Alas it is time to move on from Amsterdam. Our travel ‘method’ has always been to go visit a city/country for a short time to get the feel for it and then to return for an extended visit in several Amsterdam will certainly be on the list.

We had to make one last stop in Les Pays-Bas, what kind of parents would we be of we took Syd to this country and not visit a windmill? Luckily heritage and UNESCO made it easy by preserving a series of mills along our way in the village of Kinderdijk. The name means “Children dike” and is rumored to be where the folktale “Cat and the Cradle” originated when during a particularly bad flood a cat was found keeping a cradle floating in the flood water containing a sleeping baby in balance. I did not realize that families lived inside these giant pumps and had all the incidents that one would expect in such a situation.  Modern flood pumps have since replaced the windmills at this sites original purpose, the well preserved site was well worth the visit. Rains returned today so the site was fairly empty during our visit, their visit loss was a (wet) gain for us. Man, can those blades move, aerodynamics at its finest.

Our second stop of the day was to be at Ghent, Belgium however a major accident slowed us down for nearly two hours so we decided to press on to our evening destination. That part of the drive was an interesting test for the Garmin Nav system and reviled several of its short comings. When it said it knew a quicker route we said OK and ended up getting a nice tour of central Antwerp. And when the traffic became really bad due to the accident the system did not know, so the accident re-routing is flaky at best.

First night in France in Gosnay. The FIFA world cup is still on an although I enjoy being at work during the tournament due to the excitement of many of my foreign born colleagues it was nice to be in ‘Futbul’  countries the cup is in contest. Tonight was in no slouch, even though Germany had a solid lead the entire time the hotel staff was still as jumpy as a jackrabbit on a hot-plate. Lots of fun! Nice meal at a local brasserie, I know Americans have a reputation for being ‘ugly’ but boy there was trio of Brits in the restaurant as well last night that would have taken the top spot in any contest with their complaints…