After the red light district we took the train to the airport and walked to the Hilton where they were staying. It was after 2am when we finally got to sleep. I got up and ran with Guy Saturday morning. It took a while to get away from the airport (this is the biggest airport I've ever seen!) and the jet exhaust. Once we did it was nice. I found quickly that there are even more cycle and walking paths than in Germany. And more bicycles!  On the way back, I was running under a bridge and a 747 comes taxiing over the top of me! I stopped and just watched it in awe.

We ate breakfast at the Hilton both mornings. I was able to mooch off of Guy all weekend which saved me money. It wasn't really mooching since he had the room anyway. After breakfast we met up with his colleague Alan, rented a car, and headed off to Belgium. Guy had an idea of where we should go. We never made it all the way to where we planned, but we did see a lot of stuff.

The countryside in the Netherlands is very flat with large expanses of farmland, divided up with ditches, dikes, and canals. We saw several of the old traditional windmills that you associate with Holland. To get a feel for the towns, we stopped in a small one called Werkendam.  It was much different than what I was used to seeing in Germany.  I guess the most striking difference was that height of the buildings.   Very few were over 2 stories and most were 1 or 1-1/2 stories.  They also use more red brick.  It seemed that most everyone rode a bicycle.  Even more so than Germany.  The bikes were well equipped to carry stuff and children with saddlebags and one or even two seats for the kids. 

The borders in Europe as far as I can tell are pretty wide open, because it was just like driving into another state when we crossed the border into Belgium - just a sign. We arrived in Antwerp about lunchtime. Had a hell of a time finding a parking place and getting some Francs (yet another currency) to put in the parking meter.  In Antwerp we just walked around there and found a place to eat lunch. The only thing I learned about the city is that Antwerp is a big diamond center. It seemed like a dirty city to me. I was glad to leave.

We took a different route back. In a town named Bergen op Zoom we found a park on sort of a manmade like that looked like it had been closed off with dikes.  I think from looking at a map of the Netherlands, this is very common.  We were tired from not having much sleep the night before, so the walk around there did us good.  After that we drove through Rotterdam. I was impressed with what a big port it was. At one point there were shipping containers and container loading/unloading equipment as far as you could see.

Our next stop was The Hague. On the map and on signs over here it's Den Haag. A lot of city and place names are different than what we're used to. Over here, it's the real name and the name we know is sometimes an Americanized name or phonetic spelling. Den Haag is a very nice, clean city from what we saw. We did drive out to the coast and actually went to the beach. There it's the North Sea and the water is kind of cold. I imagine from the looks of it, some brave souls get in the water in the summer. It was a nice beach but very restricted (check the sign in one of  the pictures).  We crossed about 1/2 mile of dunes and brush to get to it and almost caught the sunset.  It was still beautiful. 

Back near Amsterdam, we stopped at a restaurant where they had eaten earlier in the week in a town named Hoofddorp. The restaurant had a great atmosphere and was very crowded.  The food was very  good - they even had a sort of vegetable plate. Interesting variety and tasty.  Ever had a sauteed mushroom taco?

On Sunday  we slept late.  Closer to lunchtime we made it into Amsterdam to explore for a little while.  The only thing I was able to do before heading back besides walk around was go to the Rembrandt Museum. I learned a lot about the artist - and I'm not a big art fan.. The museum was in his actual house in Amsterdam. He was as much a collector of art and most everythingexotic from all over the world -  as he was an artist. It got him in financial trouble and much of his work and collections were sold off. The museum  didn't have that much by Rembrandt himself, there were mostly things from his collections and works of other artists that he had bought.

We saw a little of the Amsterdam marathon on Sunday.  Of course all the leaders were Kenyans. We saw the lead pack go by and missed getting their picture. I did get a couple of other pics of some fast guys.