Welcome back! This morning we said goodbye to Amsterdam and left for Rotterdam. On the way we stopped a village called Zaandijk Zaanse Schans for a few hours.

The village is an open air museum that encapsulates the essence of what the Netherlands used to be like in the past. It’s a cheerful and beautiful little village full of windmills and wooden houses, each with a different type of museum inside. The village has sheep and goats contained using a few fenced off areas and the canals that flow through it, and it was adorable to see the lambs and baby goats.

First the whole group visited a cheese manufacturer within the village for a short presentation on how cheese is made. They make all vegetarian cheeses and it’s all produced in the Netherlands. They export their cheese all around the world, and it was really cool to hear about the process and history of cheese making.

After that some friends and I got lunch at a local bakery in a nearby town before heading back into the village. We walked around for a few hours visiting various shops and museums, including one about clog making which was very interesting. They had all different information and types of clogs displayed, and they were making some clogs there as we walked around.

We got back on the bus at 3 and had an hour and a half long ride to Rotterdam. We checked into the hostel we’re staying at and a group of us went out to find dinner. We ended up going to a McDonald’s just to see what the difference is between McDonald in the Netherlands and in the U.S, and it turns out they’re very different. I was impressed by how environmentally conscious they are in the Netherlands, as well as how many vegetarian options that have. It was also way more expensive than it is in the U.S.

All in all it was a fairly simple day and it was nice to have a break from the fast pace we’ve been going at. We have a museum visit tomorrow that I’m excited for, see you then!