Tilting at Windmills

Saturday, June 22nd

Jocelyn's coworkers had told her that we should take a tour to see the windmills and the little seaside towns. So we decided to use the first half of our day for souvenir shopping and the second half for the tour.

 

The flower market in Amsterdam is basically a bunch of tent/stalls set up along the canal. It runs for maybe a block. There are buildings with cafes and cheese shops and souvenir shops across from the flowers. In particular there was one very cute little Christmas shop.

In this shop I found swairte Piet. He's my favorite. Here's the short story. When I was a missionary I had a companion who was Dutch. From her we learned that in the Netherlands Santa Claus doesn't come on Christmas he comes on December 5th. He comes with a helper named swairte Piet. Needless to say we had lots of fun with this, teasing the Dutch missionaries. Because that's what you do when you learn about your friends' traditions. ;) Anyway, after my mission I was introduced to David Sedaris and his essay titled "six to eight black men", which talks about the Dutch and their Christmas traditions. These two things have led me to have a fond place in my heart for swairte Piet. End of story.

 

After shopping we had some extra time before our tour and it was raining sideways again, so we stopped to get manicures. I still have some of mine left on my nails because it seems like a lot of effort to get nail polish remover.

 

Our tour took us first to Marken where they took us to this little wooden shoe shop and showed us how wooden shoes are made. It seems like a pretty quick process except for the drying. You have to let them dry for a long time. I feel in love here with two things. First the blue and white wooden shoes. I wanted them so badly!!!!! And with stroopwaffles. They were making them fresh in the store and they let us taste them. Heavenly. They are kind of like a waffle ice cream cone except they're soft. And they cut them in half, don't ask me how because they aren't very thick, and smear caramel goodness in the middle then stick back together. Seriously, so good. We got some stroopwaffles to take with us, but I left the wooden shoes behind. My heart still really wants them. Jocelyn insists they aren't practical.

 

In Marken we boarded a ferry which took us across the sea to another tiny city called, I don't know what. Here we went to a cheese shop. They gave us a demonstration about cheese and different cheese knives. They also let us sample all of the cheese. I bought some smoked Gouda which is extremely tasty and will not be making it back home. I feel like all I talk about on this blog is food...

 

Lastly, we took our tour bus to the windmills. There used to be a whole lot of windmills in the Netherlands but most of them are gone now. There were five hanging out together at our last stop. They are pretty impressive, massive structures.

 

After being dropped off back in Amsterdam, we found a fondue place to eat dinner. Jocelyn really wanted to see the red light district so I told her we could walk back to our hotel through it. She says you can't go to Amsterdam without seeing it. It is seriously the weirdest thing I've ever seen. You're just walking down the street and then there's a window, like a store front, with a half naked woman standing in front of it. Some of the women were posing or whatever. But some of them were just hanging out in their rooms, talking on the phone. So weird. And some of the rooms look like an average bedroom in an apartment. Except that one wall is a window and the whole world can see in. I mean, they have curtains for when they're doing business. But still. Check that off the list, I guess.