When we were driving along the south coast of France towards Arles, we saw PINK FLAMINGOS in the water! Apparently they are the symbol of the region of Camargue. Since flamingos are my favorite bird I got a tad excited and ran as close as I could to get a picture. Here’s the pathetic photo I got (anyone want to buy me a dSLR with a telephoto lens?)
I was so blinded by my excitement about the flamingos that I ended up running through some nasty muck and got my shoes and pants all gross. Yay! Ocean scented. Except it’s not the good ocean scent, it’s the nasty rotten seaweed/dead fish ocean scent. Good thing we had lots of napkins.
After we started doing some more driving, flamingo stuff started showing up everywhere. Apparently this area is all about their flamingos and wild horses. I’ll stick to the flamingos, thanks! 
Even the wine places had flamingos on their labels (we skipped on the flamingo wine, hopefully that wasn’t a huge mistake.. haha) France, and most of the other countries we went to, were all about putting statues and other symbols in the middle of the roundabouts (of which we probably drove through hundreds):
We stopped at this little shack type thing on the side of the road to see what flamingo stuff they had… it was mostly generic stuff, sadness. But, I got this sweet picture with this huge flamingo lawn ornament. I totally need one of these for our yard.
So, besides herring sandwiches (which, sorry, BLECH) and lots of cheese, we didn’t really find any what you might call “indigenous cuisine” in the Netherlands. At least in Amsterdam, it seemed to be more like a melting pot cuisine-wise.
So, when we came across a hot dog cart near the Van Gogh museum, we thought let’s give it a try. This was the first (and only) hot dog cart I remember seeing the entire trip. You could order hot dogs in cafes in France – but who in their right mind would? Sorry France, I’m sticking to the croque madame.
So, we queued up with the group of middle school kids that were also crowding the cart. Here’s Oak with his final product:
It was kind of an interesting set up- the guy just asked how many hot dogs you wanted, and then he had a self-serve bar of different toppings. We pretty much loaded up with everything they had, which included the standard ketchup, mustard, and onions but some unusual things like: shredded cheese, dried fried onions (think French’s green bean casserole type onions), mayonnaise, and pickle chunks instead of relish. I don’t know if we were just hot dog deprived, or hungry, but these were pretty damn good:
I’d definitely do the French’s fried onions on a hot dog again – maybe there is a use for those things other than in green bean casserole. Nom nom!
In Paris, we visited the Palace of Versailles. Oh my, I think if you ever see one palace in your life this has to be the one. It is just INSANE. It’s beyond huge, and no expense is spared at any corner. It’s truly a masterpiece. But, that’s for another post.
Before we left on our trip, I decided to watch Marie Antoinette, starring Kirsten Dunst, for my history of the French monarchy. Yeah, I realize this movie probably wasn’t exactly historically accurate but my tolerance of reading historical information is pretty low, and the entertainment factor was there. It definitely helped give me some context to what we were seeing as we visited the palace.
The movie starts off on a sour note – Marie crosses the border of France from Austria, where she is from, and she is traveling with her little dog on her lap. Well, she gets to the border and the mom (or whoever was picking her up, I forget) TAKES HER DOG AWAY and tells her she can have as many FRENCH dogs as she likes! Of course Marie-Antoinette cries and cries. Are you kidding me? That pretty much sets the tone of Marie-Antoinette’s life as an Austrian turned French monarch.
So, after awhile, Marie-Antoinette decides she needs somewhere to hide from all these bitchy monarch people. She creates a farm that’s far enough away that nobody really wants to walk to it, but there’s also a huge fence and a moat like thing to keep people out. It took us like an hour of hiking around to even find the entrance – we were so tired at the end of this day. She basically created a farm where she could live a more basic and peaceful life. They have the entire thing set up as a farm and you can see the outsides of the buildings:
And of course, there were tons of animals and crops to see. The most exciting part for me was the little bunny grotto. There were probably around 20 bunnies, and they had a little fenced off wooded area. So cute. These two were grooming each other like crazy:
Oh, and a final bunny note: Oak actually ate a “terrine du lapin” when we were in South France. I didn’t have any but he said it tasted like chicken. Go figure. I am pretty sure Radar knew that Oak ate it because the day we came home, he dug at Oak’s belly like he was very angry about what was inside of it. haha. Happy Easter!
