Going Dutch

Did you know that tulips were once so highly prized that ONE bulb was exchanged for an entire brewery? Or that tulips are not Dutch at all, but more likely to have come from Turkey?
I knew these things already as I once started reading a book about tulips simply because it was cheap at a library sale and had some pretty pictures, but unless you’re REALLY interested in tulips, I wouldn’t recommend it… I ended up abandoning it only a chapter or so in. A lot more on my low-brow level was the Tesselaar Tulip Festival which I went to with a friend yesterday. I had not been since I was in primary school, and really, unless you want to take masses of photos, there’s probably not a lot of point going, but seeing as I did take masses of photos that makes it alright.

There wasn’t much else happening at the festival except for the usual food and souvenir stalls including De Hollandse Winkel (The Dutch Shop) stall which was inexplicably staffed entirely by Asians… maybe they were going for a multicultural feel?

I know I was – half Chinese, attending a Dutch weekend at a tulip festival with a Japanese friend in Australia?! (Look at the gum trees behind the tulips here… sort of bizarre scenery!)

Even the Timboon ice cream stall got in on the act with a Spekulaas flavoured ice cream… mmm… I don’t think they’ve ever invented a flavour just for a festival but I hope they keep making it as it was DELICIOUS (well, if you like Spekulaas, that is!).

The weather had been iffy on the way up to the festival which explains why I’m relatively rugged up (in this navy jacket I made) even though it looks so sunny, but it really fined up on the way home… of course!
Category : copious flower pics, daggy festivals, signature pieces, spicy ice cream