¡Windmills! ¡Wooden Shoes! Seriously!!!

[This to be said in a Gerard Butler “This is Sparta voice.”]  This is HOLLAND!

Goededag!

The forecast was for more rain, etc, but when I looked out my window in the morning there were bits of sunlight.  I set off for the Centraal Station to catch a bus for Zaanse Schans.  First I topped off my OV chip card, then I easily found the bus stop where a kindly Dutch woman warned some clueless tourists that no, the bus driver could not change a fifty euro bill.  I chimed in pointing to the transportation office and saying they could buy a card or tickets there.  When the tourists left, I fell into conversation with the Dutch woman.  She claimed her English was not good.  I think she meant she had a marked accent.  I find the Dutch very friendly.  Their famed tolerance extends to tourists, who like me, often have no clue.

We went under the IJsselmeer again, but turned in a different direction and proceeded through some real people suburbs and industrial parks.  For a while we were on a freeway—if you can call it that.  It's not a proper freeway—where was the traffic?  The crazed drivers with death wishes?

Now our bus driver on this major tourist route was a bit of a wag.  When we neared our destination there was a windmill of the sort I always think of as Oklahoman.  Picture tall and thin with a lot of small sails whirling.  The driver informed us solemnly that that was the last one left.  Nuh uh.  We’re going to Zaanse Schans, I thought, but some of my fellow passengers fell for it and quickly began snapping pictures.

Zaanse Schans is an outdoor park and well-known tourist trap.  I loved it.  One reason I had such a good time was that the weather cooperated.  If I’d been here yesterday it would have been miserable.  It’s a lovely place where I got to pet a cat and a friendly goat.  I think it was a goat. Some way exists to tell the difference between sheep and goats, but I can never remember what it is—something to do with the way horns curve.

Plenty of tour buses pulled up, and there were large groups of Asians—happy and interested this time.  I wondered if they were the same tour I saw at Volendam.  Admission to the site is free.  There’s a one or two euro charge for some of the museums and mills.  One does have to pay to pee.  When there is an admission charge to a larger museum or site, one does not.

The town has some charming, small, traditional houses, which are privately owned, so one can walk by and take pictures, but they are not open to the public.  Plenty of other things are. Apart from the numerous touristy shops is a bakery museum, an old grocery store museum (the original Albert Heijn for those who have visited the Netherlands), and traditional working windmills.  I mean the real Dutch kind, both tall and thick with windows in the base and great spreading sails that turn majestically in the wind.  One can go in and see how they work.

And wooden shoes?  You betcha!  There’s a clog maker and his shop on site with pointed toes for women and rounded toes for men.  They are so practical in cold, damp weather that evidently quite a few Dutch still wear them if they work on the land.

But let is not forget that other Dutch treat—cheese!  It calls itself a cheese farm, but it is in fact a cheese store for tourists.  And these folks know how to sell cheese!  Justly confident in their product, they give out generous samples of all sorts of cheese.  Consequently as a result of my—er—research—I didn’t have to buy lunch.  I finally settled on two types of goat cheese, a soft smoked kind, and a more traditional kind—both simply wonderful, but all the cheeses were.  Now I happen really to like goat cheese, but if you don’t or aren’t convinced by the samples plenty of different varieties of cow and sheep cheese are on offer.  You can buy the same cheeses in Amsterdam, but it’s more fun to get it at Zaanse Schans from cheerful girls dressed in traditional costumes. 

So I had a great day out!

Dinner was Indonesian.  Indonesia used to be a Dutch colony, and its food is still very popular in the Netherlands.  If I were with friends we’d go out for Rice Table, but since I’m not I had chicken ketiap.  Ketiap is the original catsup or ketchup, and proves to be a tangy sweet-sour sauce with chicken and vegetables.  Yummy noodles go on the side.  Here’s another dish I ‘d like to recreate at home.  I had one of my new favorite beers Grolsch Kanon as an accompaniment.

Dag!