Last Day Until USA!!!

Today was our last day of sightseeing for our trip. In the morning we were able to go just a little ways out of town to visit an open air museum, which was a collection of working windmills, a cheese making shop and several other museums/demonstration centers to learn about Dutch life. My favourite was the wooden shoe shop! They had examples of many types of clogs including some with boot tops attached, with spikes one the bottom for ice and with beautiful scrolling decorations for a bride!

We also loved the windmill. The one we saw was built to press nuts or seeds to harvest the oil inside. They look so cute from the outside but inside they are very powerful! 

A fun surprise was meeting a nice woman named Sarah who lives in Jacksonville and is in Europe for work. She's a Tenn Vol! But we really enjoyed sharing our old SEC football stories with her and swapping travel stories. 

Later we went to a history museum about Amsterdam, I love hearing about how the Dutch built their great city on a marsh with poles supporting the buildings and how they continually push back the sea to gain more land. Much of Amsterdam is actually below sea level!

Then we went to the Anne Frank House. Wow, it was a very moving experience. It's amazing to me that those 8 people hid inside for 2 years. But after someone betrayed them they were all sent to camps. Only Anne's father survived the war, Anne died of typhus at a camp just months before the war ended. It also made me think of the great things young people can do. Like the Bible says, don't let people look down on you just because you are young!

Ruben and I are definitely ready to get back to the states and see our kids. This trip has been indescribable and we are so blessed to have seen new sights, meet interesting people and learned a little about life beyond our norm. 

Thanks for following along on this great journey! Hope another one will happen soon!