I decided, as I mentioned last night, that I would take a 6.5 hour tour up to a little town outside of Amsterdam. It's called Volendam, and they have windmills, an old Dutch museum, a cheese factory and a wooden shoe making place, all of which we saw today.
First we met at 11:30am at a specific stop all the way across the city. I managed to make it over there on time by some miracle, and walked with half the group across a few streets to the coach bus. The other half followed later, I guess it's a good way to not have 100 people trying to cross multiple busy Amsterdam streets at once.
I got to sit on my own, which gave me a lot of leg room, which, you know, awesome! The drive was about 40 minutes outside of Amsterdam, and we finally got to see some windmills, in the very cold and very windy weather.
There we a ton of them, all over the place when we got a tour inside. There were so many people, there were no real opportunities to take good pictures. The picture above shows the tools, turny bits.
We got back on the bus and headed to a little village and visited a cheese factory! It was pretty great, we got a demonstration from a lovely woman, and then I bought soooooo much cheese. The second they said it didn't need to be refrigerated for weeks and weeks, I knew I was getting some to send home. Holland cheese coming your way, Canada!
Here's a picture of the cheese places squish-the-cheese machine. I think we all know that that is not the technical name for it.
Three lovely American women took me under their wing, and we hung out for the day. They were in their 60s, and were a blast. The saved me a seat at the cheese tasting, and then again as we headed out across the water on a big boat for tourists, to take us to another adorable little picturesque town, where we would learn how to make wooden shoes (also known as clogs, but the guy making them called them wooden shoes, so I'm sticking with him).
This looks like a fake town from a fairytale, or a miniature village!
I bought wooden shoes! They're juuuust about big enough to fit an ultrasound baby, but I now own wooden shoes!
Then we went and ate delicious fish and chips at a well-known place in the little town, and it was pretty good. What was even better were the mini pancakes that Holland is apparent known for. They are everywhere in Amsterdam, and in all of the little towns we went to today. Soooo good! Done worry, I didn't get to eat all of those, ha, just my little batch.
And then it was home time. I bought a few little nicnacks, one I love the bag for, and the other is just something fun.
Bit of a short post for today, but I'm pooped and I have to be up early to mail cheese home (rare sentence spoken) and then head to the airport. Berlin tomorrow, and I can't wait!
Toddles for now, aiming to be back to tomorrow with some Germanness about me!
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