This morning we went to the Zuiderzeemuseum, which actually did not resemble a museum at all. The museum consists of 140 historic buildings that were all once inhabited when the Zuiderzee was still open. The Zuiderzee was a body of water that kept this small, old town alive but also created a lot of problems for its inhabitants. In 1932, the Zuiderzee was closed off by a dam, and the village has since been preserved.

Living next to water has always been critical. It was in the Zuiderzee that the residents of this community caught fish to sustain themselves. They also relied on this water for drinking as well as for keeping their farms hydrated. However, the Zuiderzee posed a constant threat of flooding to the people living there. Their homes were very close to the shore – as you can see in the picture below -, and the waves from the Zuiderzee would often come a little too close for comfort. Even without the added threat of the tide, rainwater alone made the land moist and uninhabitable.

This is where the famous windmills come in! Windmills like the one below drain groundwater using a wooden screw to move the water to a higher level. Windmills are very important here not only in the small village we visited today but also in all of the Netherlands. Because the majority of the country is located below sea level, there are windmills in just about every old village here. I know that I, at least, associated these big windmills with the Dutch, so it was cool to learn why they are so important here!

For dinner, we went to the Markthal, which is a huge building shaped like an arch. The building itself has both offices and apartments, but underneath those there is a market with so many food stands. This one building housed vendors of every single cuisine I can think of: Indian, Chinese, Japanese, American, Italian, Mediterranean, Korean, and more!! I was super excited to see so many options because food choices have been pretty limited here. It seems like the Dutch love American food; e’ve had lots of sandwiches and burgers!

Thanks for reading! Tomorrow’s agenda includes the flood museum, so stay tuned!