Our final day in Amsterdam began with a visit to Zaanse Schans, a historically preserved village known for its wooden windmills and farmland. Walking through the town, we arrived at a lookout point where our tour guide, Enno, discussed the development of the former farmland. Initially, the region, and most of the Netherlands, was mostly water and had more lakes than farmland. However, the Industrial Revolution or the Golden Age brought upon new technology such as dikes and windmills. Using windmills to move water up levels of land and dikes to prevent flooding from shifts in water level, the Netherlands was able to clear up land for farming. Below is an image of the land of Zaanse Schans which used to be used for farming. Additionally, windmills could be used as an energy source for machine processes like cutting wood and contributed to the rapid industrial expansion of the era.
While techniques from the time period and prior are out-of-date to many Dutch citizens, the village commemorates the creation of wooden clogs through a museum. It showcases a variety of clogs for different occasions and even offers a short demonstration of how machinery was used to make clogs as shown below. The sturdy, waterproof function of clogs for use in wetlands further shows the impact water has on the culture of the Netherlands.
After some free time and a lunch break, we visited one of the most well-known historic sites in Amsterdam: the Anne Frank House. The house is the original building where the Franks and Van Pels and Pffer hid during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands in World War II. The site acts as a place to honor and remember the lives of the Jewish families that lived there and as an extension all the lives of the Jewish community of that time. While the atrocities that were committed weren’t portrayed lightly, the museum focuses more on the individuals and their experiences through pieces of their life: collected magazine and newspaper clippings, school pictures before and during the occupation, and, most famously, diaries recording life in hiding. Overall, the tribute was beautiful and offered a somber experience to reflect on the circumstances that led to the shift from the peaceful lives of people our age to a time of blind hatred and inhumane violence.
Our final day in Amsterdam ended at Cafe Batavia where we networked with Pitt Alumni over Dutch appetizers. These were bitterballen, fried balls of beef and roux; kaasstengels, spring rolls filled with cheese; and ossenworst, raw meat with spices mixed inside(it goes very well with cheese!). The food was fun to taste and it was interesting to hear the alumni’s journies from Pitt to a life abroad.
Bonus: Although I never got the opportunity to visit the Van Gogh Museum while I was in Amsterdam, a Van Gogh piece was up for display in the Carnegie Museum of Art as pictured below. If you’re in either Amsterdam or Pittsburgh consider going to either museum for a chance to view many great artworks!