A Trip Back in Time

Well…did you all enjoy your trip to Spain?  Because we’ve now left Spain…we are back in Holland and on our way to a typical Dutch town.  Well…used to be typical.  Now it’s a little weird.  By typical…yes…I’m talking windmills, cheese, and clogs.  It’s the little town of Zaans Schaans (pronounced…Zonz Schufbgsdluganvakvonz…it’s Dutch don’t look at me.)  Anyway, this trip was actually the first little trip Nina and I took, even before Spain.  We went the day after she arrived after taking Fien to Oma’s.  So after a quick train ride and a heavenly walk past a chocolate factory, we arrived at the village that looks exactly as it was bunches of years ago…like Brigadoon…but with less kilts...

In Zaans Schaans there are seven working windmills.  Here's four of them...

One for mustard, one for water, one for grain or something or other, and four more other things.  We learned them that day but after deciding that the information was not of use to us we forfeited the knowledge to make room for the lyrics to Katy Perry’s “California Gurlz.”

After taking the obligatory picture in front of the windmills…

We traveled along seeing what living in the bulb land was like back in the day.  Our trip took us to bridges…

Gardens…

Cheese…

Award winning mustard…

And clogs…

Lots and lots of clogs…

In fact there was a museum of clogs...

Which meant of course that we had to take the tourist pictures...

On our way out we stopped by the very first Albert Heijn – the major supermarket in the Netherlands.  It was so tiny and sold candy and had an exhibition on coffee (yes please!)

It was a nice little side trip and I think the best way to introduce Holland to Nina.  Of course by mid afternoon jet lag was starting to set in so after a quick stop at a bakery for some broodje lunches, we headed back to Noordwijk for a little nap and Arrested Development.

Word of the day: windmolen - windmill