April 20, 2018 This morning I awoke early to a wonderful breakfast on a cart outside of our door. After eating and dressing, I was out the door to take a tour of the Amsterdam countryside. Sharon chose to stay in the city and visit the Rijksmuseum. I was hoping to see tulips, but that was a different tour, which wasn’t available during our stay. Nevertheless, the tour was amazing. We stopped at several small villages beginning with Edam (my favorite). Edam is famous for Edam cheese, but the village is so very quaint and beautiful. We also visited Volendam, Marken, and Zaanse Schans. During these stops we made Stoopwaffles, and were educated on how cheese is made. The island of Marken is a small fishing village and we had a lovely lunch there. After lunch we walked the streets of Marken and visited the wooden shoe factory. Our last stop on the tour was the windmills. This was a fascinating experience to see how peanuts are ground into oil just by using the power