Today, we got to sleep in a little bit. We left the hotel around 9 to catch a train to Zaanse Schans, a farming neighborhood north of our hotel. We arrived slightly southwest of the neighborhood, so we walked along beautiful suburban streets, somewhat comparable to those east of Oakland (at least, in my mind). After walking for around ten minutes, we turned left and immediately saw a large windmill (foreshadowing) on the side of the street. We passed the windmill and came to a bridge, to the left of which was a picturesque lake with not one, not two, but five more windmills visible on the other side.
As we proceeded from the bridge, we made it to Zaanse Schans, and were immediately greeted by beautiful, antique-looking homes and businesses. Among these were a clog museum, a vintage Albert Heijn (the grocery store of the Netherlands), restaurants, gift shops, and of course, windmills. We walked through the village, passing fields of livestock, petting goats and sheep, and eventually made it to the Zaanse Schans Henri Willig location. Inside, we were given a brief lecture on how the company makes their cheese, highlighting some of the machines used and various ingredients. We learned that it takes roughly 10 liters of milk to create one kilogram of cheese, and were almost immediately let out to visit the store portion of the building. I honestly bought more cheese than I’d like to admit. After going outside, some of us got Henri Willig ice cream on the side of the building, and it was quite possibly the creamiest ice cream I’ve ever had. We proceeded to walk past some of the beautiful windmills and fields to spend our free time.
After leaving Zaanse Schans, we rode a bus to a ferry station to reach the Zuiderzeemuseum. The museum had two pieces: an indoor piece and an incredibly immersive outdoor piece. We began with the outdoor piece, which threw us far back in time to the olden days of the Zuiderzee region and its fishing villages. We walked around several facets of the community, all filled with talented actors, such as a church, a pharmacy, residential houses, a blacksmith, a steam engine, a rope-maker, and more. Once the outdoor part had concluded, we walked across the village to the indoor part of the museum. Inside, there were several rooms filled to the brim with information on how the old Zuiderzee residents lived. Some of these themes included ships, entertainment, clothing, furniture, and more. After finishing the indoor piece of the museum, we got back on the ferry, and rode back to our hotel.
While the day ended relatively early, there was still a lot of sustainability seen throughout it. For example, all of the livestock in Zaanse Schans, along with all farmland on the way to the Zuiderzeemuseum, are allowed to roam freely and graze on fresh grass. This eliminates the need for artificial animal feed and lets the animals live more happily, ultimately increasing efficiency and reducing carbon emissions. All of the windmills and wind turbines that we saw also contribute to the sustainability of the Netherlands by using nature to perform tasks that could otherwise be done with fossil fuels and harmful materials. On the bus ride back from the museum, we discussed how wind turbines have been meticulously tested to determine that three blades are ideal, as it is the lightest stable number of blades that allows the turbine to function normally. Windmills, on the other hand, harness the mechanical energy from the wind to grind grains, pump water, and perform other tasks that would otherwise be very strenuous and tiring for the average human. Even if windmills were not originally created for the purpose of powering towns, they are capable of generating electricity as well. We also learned that, in the old Zuiderzee region, the houses were equipped with special roof tiles to collect rainwater to drink, as it may have been their only source of fresh drinking water.