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Greetings from the land of windmills.

Sunday May 9th, 1999 -- After the first few days in Holland.

Holland is probably a pretty good starting point. It's really not too different from the flat western plains of the States except for all the signs being in Dutch.

Kathleen's internet pal Piet met us at the airport, and we've been visiting with him and his wife Sonia ever since.

Below are just a sample of our most excellent adventures in the land of dikes and wooden shoes.

Piet and Sonia have opened their home to us. We're sleeping in her son's old room on the third floor.

We've been suffering from jet lag.

The stairs are beautiful but need care when going down to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

The simplest things seem exotic here:

Kathleen and I visited the wooden shoe factory Klompenwinkel inside the village of Heinkenszand. It's the only shoe factory in this province of Holland. Kathleen wears a size 39.

Kathleen takes a picture in the drying room as the owner tells our friend that a watched shoe never dries…

 People in Heinkenszand seem to get around in all sorts of ways:

And here's how we're gonna get around in Europe:

 For mother's day we visited Piet's mom who still dresses up in the traditional clothes.

She wears the gold hat pieces and the coral neck beads every day, though she has different ones for special days. The hat has two pieces, an 'inner' hat which she wears everyday and the larger outer hat which she wears on Sundays and special occasions. This is a dying art -- when Krina's generation is gone, it will live on only in pictures and costumes.

Well, that's it for now. Check with us in a few days. We're planning to visit Gent, a Belgium town whose walls date back to the Middle Ages.

  "HOI" (Hello)

Join us in Gent Belgium, our first visit to the old places in Europe