We caught a local bus to Volendam a small fishing village described by Floor and Michel as a typical traditional Dutch village. The buildings here were very different to those in Amsterdam, while still being narrow their windows are very different. All have a large window on the ground floor with cream or white lace or sheer curtains and decorations (plants/ornaments) on the sill. Now when I say all of them were like this you might be thinking that there had to be a purple and lime green floral or geometric print curtain somewhere, but you'd be wrong...they were all the same, white or cream, lace or sheer...and this was the same for all the houses we could see as we rode along in the bus.

The tourist information brochure pointed out that all the curtains in the windows in Volendam would be open and told us we would find out why on the bus tour but as we'd taken the cheap option and caught a regular bus we are still to find out why. Hayley's suggestion (and I think she's right) is that it has something to do with electricity, as even though it was an overcast day there was not one light on in the houses and people were sitting at the large window reading. As we wandered to the edge of the town we saw our first traditional windmill in a paddock.

We wandered along the wharf which was very obviously aimed at tourists with almost every second shop one where you could have your photo taken in traditional Dutch costume. In a souvenir shop a very friendly store owner chatted to us after he'd heard us speaking to each other and asked where we were from. It really is true, once people hear you're from Australia they are all smiles and want to be your new best friend...Hayley said she has found this everywhere she's been. It's as though you're something of a curiosity, a novelty...somehow different to the rest of the world, but great in that it seems people instantly like you because you are from Australia and are keen to talk to you.

We sat on the wharf and ate profitjes (a small Dutch pancake about the size of a fifty cent piece) which sadly are available in most markets in Brisbane, but to be eating them in Holland was pretty cool. I also bought some speccula, a Dutch biscuit often shaped like a windmill that has cinnamon in it and is topped with sliced almonds, again these are available in supermarkets in Australia but it was a treat to be eating them in Holland.

We caught a bus to Marken a smaller fishing village on the way back to Amsterdam. It was once an island but is now joined to the mainland by a dike which has a two way road and a bike track on the top of it. Some of the houses here had small front gardens and a yard at the back. One or two actually had a garage of sorts but most of the cars parked in the street (this is also happens in Amsterdam). They were all painted one of three colours, black, dark green or white...not one rebel amongst them had gone for Dulux Sunshine Yellow or Hot Pink. As we wandered around the village I wondered how the residents felt having tourists walking along their narrow cobbled streets looking at their houses...I felt an intruder of sorts.

As we travelled though the countryside we saw fields planted with maize, and sheep and cattle contained by small canals rather than fences. We saw a paddock with a lot of horses grazing and we wondered why there were so many...Hayley wondered whether it might have been for export to Slovenia as some of the backpackers she had dinner with there had tried horse burgers.

We returned to the hostel to recharge our batteries (our laptops not ours)...one unfortunate side of hostels is not being able to leave anything valuable on display so you have to sit and wait while batteries charge. We then headed off to find some free wi-fi as Hayley refused to pay for it at the hostel as most hostels she had stayed in didn't charge for it. We were in luck and found some in a park area where we happily typed away until it was dark (around 7:15pm), the batteries ran low and some dubious looking young men came and sat passing a bottle between each other. I should mention that even though it's autumn here the days stay light until around this time but on the downside it is still quite dark at 8:00am.

On our way back to our Amsterdam home we stopped to buy some food for dinner from a supermarket and a 500ml bottle of water for me so I could reuse the container when we were on day trips. The water cost $0.30, yes thirty cents Australian...what must these people think when they visit Australia and pay the huge prices we pay for bottled water. We also checked out the nibbles we were going to buy for tomorrow. Bearing in mind that I mightn't have Thai again for a while I bought what looked like a home-made Tom Ka Gai soup which tasted amazing, just like one from a restaurant, very flavoursome with none of the artificial, salty taste that a lot of our supermarket food has.