The Adventure Begins

Well, we arrived safely in the rainy Netherlands, following an overnight flight that included very little sleep.  We picked up our genuine Dutch Hyundai rental car and got lost only a few times on the way to our rental cottage.  We are staying in a village of a few hundred people about a five minute drive from Sneek (pronounced Snake), a town of 33,000. 

We had a brief moment of concern following the tour of the rental cottage when we noticed that the lovely bathroom shown in the photos and clearly present in the house, did not include a toilet.  Nor is there any other door near the shower room that would suggest it might be a toilet.  It turns out, however, that if you open enough doors, you can find not only a toilet, but also a kitchen, and a sleeping closet for the heavy snorers.

Children in the cooking closet



Snorers in the sleeping closet

So far the weather has been very grey and wet, ranging from 5 degrees to about 10.  Fortunately, these little dutch towns hold their charm even in the rain.  There are bicycles everywhere, brick cobbled streets, pedestrian shopping avenues, canals all over the place, and outdoor restaurant patios set up with inviting looking sofas and candles or small fires.  We have encountered very few people who don't speak English and are having no trouble finding what we need.  We're also very happy to find that prices are pretty comparable to those at home with the exception of wine, which is extremely cheap!