We are now on our way to the Netherlands and Amsterdam. Our tour guide has set up a rotation on the bus. The people sitting in front in the front seats will move back a row and those in the back seats will move up to the front. It gives everyone a fair chance to see the sights equally. Some of our travel mates are near our ages while majority or older.  One such couple is Norbert and Mary from Wisconsin. He just retired, working construction, and his daughter says them on this trip. Norbert has made many comments about all the construction and scaffolding that has been up around Europe so far. They’re good folks Of the younger couples, there is a couple named Chris and Chad.. They, like Teresa and I, feel a bit rushed in this trip.  Chris had had a terrible time in the Champaignery, because of the chalk caves and wine cellars and a scent of mildew, dank and damp. Chad, I found out is really into D&D.  Another young couple, Roman and Jennifer, are newlyweds. I have not talked to them much, but we’ll later. We have one other younger couple with us from Australia,  but this time that’s all I know about them. Holland is also known as the Netherlands. It is known for flowers, cheese, the diamond markets, and windmills. We got to see it all in just a day. Since Holland is below sea level and was mostly marsh and swamps, the Dutch used those windmills to pump water out. Now they use dikes to keep the water under control. The windmill is really cool. They allowed the brave souls who wanted to climb to see the “engine”. we are told that when working at full speed, a windmill can pumped 10,000 gallons of water per minute. That is the equivalent of one Olympic size swimming pool. In Amsterdam, we saw where diamonds are cut polished and graded. Of course they had some for sale. One was up to $40,000. Teresa found one simple round cut diamond ring for just $450 US. I almost bought it for, but we were still at the beginning of our vacation I was not sure if we have the funds. When I got back to the US I checked with my favorite local jewelers, giving them the design and the cut, quality and current weight of the diamond. I asked them how much a diamond ring like this would’ve cost and found out I would be paying close to $1200. Oh well, next time.   After the diamond market, we took a canal tour of Amsterdam. We saw such sites as the house of Anne Frank and the church bells that she wrote about. The boat captain talked about the gables and how they identify the profession of the homeowner. He also explained how furniture and goods were moved into homes using those gables.  Like Venice Italy, Amsterdam’s houses are built up on stilts from the water below and that is why Amsterdam is sometimes called the Venice of Northern Europe. Unlike Venice, indoor plumbing did not empty to the water below.   We now had some free time to explore. Chris and Chad, Roman and Jennifer, Teresa and I took off during our afternoon hour. We (the guys) had to see “the red light district”. It was interesting to see the variety of women in the doorways from young (somewhere around 18) to old women, from shapely to shapefull. None really tickled my fancy though (though if I offer to pay them, they might have).  It was just one of those”You had to see it ” sites. Oh, and there was a church right next to the district, with a sign “confessions held here”. After lunch, we were busted into a smalltown of Volderdam. They were having a city carnival and the streets were crowded. We were introduced to Steven, a local shoemaker. He explained different types of wooden shoes, from the round toed shoes for farmers to the pointy toed shoes for fisherman and he showed us how they were made. He also showed us how cheese was made, and gives a few samples and we ended up buying some shoes. We left Volderdam to go to Der Hague and our hotel. We were told it was not the normal hotel Globus uses and we could tell. They were not prepared and it took him to an hour to check us all in and nearly an hour to get served a plain dinner. Even with that,  with that amount of time,  they cooked no one’s steak well (either raw or over well done). This plus the fact that we knew we had an early start in the morning made a few of our travelers grumpy.