I've lived in a lot of places and seen a lot of things, but one of the most magnificent were the miles upon miles of tulips I played in as a child when I visited the Netherlands.

I remember when I was a child living in Germany, one of the trips my parents took us on was a wine and cheese tour of the Netherlands. I was a curious kid, and while I couldn't have wine I could certainly have my fill of cheese, but sometimes walking around the stuffy basements of windmills (that also usually served as wineries) got a little boring.

At one point, a woman whose face I'll never forget but whose name I'll never know offered to watch me and play with me while my parents tasted wine. She was obviously working the tour; she was dressed entirely in traditional Dutch garb, with long blonde hair in pigtails even - while my parents went to another wine tasting, she walked me through where the cheese was stored - wheels as big as I was lining the walls.

Then we went outside to the tulip fields. We had driven in along the fields, but she actually took me out to play in them - I can still remember how sweet it smelled, and how bright the rows upon rows of yellow, purple, and white flowers made the world seem. It was a bright sunny day, but it seemed like the blue in the sky was the darkest color in the world at the moment. It was magnificent.