“The best education I received is through travel” Lisa Ling
The morning was filled with onboard activities as we worked our way up the river that now was higher than the land around it. It was pretty interesting, while also unsettling looking out the window and seeing rooftops and land down the side of the river bank much as though you were playing ships in the bath tub. Then again this was apparently the case for most of the Netherlands as the majority of the land was reclaimed from the seas and rivers. The way they like to put it is through a saying, one we thought was cute the first time we heard it and that got less cute each time after and boarded cocky by the end when the count of being told the phrase surpassed a dozen. The phrase as I’m sure you’re on the edge of your to hear was, “God may have created the world, but it was the Dutch that created the Netherlands.” The landscape over night changed most dramatically in comparison to the rest of the trip. From the mountains and cliffs dotted with castles and very German architecture to thatch roofs and low flat lands we were no longer in Deutschland anymore. While we were kept occupied the land passed by quickly and we docked in between two grass covered berms. We walked the fifteen feet up to the summit of said hill and from there we could see the famous windmills trailing away down the carved water ways in the low land almost grown in place in between the grasses that covered the land. Over the bridge and through the paths we walked to the water pumping station and down the gravel path toward the windmills we’d go. Shortly into our fairy tale walk ominous music began…. it would seem we found our first terrible guide! This woman, though. I mean THIS WOMAN y’all! oh good lord. Uggggghhhhhhhh. We ended walking ahead which was not hard as she moved slower than a movie on pause. She kept telling stories that had absolutely nothing to do with anything we were looking at or anything in general. She rambled about her life and politics and she told us how all the people in the Netherlands don’t like us because we are tourists. I unfortunately learned more about her ninety four year father than the windmills. We unplugged and ventured out alone to discover what was to be discovered on our own!
One of the mills is maintained by a gentleman in wooden shoes who has it set like it would have been by a family that lived and maintained the mill in the past. We had the pleasure of hitting our head on everything making our way up to the top! It was here we saw something truly interesting, wood gear and cog mechanisms making up all of the innards of the mill! It was interesting to see how they built such a thing entirely out of wood to perform such a important task for the country. For such a plain chuck of land of mostly water and grasses there was really something calming and beautiful about the area. The ability to control the land and water the magnitude and force applied by the sheer power of human will and its still and calm with the sound of the wood clicking and tapping against itself in the mill and the stiff breeze blowing against the you and the grass.
Alex and I walked along the path until it ran out just to the bike path and not wanting to play chicken with those maniacs we made our way back to get ready for our next tour, A FAMILY CHEESE FARM! I was excited. Some excitement dwindled as we boarded the bus and were greeted by our prior guide, the lady with a cheese grater personality. The hour and a half drive was not made any easier with her commentary as she spoke as if she was eating the microphone licking and clicking her lips boring insanity into our minds…. we learned more about her and her elderly father and her word political beliefs, then she told us how she has some weird fear or beliefs about corn on the cob and how she tried to eat it with a knife and fork, not like cut it off the cob but more like eat it like you would a steak with a knife and fork. We had had enough of this lady and we began to be overcome with the crazy insanity laughs, luckily we were saved as we pulled into the farm, ready to get our cheese on. We had a guided tour around the farm seeing where they separate the curds and whey and then where the cheese is pressed and coated in wax and aged. The aging room had a very strong and interesting smell, as one would imagine. After seeing all of this and the dutch girl making a jab at the American smoking processes, one we allowed to pass as we are polite individuals and being guests in her home and business we would never be as rude as to insult our host as she would her guests….. but I’m not saying anything about that. Anyway, fueled by her mean words she directed us to the store area where were we given free reign on samples. We went hog wild and ate all their cheese. Gorged on truffle cheese and spiced cheese and aged cheese and other cheesy tidbits of cheese we then got a tour of the cows and working areas of the farm. We saw baby cows and big cows and one boy cow in a breeding sex pit with 30 lady cows. The farm hand guide made a joke about him being the hardest worker on the farm….. We were back on the bus to deal with our cheese grater guild once more back to meet the ship before we disembarked for the last time to head to our final stop in Amsterdam!
Erroll & Alex's European Honeymoon Trip! 