Tulips are finally blooming. I won’t complain about their late show. Saturday I will fly to Amsterdam, where I’ll board the MS Amadeus Elegant for a “Tulip River Cruise” through the Netherlands and Belgium. After eight days cruising the Rhine and Danube rivers, I’ll take a train from Amsterdam to Paris, where I’ll spend three days.
Todd and I traveled to Amsterdam six years ago. We fell in love with the city of canals. Since I was a child, I have loved tulips and Dutch culture. At age 6, I sang and danced “I Am a Pretty Little Dutch Girl” on the televised Bill Riley Talent Show in Des Moines, Iowa. Please don’t gag or judge – I was only 6 and had a mother interested in performance. (I left the studio with Archway cookies as a prize.)
On the tulip river cruise, I am traveling with a group from Evansville’s Lifestyle Tours, including my stepparents. When I depart the river cruise for Paris, I’ll meet my husband’s cousin’s wife, Deanna, an American Airlines international flight attendant, an excellent guide for my first trip to Paris.
Learning of this trip, people naturally ask, “Are Todd and your boys going?” – after all, we do travel together as a family and for business. But tulips bloom in April, the same time Bronco League baseball begins; and it’s not recommended to take a high school freshman out of school.
While I enjoy traveling with my family, I hope my trip encourages their spirit to embrace opportunities. I plan to post a “300 Words” entry shipboard next week, and, of course, you’ll read more about it later in Evansville Living. And while I’m gone, I know my family will make it just fine. But feel free to check in on them for me.
