This morning we departed from the Meininger in Sloterdijk to start the Rotterdam leg of our Netherlands experience. We checked out at 10:00, and got on the road to Zaandijk Zaanse Schans. After arriving, we took a quick picture with the windmills behind us, and coincidentally another group of tourists were walking by and yelled “Hail to Pitt!” It turned out there daughter had gone to Pitt, and that shows in a very strong way how you can travel across the world and Pitt follows you too.

We headed off to the clog museum and store to see all of the different kinds of clogs from across the world and the unique and intricate clog designs that can be found here in the Netherlands. I took a particular interest in “The Diamond Clog” which is on permanent display there in the Clog Museum. As a connoisseur of shiny things, I had to take a good long look at it and really take it in.

At 11:30 we met with a representative from the Henri Willig cheese company to explain to us some of the history of the company as well as what made the company so sustainable and their cheese so good. She explained that the most important difference between Henri Willig and other cheese companies is that Henri Willig uses a microbial rennet when making their cheeses, making the cheese suitable for vegetarians.

The sustainability aspect is also quite interesting. Henri Willig uses every part of the milk, including the whey in production of different products that we were later able to try or purchase in the store. They even sold the cowhides of the cows, that we were told all die naturally. After the tour, we had about 3 hours of free time to explore the town. I, unfortunately, spent the majority of this time out in the sun without sunscreen so, as you can imagine, I look like a lobster at the moment. We finished the day with the journey to our hostel in Rotterdam and a quick bite to eat.