fter a fun trip by bike around the country Greg Kriebel, Julie's dad and I met the ladies at Erik van Dyke's home. Erik had been a foreign exchange student at the Kessler's home in South Dakota. We are fortunate to have kept in touch and we were treated to incredible hospitality as we gathered in Holland. In fact, of all the European countries that we have been to, the Dutch were the most hospitable.
As you can probably see from the pictures the rumors that Holland is full of tulips is largely true. All of these pictures are taken at the Keukenhof gardens - a very famous and huge park full of flowers.
For most of our excursions we had very able guides. Erik's mother guided the women to the gardens, while Erik took Dick (Julie's dad) and I to explore the massive system of water protection that has been put in place to protect the country from the sea. A series of canals and dikes move water in and out of the land.
We have found that staying with a family that lives in the country is the best way to see and appreciate a country. We ate places and saw things, like a fireworks display on one of the dikes, that we would have missed had we been on our own.
