Traditional Dutch

Today we went to Zaanse Schans, which is where a lot of old dutch buildings were moved to perserve them. The first building we went in to had a wooden clog display, showing how they changed over the years.Then we saw a demonstration on how they make clogs, they use really wet wood when they are carving and after it dries out the shoes become very light. They can now make the clogs in about 5 minutes with a machine, whereas handmade clogs used to take 2-3 hours. After the clog building we moved on to the cheese building, where there were some delicious samples of dutch cheese.

Then it was on to the old windmill. It was cool to see the mechanisms inside and you could go almost to the top. It was a bit harrowing at first because the stairs were basically a ladder. But I got used to them, and made it up as far as we were allowed to go.


After that we drove to some older dutch towns, one of which was Edam, known for its cheese. We went to a museum there, which was an old dutch home. The basement was made so that it floated on the water, so when you stepped down into it, you felt as if you were on a boat. Apparently it was made that way to accommodate rising and falling water levels. Because the cellar could move up and down, minimal damage would be down to the home. We also went to Volendam where I tried some Poffertjes, which are like mini-pancakes drenched in butter and coated with powdered sugar...mmmm.