say to meet at the Cam Bridge...and the town just became Cambridge overtime!

This is St. John's college and we toured it after our boat ride. It is perfectly symmetrical and is often called the wedding cake. It is missing a clock, however, and as our tour guide explained, "naughty students often draw one in." The college ran out of money when building it, and couldn't add a clock!

The oldest bridge in Cambridge! And it's namesake. 

After our boat ride, we took the time to just explore the town. It was like a maze! We would often dead end to the river and have to turn around to find another way to our destination.

As I earlier mentioned, most of the colleges were closed to the public. Every school charges around 3-7 pounds pp to go in, so you really have to pick and choose which ones to go in! We walked through St. John's College, and it didn't disappoint.

The library was small but quintessential. The books were SO OLD and we obviously weren't allowed to touch them.

There were signs all over the place saying to keep off the grass, but no one was abiding by that rule. I loved it- students playing frisbee, soccer, drinking wine out of the bottle (no open container laws and the legal age is 18)- made me want to go back to uni! 

Daniel took a picture of me taking a picture. Sneaky fellow! 

This, I remember, is Trinity College. That's a statue of its founder, King Henry VIII, over the door. Trinity College was founded as a compromise: Cambridge and Oxford were both religious institutions, and he was on a mission to close everything that associated with the old ways. His 6th wife pleaded with him to not shut down the schools, but to add a new college to promote the Church of England.

Notable alumni: Isacc Newton, Lord Byron, 6 prime ministers and 31 Nobel Prize winners.

At the end of the day, we stopped by The Eagle, the oldest pub in Cambridge, dating back to the 14th century. More recently,  it is where Crick and Watson came in, interrupted everyone's lunch, and announced that they found the "secret of life"- DNA's double helix. I just love imagining all of the academics and scholars sitting in this pub and discussing their learnings over the past 600 years.

Now I want to go to Oxford and compare the two college towns! Thanks for reading, and I hope you all have a lovely Monday.