Amstetrdam : Flower Market Love

So one thing The Netherlands is famous for is that it's the worlds floral producer for Europe. It's also home to the largest green house in the world and has the largest flower market in the world which is the size of 120 football fields.

Aalsmeer in North Holland is home to the largest flower market. Daily, auctioneers will come in the morning to do their biddings before those flowers are packed and sent to florists all around.

It sells an average of 21 million flowers daily. Whoaa!!

Now that is business.

One amazing place which I failed to visit was the famous Keukenhof, not far away from the city of Amsterdam. Keukenhof is only open during the blooming season which is in March till May. For the rest of the year, keukenhof is closed to the public. Keukenhof is the worlds largest flower garden and has fields and fields of everycolor tulip you could ever imagine. If ever you might travel to Europe at any of those months, Keukenhof will be a great place to visit especially for flower lovers. They have a flower parade every year in April when the flowers are the prettiest.

Pics taken from Google.

Unfortunately, I only had time to visit Amsterdam in summer. And when the weather's not at it's best either. It was raining daily like it was autumn and the sky was grey most of the time. I did have a chance to meet the flowers in the flower market.

Being a flower market, it does not only sell flowers. It sells everything that has to do with flowers, plants and its industry. Also, it does not sell only local plants. They do sell tropical plants too! I was quite surprised to see bougainvillas and monkey cups here. Something that's very tropical. Very common back home due to the weather. But again, Amsterdam shows me that nothing is impossible.

One thing the do sell a lot here would be tulip bulbs. They are in abundace!! These bulbs can be bought and brought back with a valid certificate. Or as they say. I'm not so sure. I've read in forums that they are some countries that still reject the bulbs even with the certificate. And there are every other plant seeds you can ever imagine. Tangerine, Watermelon, Chilli, Lemon, Sunflower and etc. I bought a 4€ flower bulb which supposedly doesn't require water, soil or sunlight to grow. And it grows in autumn. So far the flowers are budding! Amazing creatures.

Along the floating flower market, (ouh forgot to tell you that its floating) there are lots of souvenir shops, traditional cheese shops and special shops, for example The Magic Mushroom. Dare you to go on a psychedelic ride? No hash is allowed to be sold in shops. Only Coffeeshops. I'll post on that another time.

Now here's something you don't normally find in any other country

The floating market opens everyday.

Mondays til Saturdays from 9.00-17:30, on Sunday 11.00-17.30

MIA : Update from a new place

Gosh it's been quite a while. After a whole month of running around places I've never been to, and in the midst of packing and unloading, last month has been quite a hectic one. I've finally settled down in my new place which will be my shelter for the next 5 months. I'm currently doing my semester internship in Regensburg, a 40 minute train ride from my previous place.

Hopefully everyones well. Seems like the flu and cough bug is back. Quite a number have been sick lately. Do take care. prevention is beter than cure. Drinking lots of water will do you lots of good. Not only keeps you hydrated but it cleanses too. Good skin comes from drinking lots of water I believe. cos that's my secret *ecehh*

Summer has ended for most European countries. But there's still bits and pieces left behind hat we stil try to grab hold onto. The Summer holiday ends this week for the kids, so parents will all be back to work starting next week. I've come to know that working in Germany gets you 30 working days off per year. Which is equal to 6 weeks. I'm not sure about other posts but that's what an engineer get yearly. Lucky Lucky. Can't really compare to only 2 weeks back home can we?

I'll try to post up more now since everything is settled. I've just managed to *finally* get my internet today. Apparently not all Desktops are wifi friendly. Quite a struggle there because I can't seem to make the programme detect the home wifi. But all's well now. My desktop has finally been updated to the technological world! I've been hovering on my smartphone the whole time. Thank God I had it. Having to splurge on a phone doesn't make it a waste you know.

Ok so I'll try to catch up on my posts then.

Tchüss!