1. This is a very very very long post (45+ photographs, loads of text) so have a good amount of time on hand when you start reading it
2. This is dedicated to two very important parts of my life… Bindiya and Tushar who started new chapters in their lives in April and May respectively
3. This trip was a celebration of the “sincerely hoped for, unexpected” success of 30on30 initiative… and to share the joy, I would do a random draw of lots of all the people who comment on this post and will send them a print (which they can select from this post) if they are in India or US. If the comments are too less for a decent lot, I would randomly add some random comments from friends and include them !
Now that the conditions are laid out well, lets start….
So it was finalized that I am going to Holland to see the Tulips… Gaurav agreed, Deepali agreed, Pritam, Lakhan, Golu, Sapna agreed, and Jyoti agreed ( she was visiting me that week on her way from the West Coast of the Amreeka to the East Coast of Amreeka)
They left from Minneapolis early evening and I left Milwaukee around 1830 hrs… it was a long drive ahead and I was so looking forward to it… a fantastic car good music system and a nice weather was all that I could ask for… and I had some Samosa’s and Kachauri’s with me for the drive too 
what fun !!!!
As expected driving was a breeze through without any issues at all…Reached the Super 8 Motel around midnight and Pritam and the gang reached soon after ! We did not spend much time talking then, and called it a day with a promise to leave the motel by 0930 hrs the next morning !
), some cereal, milk (like a good boy I had my cereal and milk there too).
Pritam was driving a JEEP and there was no way I would have let anyone else drive that now that I was around… He knew that, and asked Sunil to handover the keys to me before I created any fuss ! He like a gentleman took the navigator seat and Pritam, Jyoti and Golu happily acquired the passenger seats !!! Just about 20 minutes away was our first destination of the day…
The Veldheer’s Tulip Garden….
I would be lying if I tell you that I was very excited to see what I saw… My bad! I was expecting miles of tulips of various colors and variety, but this turned out to be a relatively smaller than what I had painted in my head… It was not entirely my mistake actually, it was the advertising that got the better of me here ! But nevertheless it was a sight to see… I had never seen so many tulips together, so in a way this was a happy moment !
Enjoy the pictures below for a while, before getting back to reading more
Did I mention that for most of the time I was confused if I was in Holland or America or India? The proportion of Indians vs Foreigners was as good as India Gate in Delhi or some tourist spot near Pondicherry or Madras or Bangalore… This was the largest number of Indian public I have seen together outside India so far !!!
Just before getting out of the Tulips Garden, we decided to take a few pictures of each other 
There was a small factory inside the shop itself where the shoes were being made(below)…
Seen below is the 1970 Dodge truck we went around for a drive in….
I really wanted to see the sun set, and really wanted to see it… so we waited… it was not the most comfortable evening as it was pretty chilly, but my dear friends decided to hang around till sunset and then move back….
Now was time to go back to the Motel and call it a day… Jyoti had left something at Papa Romano’s in the afternoon so we decided to go back and see we could find it there… We could not and the guys decided to get themselves the infamous Smirnoff Vodka Mojito (will write about why its infamous separately) While Pritam, Golu and Jyoti were inside the Wine Shop, me and Sunil discussed the dinner options and realized that Indian Food was the best option… now at 2130 hrs, it was not going to be an easy task to first find an Indian Restaurant and that too an open one !!! but we tried… the GPS ( called Billo Rani by Pritam) helped and after about 5 unsuccessful attempts we found an Indian Restaurant called Bombay Cuisine in Grand Rapids about 20 miles away…
So after this loooooooooooooong touristy day and a heavy Indian dinner, we called it a day around midnight !!!!
It was a nice place to just sit and chat as well… I did not care much for the wines, and came out to just sit in the field and take pictures, while Pritam, Golu, and Jyoti were enjoying the wine tasting experience….
Sunil also decided to come out and relax for a while before he started the long drive back to Minneapolis…
The pit-stop was at Fenneville somewhere between somewhere, where we enjoyed some Pizzas at a Pizza hut before saying the final good byes to each other, promising to meet again soon !!! Post that, Sunil drove a bit faster towards their destination and I enjoyed the music and the amazingly smooth Nissan Altima to Milwaukee….
All in all, this trip ended up with me having a nice big smile on my face, exactly like the road-map between Milwaukee and Holland
I am already looking forward to my next trip !!! Are you?
Oh and congratulations for reaching the end of this post
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