Day 6 Zaanse Schans WindmillsAmsterdamUtrechtWe started out the morning incredibly early at aro

Day 6 

Zaanse Schans Windmills

Amsterdam

Utrecht

We started out the morning incredibly early at around 5am to catch the sunrise and beat the annoying tour buses full of people at the Zaanse Schans windmills. Strolling around through the cool damp maritime air in mostly solitude, we watched as the caretakers of the windmills put up the cloth sails up so that the blades could catch the wind. 

Eventually, we strolled into some of the nearby gift shops, including one shop that specializes in making wooden shoes, or Klompen. I never really realized how Dutch wooden shoes really were, but it was cool seeing videos of how they take a piece of solid wood and dry them out and eventually shape and smooth them to make shoes. 

After walking through a few more stores, we made our way to Amsterdam. We parked our car on a side street, and we ended up paying 5 euros an hour to keep our car there. Really must emphasize that you should probably take public transit into Amsterdam because parking sucks and getting in and out of town is difficult with all the traffic. 

We strolled through the streets for hours and hours, stopping at a food truck area to grab some lunch. We got an assortment of smoked chicken, smoked sausage, and a few other side dishes to hold us over. After frolicking around, we made our way to several sites around town, including a big outdoor farmers market that sold everything from produce and snacks to clothes and souvenirs. Most European cities have these types of markets, I’ve noticed, which is something I wish we had more of in cities in the U.S. 

Eventually, we made our way over bridges and by the famous canals that make up this city. 

As we wound down the day, we made our way to the city of Utrecht for dinner, where we dined on some decent Thai food. It was a nice change of pace and was actually quite good!

So this post seems a little disjointed and a little less passionate. We had some major disagreements on this day, my brother and I. You have to expect some family bickering on a family vacation, am I right? So unfortunately, I didn’t get as much out of this day as I would have hoped. But, don’t worry, there’s still one more day to have fun :)