Where did spring go?

We arrived back from our vacation to America to find springtime in Holland almost over. It was quite a shock to see how quickly everything exploded into green here after only two weeks away...and the differences between The Netherlands and the mountaintop of Maryland is dramatic. The trees in Deep Creek were barely budding.

Heavy with jetlag, we biked down to the center of Haarlem to enjoy Queen's day celebrations on Thursday. For those of you who don't know, Queen's day provides a great excuse to dress in wild orange costumes, sell your used junk on the street, and generally party the whole day through.

Check out this barge that someone converted to a museum castle and parked on the Spaarne river for the celebration...very cool!

If you look closely, you can see the knight on the real horse on the second story of the castle...it really wowed the kiddies! (ok, me too).

Then, after a much better rest during the weekend, we biked through the bulbfields of Lisse to catch the very last bits of the flowers...very few are still in bloom, but it was still spectacular to see.