Today was an early day for us all, as we had to wake up at 6:15 for our bus to take us to the royal flora Holland, a humongous warehouse that holds digital flower auctions. It was really interesting to see the inner workings of the place, with so many people transporting flowers of all kinds all over the place. This place is an epicenter for tulip selling and buying and can move up millions of flowers per day. After that we went to a tulip farm and learned about their business. This place doesn’t usually sell the flowers themselves, but instead they sell the buds of the flowers. However, when the flower prices are more than the buds, they will often choose to sell the flowers instead. The reason they can’t do both is because cutting the stem of the flower cuts the leaves off, which leaves no way for the buds to get nutrients.

It was very interesting to also hear how sustainable and self reliant the farm is. Since they don’t often sell the flowers, the will cut them and leave them on the ground to be used as compost. We also learned that the water that is under the ground is very close to the surface at the farm, which allows for the plants to get water naturally and leaves no need for watering the plants manually. Unfortunately, they cut a bunch of their tulips a couple days ago but there were still plenty of beautiful tulips there. They also use crop rotation for their tulips and various other types of flowers because when planted in the same spot for multiple years, tulips will stop producing a bud and will have larger and larger leaves instead. After a nice little nap on the way back to the hostel, A bunch of us went out to try and find some second hand clothes stores and to get lunch. I am getting ready to go out to dinner now and am looking forward to getting to sleep in tonight since I didn’t sleep well last night.