Last day in Amsterdam

Well, after thoroughly enjoying our last day in Amsterdam we are moving on to Berlin, but first, a look back at our final day in Holland.
The Country Tour was amazing. The scenery was beautiful and the countryside was peaceful and charming. The tour was four hours long, and even on a bike one would not expect to be able to travel from a major metropolitan area to the "countryside" and back, but because the country is so small, that is exactly what we did. We rode out of Amsterdam along the Amstel River (the namesake of the city) and enjoyed the old mansions that were built so the rich could get away from the city center in the summer when the canals started to stink. Now, of course, they are inhabited year-round and are only a 10-15 minute drive from the city, but the beautiful views of the river and the countryside still make them high-value properties.
We first went to a windmill that was somehow used to pump water out of the wetlands (I am not an engineering student, but it sounded complicated). Next, we went to a cheese farm and clog, or wooden shoe, factory. The farm’s production of the cheese is not enough to export but the cheese is shipped throughout the Netherlands. The owner told us they made Gouda and sometimes put some flavor into it, Whitney asked if they made any other types of cheese and with a somewhat confused look said "uh... no, but if you wait long enough, it turns into Parmesan," because according to this farmer, Gouda is the real cheese. Then, we watched him make a shoe out of a block of wood, which took about 4 minutes and used some impressive machinery. My favorite part was that the owners/farmers were all wearing wooden shoes, which at first I believed to be a tourist gimmick, but when he took off one of his shoes and said "after four years, they wear through a bit," showing us a hole in the heel, I turned to Whitney and said "you know you are Dutch when you wear through a pair of wooden shoes."
We got some souvenirs and moved on, riding peacefully through the wetlands and forests of the "countryside" and learning that nothing is truly wilderness in Holland because every bit of land was under water or covered with Peat and then funneled into canals and chipped away and sold as fuel--making every inch somewhat man-made.
After returning, we relaxed for a while and got ready to go to the Red-Light District, the most anticipated part of our stay in Amsterdam. I won't go into any details, but only because there weren't any. While we were expecting the atmosphere of a sin-filled freak-show, the most shocking thing we saw was what appeared to be tourists from every country of the world, ages 10-80. All the women were clothed (at the very least in underwear and bras) and although the opportunity to go crazy was just around the corner, it was never in your face. Bored and underwhelmed, we returned our bicycles to the rental shop and went home to get some sleep before crossing town to meet up with our group and head to Berlin.
Amsterdam and Holland in general might have been the most beautiful, serene, enjoyable place we've been so far and is really the opposite of its stereotype in many ways. A relaxed, beautiful European town with tons of history and friendly locals of every nationality, Amsterdam is a place everyone should visit.
Thanks for reading and we should have a blog about Berlin coming before the end of the day.