That’s the forecast for the next three days in Amsterdam. It rains at least once 220 days a year there, if my memory serves me right. But I’m still thrilled to be on my way there this morning.
In 1998, our family spent springtime in the Netherlands, while Frank was Lorentz Professor at the University of Leiden. I’ll never forget the miraculous fields of red and yellow tulips from every window of every railroad train. This tiny country accounts for a huge fraction of the cut flowers florists sell all around the world.
One day, a neighbor re-digging an opulent garden was throwing away a huge lavender plant. I lugged it home, because our rented house’s garden had plenty of empty space.
In the garden shed, however, the only shovel was a square-nosed item that looked to me like a lightweight coal shovel. Growing up in New Hampshire, with soil full of clay and rocks, I had only seen garden shovels made of hard steel with a pointy nose and a flat top to the blade for you to jump up and down on. I mustered my scanty Dutch and asked the neighbors to lend me their garden shovel. Their shovel looked just like the one in my garden shed. And once I started digging, I understood why–the soil (at least in Leiden, where we were staying) was almost as soft as sand for digging in.
I also remember the many baby coots growing up in canals, the flotillas of racing bicycles that nearly killed me many a time, and the flowering chestnuts that offered some consolation after the tulips all disappeared.
I’m off to be rained on, but if I just see some more of their wonderful tulips I won’t mind at all.
