Tulip Time 2002
_11:35 — Tulip Time 2002
From May 4 to 11 Tulip Time is a festival that takes over Holland, MI. Our little town of 30,000 people quickly jumps to a town filled with 1million+ people.
The above picture is a comman site that you’ll see when walking the streets during this time. They call themselves Dutch Dancers and have usually been practising for a good couple of months. If you’re new to the area this is a pretty interesting/fun thing to watch. If you live here it’s mostly an activity you leave to the old folks with cameras and smiles.
My favorite part about Tulip Time isn’t the Dutch dancing, the rides, or the horrible traffic — It’s the crazy food. Food that is made to kill you if eaten for more than 1 week.
I also love the atmosphere of community. People from all over are actually talking to one another and realizing what the term “One nation” really means.
Last night my friend Ben and I went to the park to play some frisbee. After awhile of playing we were asked by a couple people if we were professionals. As much as I wanted to say, “YES!” - I didn’t. I simply told them that we just like to play and ask them nicely if they would like to join us.
They just wanted to watch but it was nice to meet some new people. Later we saw those same people dancing in the middle of 8th and Central to a swing band that had come from Ohio to get Holland crazy.
The music was great and we danced and laughed for almost an hour. During that time we saw people doing dance moves that you only thought happened in movies. I kept saying to myself - “Why doesn’t Holland act this crazy all the time?”.
Right now it’s Tulip Time and Holland has an excuse to act crazy. For some reason we only get to let ourselves go once a year - I should really get going so I don’t miss any more of it.
