It may have been a bit cloudy, but there was not a drop of rain in the sky, thank god! The flowers were bloomed and complete in color. We visited two places today. First was the Royal Holland Flore trading center. Watching the factoring workers move around the flowers from one place to another was a fascinating process. We really were watching the supply chain happen right in front of us. The distribution center is actually 250 football fields. Even though we only saw parts of the distribution center, the main floor was huge. I found it very interesting/funny how the workers on the trackers used bicycle traffic hand signals, which shows how many workers there were. To put in perspective the processes of this place, it reminded me a lot of how a distribution center such as Amazon would function in the United States.

The second place we visited was De Tulperij Voorhout, also known as the flower fields. Even though it was near the end of the season, there were still plenty of tulips to see. My favorite was definitely the purple ones. I never knew some much sustainability was involved in growing flowers. We learned about how they reuse the bulbs of the flowers to either sell or regrow for the next season. Also, at the end of the tulip season, they cut off the head of the flowers to let the peddles become soil for the next set of flowers they will plant. Finally, because a lot of the surrounding area is around water, dikes hold up the land, which results in the flowers not having to be watered by labor. This saves a tremendous amount of money because the water comes from the ground and saves the time to water the millions of flowers they have. Many great pictures were taken in the fields; as always, I can’t wait for tomorrow!