When we first started planning our trip, we hadn’t really thought too much about when all the flowers would be in bloom in Holland. After we booked our ticket I looked it up, and lo and behold — they were going to be at least started blooming!!! After some more research, I found Keukenof, the “world’s largest flower garden”! We really love visiting gardens, so despite the somewhat pricey entry fee, we decided to go. It was completely worth the cost, as it was almost a whole day of fascinating and beautiful gardens, and all so perfectly and meticulously maintained. So, although I’m going out of order on our itinerary here, I thought I’d share these photos for Easter weekend, since they are so quintessentially Spring.
Slipping into some wooden shoes — Oak decides to try to walk. Not so easy!
No this is not a sneaky camera angle – these tulips are really almost waist high:
There was a huuuuge area that had every color and variety of tulip imaginable. So beautiful! Made me wish that they weren’t an annual flower in the South. Boo!
In the kid’s area, we saw this little rabbit. Turns out he is some kind of icon (like Mickey Mouse) in Holland, because we saw him a few other places. Isn’t he cute?
Of course, we saw many windmills – most just when we were driving along the road, but Keukenhof had one you could even go up inside! It was pretty cool – stairs like a lighthouse inside, and then a deck on the top where you could look out.
It was a wonderful day, and as you can see great weather! We were all bundled up in the morning when we got there, which turned out to be completely unnecessary. Loved it!
The Fontenay Abbey is one of the oldest Cistercian abbeys in Europe. Basically, back in the 1000′s, the monks decided, life is too sweet for us. Let’s build a compound in the middle of nowhere so we can experience poverty and solitude!
OK, so my monk-isms probably aren’t *exactly* right. It was still pretty fascinating to see this entire self-sustaining compound.
Seen somewhere in Burgundy, in Northern France…
OK, I’ve gotten a few comments on not wanting to see the Christmas bun anymore. I was thinking about leaving that as the top post until July (and renaming the post “Christmas bun in july”), but I’ve decided to do the even more self-indulgent thing and bore you to death with vacation pictures! yay!
My Europe travel on the road scrapbook album is still in progress. Turns out, when you’re walking 10 miles a day, there’s not any energy left to record the entire day at night. Oh well, I am finishing it up as we speak!
We had a pretty awesome flight from Raleigh to Heathrow, directly! We had a 24 hour layover, so we basically passed out on the plane (of course, we woke up for shady airplane food), and arrived in London jet lagged and ready to go.
Oak had already been to London, so I didn’t really want to spend the day hitting all the tourist sites… Tourist sites when you’re tired, not fun. We went to a few neighborhoods instead, like Camden Road where we saw the locks working (pretty cool), Notting hill (I think we missed where Julia Roberts lived.. I was not impressed with anything I saw there), and even crossed Abbey Road for my mom (an anti-climatic experience.. sorry! haha). We even got a picture with William and Kate! I refrained from buying a $15 William and Kate coffee mug… but oh, it was so tacky-licious!
The picture of the random dude is in camden road.. there is this shop that makes nitrogen ice cream. He basically takes an ice cream base in a kitchen aid and blasts it with liquid nitrogen. It was very tasty! We had lychee rose ice cream with blueberry sauce and caramel pretzels (their recommended combination).
For dinner, we went to a pub, and I had some really yummy indian food. London knows curries, I tell you. Nom nom. I drank some ciders, namely “Scrumpy” as Oak recommended it. Haha. I think the name says it all.
A hotel by the tube AND airport was key – made it all super easy. Looking forward to a longer visit someday!!!
