9/17 AMSTERDAM TO VOLENDAM
Got into our rental car and headed to Volendam(quaint little fishing town) that happened to be 20 minutes away from Amsterdam. As you know, we have been bouncing from city to city with reservations usually one day in advance or sometimes not at all. When we arrived in Volendam at 8pm, we realized that this sleepy town had a dearth of B&B`s, which made it a tad stressful. After stopping off at a local supermarket, we found out about a place that was close to town. Once we arrived, we were met by a Dutch guy who seemed to be a bit frazzled. I went to check out the room and finally after trying 3 different keys, we got in and didn`t even bother to negotiate. 90 euros was the rate and since it was late, we took it and headed into town to a local seafood place. The food was awful and my shrimp cocktail had shrimp that were microscopic-I kid you not-not only tiny, but the sauce was a cross between thousand island and french dressing...really nasty stuff. Marie`s fish was so deep fried that it bordered on inedible. Finally put Zach to sleep around 10pm.
9/18
Found out the B&B owner was divorced, which made sense looking around his disheveled house. Nice guy, but he forgot to bring sheets for Zach, so Zachipoo had to sleep in between mom and dad.
We got out and checked out the town one more time to do maybe a little shopping-the tchotchkes were so cheezy that we abstained from buying anything.
Jumped into the car and headed to Zaanse Schans for a quick tour of the windmills. Once we arrived, we were impressed with how low key it was.
There were only 6 working windmills ranging in age from 150 to 300 years old. Back in the 17th and 18th centuries, a major portion of Holland`s economy was powered by these windmills. As we came out of the first windmill(Zach got scared since the steps were quite steep as you climbed up the windmill.) I ran into a guy who I thought was the most Dutch-looking guy I had seen so far(see above picture)-just so happened that he was the owner of the windmill and had been running it for the last 30 yrs. It was getting late so we decided to head down to Eindhoven to visit our old neighbors from Tokyo. Jelle, Sue and their 2-yr old, Timo were awaiting our arrival...and would you believe we managed to find their place without a car navi system?
More in the next blog...
No comments:
Post a Comment