{"id":307,"date":"2010-05-22T09:18:46","date_gmt":"2010-05-22T16:18:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.snowflyzone.com\/blog\/?p=307"},"modified":"2010-06-05T16:32:08","modified_gmt":"2010-06-05T23:32:08","slug":"i-miss-tulip-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.snowflyzone.com\/blog\/2010\/05\/22\/i-miss-tulip-time\/","title":{"rendered":"I miss Tulip Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thirteen hundred people dressed in traditional Dutch costume have got to be on to something.<\/p>\n

In Mid-May, Holland, MI hosted its event of the year: Tulip Time<\/a>. I’m still recovering.\u00a0 For the uninitiated, Tulip Time is a week-long festival of everything Dutch.\u00a0 Everyone dons traditional costumes, complete with wooden shoes, and lines the streets while bouncing around arm-in-arm in a format known as Klompen dancing.\u00a0 Klompen dancing is a high school sport in Holland, and they even have team jackets.\u00a0 Had I grown up here, the jackets alone would have merited my participation.\u00a0 Now that I live here, the combined sea of tulips and Dutch people keeps me looking. <\/p>\n

The wooden shoes are just that, and each dancer wears around 8 pairs of socks to give sufficient padding as they pound the closed streets of our downtown metropolis. Thirteen hundred pairs of feet.\u00a0 Thirteen hundred pairs of feet in eight pairs of socks and non-venting shoes. Thirteen hundred pairs of hot, sweaty goodness. Is their inner sock layer some sort of wick-away fabric?\u00a0 Is this an opportunity to design performance clothing for niche local festivals?<\/p>\n

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Tulip Time is more than Klopmen.\u00a0 It’s a trifecta that’s completed with Tulipalloza (real name), and a constant stream of high school bands and the range of fantastic uniforms that they are forced to wear.<\/p>\n

Some people I’ve met here are adamant that they stay away from Holland during Tulip Time.\u00a0 They have pride in their non-attendance.\u00a0 I don’t get it.\u00a0 I love Tulip Time.\u00a0 This small town makes perfect sense for just this one week per year. Exposed Dutch everything plus miles of tulips that have been protected and manicured since December plus carnival food that looks like fried dough but is called an elephant ear (why?) plus Republicans!\u00a0 How could you stay away during the week it all comes together?<\/p>\n

Mid-week I sat in the outdoor seating of a restaurant downtown with some local friends and watched another round of Klompen.\u00a0 One of my friends pointed out that Erik Prince’s mother was sitting right next to us in a soft pink sweater.\u00a0 Remember Erik from that fun Blackwater scandal<\/a>? Yes, he grew up in Holland and delivered this year’s Tulip Time keynote.<\/p>\n

Like I said, it all comes together. Welkom back, Erik. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thirteen hundred people dressed in traditional Dutch costume have got to be on to something. In Mid-May, Holland, MI hosted its event of the year: Tulip Time. I’m still recovering.\u00a0 For the uninitiated, Tulip Time is a week-long festival of everything Dutch.\u00a0 Everyone dons traditional costumes, complete with wooden shoes, and lines the streets while […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[144,138,139,143,141,35,140,46,137,142],"class_list":["post-307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-experiences","category-midwest-surprises","tag-blackwater","tag-dance","tag-dutch","tag-erik-prince","tag-feet","tag-holland","tag-klompen","tag-michigan","tag-tulip-time","tag-wooden-shoes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.snowflyzone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.snowflyzone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.snowflyzone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.snowflyzone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.snowflyzone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.snowflyzone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":326,"href":"https:\/\/www.snowflyzone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307\/revisions\/326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.snowflyzone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.snowflyzone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.snowflyzone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}