We woke, packed our stuff and went downstairs for breakfast. We then hauled our bags over the cobblestone streets, past the bicycles leaning against the canal bridges, up to the central train station, which turned out to be most of an hour’s walk.

At the station we stashed our bags into a locker (except for a day bag) and took a train to a place called Zaanse Shan (sp?) which is about 20 miles northwest of Amsterdam, close to the North Sea. It’s really almost a suburb of Amsterdam.

We got off at our station and were immediately hit with the smell of chocolate from a cocoa plant located in the area. It was sunny and cool. We picked up a town map from a strange lever controlled dispenser and walked to the river.

As we approached, we saw our first windmill – sort of a squat building that seemed to be made of stone, with a giant four blade windmill turning at the top. They are designed so that the blades are made of wooden lattice that can be coved with cloth to catch the wind when the windmill is in operation.

We crossed a bridge that turned out to be a draw bridge that raised as we approached, which was pretty neat. On the other side, we wandered into a little rural town area with windmills in the background along the rivers edge. It turned out to be sort of a preserved park type area. All of the houses were immaculate green, with perfect little gardens out front and little paths that led over and along little canals that were dug into the landscape. There were cows and goats in the fields and little windmills. It was very pretty.

We walked at random and ended up at a wooden shoe museum and shop. There were pictures on the walls of people wearing wooden shoes in daily life a century ago. Very odd. From there, the girls played a bit at a play area where stilts and jump ropes were around.

We then visited a cheese shop where they sold diffent varieties of local cheese. They all were packed in the little wax wheels, and they had samples for tasting. They were all delicious and we were going to buy one to eat.  Unfortunately Amber decided the only kind she wanted was Black Polter, which was extremely expensive and more like parmesan than anything you could eat with bread. After some drama, we bought a Gouda instead.

We then walked along a path that passed directly under the windmills, four or five in a row. Across the river past the windmills you could see houses along the other side. I mostly walked with Kaitlin while the others went ahead, until I caught up and made them go back for some pictures.

We then caught a little ferry across the river run by a couple of old retired guys who passed out candy, and then walked back to the station. We were all almost dead tired by this time. We took a wrong turn looking for a bathroom, and then found the station and returned to Amsterdam.

There, we retrieved our bags and grabbed dinner at the station before boarding our first night train to Copenhagen. Our little cabin had six beds – three bunks on each side, with a ladder to climb up and down. The girls were very excited, and we fiddled around for a while trying to unfold the beds so that we could sit for a while. We shared the cabin with a Pakistani student, Usman, studying in Netherlands. His English was very good and we chatted for a while before going to sleep. Sleeping on the train was sort of hard between the noise, the light and the various interruptions in the night.