On Friday, my Mom, Ben and I rented bikes and rode outside of the city.  It was really fun, and a bit of an adventure since the signs were hard to follow and we got lost.  But the scenery was really nice and we got to see an old windmill!

On a side note, I wanted to point out how NICE everyone we’ve dealt with in Amsterdam has been.  Waiters, store and hotel clerks, tourist information workers, even the tram drivers are all so friendly and not at all annoyed when we ask lots of stupid questions.  We’ll see if all of Europe is like this (I doubt it), but so far we’ve been amazed with how genuinlly nice people are.  I would definitely recommend The Netherlands and Amsterdam as a nice place to visit.