Keukenhof bloomz

For the first time I'm feeling like I'd really like to go home, despite all the wonderful people here and the month of amazing travels I have ahead. I miss you. I'm tired, sick, and sick and tired of exam period. So, to assuage this, I will distract myself with images capturing a bounty of botanical color from early May.


Each year with the coming of spring, the Keukenhof tulip gardens open for a magical display several kilometers outside of Leiden.

The Dutch are a wee bit nuts for the tulip, with this obsession beginning centuries ago. In a ridiculous spectacle of man, the first economic bubble was produced by competitive bulb speculators who would bid ridiculous sums for the coveted petals. Apparently according to my Lonely Planet, in early 1637, a single bulb, the legendary Semper augustus, fetched over 10 years worth of the average workers' wages. Dang.

Semper augustus rolls deep

I cycled out to the gardens with a few friends to see what all the fuss was about a few weeks ago.

Rows

World's largest flower garden, 32+ hectares

The bulbs are left to bloom fully so that they are strong during the next growing season. After the flowers die at the beginning of summer, millions of dollars worth of bulbs are exported from Keukenhof annually.

Walking into the gardens

Straight chillin

Sweet dandelion fountain

Check them frills!


She slept beneath a tree
Remembered but by me.
I touched her cradle mute;
She recognized the foot,
Put on her carmine suit, --
And see!

-Tulip, by Emily Dickinson

Bulb worship


THE QUEEN OF NIGHT

Maze

I KNOW, I KNOW, IT WAS ALMOST TOO MUCH!!

Sleep tight, tulips