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20140430 Wednesday Hoorn

Vantage: Hoorn Today, you’ll learn about Holland’s most beloved export — tulip bulbs. Cultural Connection: In the town of Harlingen, you’ll visit Dutch tulip fields where you’ll meet expert tulip bulb growers at work. You'll have the afternoon at your leisure. This evening, hit the lounge for live entertainment on board.

Hoorn detail:



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Actual: We were bused to a tulip bulb farm in the morning. They raise tulips for the bulbs, not for the flowers. In fact, when the tulips are mature, the heads are chopped off so the bulb gets whatever energy is left in the leaves rather than the flower. The farmer had millions of dollars in good equipment, all of it sparkling clean so it can’t carry anything from one variety to another. Neat dog.

They gave a good lecture on tulips and the harvesting of bulbs. The buses carried us out to a field where there were still flowers on the stems so we could photgraph huge tulip fields like the Nellis tulip field I knew in Holland, Michigan.

All in all, a great trip.

Back to the ship for lunch, then D rested her leg wile I hiked the town. It happened to be market day in Hoorn, so there were vendors everywhere selling all sorts of things. I picked up a purse/backpack for Dolores. All-in-all I probably covered two miles.

Captain’s European dinner in the evening with venison and continental things. Very good, somewhat unusual.

In the evening the Rat Pack Crew entertainment took place. The skits were short and very amateurish, but showed the crew wanted to do their individual things. The nearly-all-hands rendition of Goldilocks (with characters popping up from behind a screen) was hilarious. Everyone went to bed laughing.