Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better - I mean, I have had a lot of traveling and excursions here in Europe since August, when I first got here, but this weekend was just amazing… Windmills, Tulips, and camping in the National Park? It just screams tourist, but it was totally cool.

Saturday morning, my two French flatmates and I headed out to Kinderdijk (known for the rows of old windmills). We then drove up to Keukenhof (where the tulips are grown in endless colorful fields). I was so amazed at all of the colors tulips can be, they were so bright and vivid, the pictures don’t do them justice. And then afterwards we went to the National Park de Hoge Veluwe to camp overnight. This was so much fun, and we actually got lucky finding a place after hours that was extremely cheap, not on the map, and had a wonderful restaurant. Sunday, we went into the park and took the free bikes they supply all over the park. We biked about 60 km, which is far, but the bike paths were excellent. We saw deer and the landscape in the park was so surprising for the Netherlands - it looked like an African safari, then an endless desert, and then like out west in America!

I had an amazing weekend learning French and teaching English to my flatmates, and it totally brought us closer. We now have plans to visit the northern islands at the top of the Netherlands, the beaches in the west, and go down to Lille in France… so many more things to do and only a limited number of weekends!