First post from Leiden

Sonja came and got me at the airport and we took the train to Leiden (the next stop), she got her bicycle and we walked to her house on streets with a light dusting of snow. A bit later her husband Sen invited me to walk with him to the grocery store which is next to the neighborhood mosque.

I like these folks, already my idea of what Holland has changed and I have been here just a few hours. Mosques in Holland, next to grocery stores?

Sonja promises to take me to look for wooden shoes and to see a proper cheese shop tomorrow (I hope by bicycle as here there seems to be more bikes than cars). When I took the picture of the stack of cheese wheels, Sen informed me that it was merely a "modest collection of cheese".

It is cold here... How cold you ask? Lets just say there are ducks walking on ice on small canals.

Meer later (more later)