We have made it to day 4! We started our day by grabbing breakfast in the lobby of the hotel to get straight into our day. Today we took the train to a little town called Zaanse Schans. In this town, we began by learning about Henri Willig, the largest cheese maker in the Netherlands. Through this experience, we learned a lot about how the cheese is made, and specifically how they make the cheese different from other cheeses is by using a rennet made from microbes like yeast and mold instead of using animal rennet, making the cheese vegetarian and somewhat sustainable by not using animal byproducts. Moreover, the company of Henri Willig, now run by his son, Wiebe Willig, has become a major source for sustainability in the Netherlands. Apart from their sustainable features mentioned above, they also focus on using solar panels in all their franchised stores throughout the country, as well as having their cows calve every two years as opposed to annually. Calving is the process of the cow reproducing and giving birth to calves; this obviously takes a lot of energy in order to make sure the cow is fine during this process and to keep the cow more rested during the rest of the time. This experience definitely gave us a behind-the-scenes look into the perspective of what happens each time cheese is made and manufactured.
Afterwards, we had some time to explore the area of Zaanse Schans, which is the most well-known city to use and make windmills. This was very interesting, giving us an insight into old-timey windmills and how they were used to produce various types of vegetable oils and linseed oils by using the natural force, wind, to generate power.
To end the day, we then headed over to the Zuiderzeemuseum. This museum focuses on giving us an insight into what a past Dutch village was like in the 1800s and 1900s. It was fascinating seeing how they had a lot of people that were living in a small house. While we were talking, our tour guide pointed out how we were standing on top of a dam and how some houses were on the lower side of the dam, meaning that they would get flooded the moment the tide rose. This was due that those houses on the lower side of the dam were much cheaper, making it more affordable to the farmers and fishers who worked in the village. Obviously, the village used to be very sustainable by itself since they had very self-sustaining practices in how they used a circular approach to a lot of stuff, like using their manure as fertilizer and making their own rope. Making it so that they didn’t have to leave their village for anything, having a pharmacy, store, and everything in that space.
