Everything is so... Dutch

Friday, October 30, we drove out of Belgium and came to the little town of Zaandam, just north of Amsterdam. Saturday we went to a museum called Zaanse Schans. It had a very interesting clog making demonstration.

It also had a cheese making demonstration. They only demonstrate when there is a group and we missed it because a man closed the doors before we could get in (it was not full).

Four working windmills were in the museum. We only went to two of them, the sawmill and a flour mill. There were other odd little buildings in the museum area too; things like a tea house where a lady was making pewter things and selling souvenirs, and an old fashioned grocery store, etc.

On Sunday we went to a Mennonite church in Amsterdam. A lot of the church members spoke English as well as Dutch. They greeted us kindly and one even translated some of the service to us! The service was in Dutch, but fine nonetheless. After the service we talked quite a while and they told us a bit about the church, how it was a hidden church and other things.

After lunch we went on a canal boat ride. The children's audio guide was a joke. When it was talking about something to see, it was not visible and also it was for babies -way too childish. In the evening, we got in line for the Anne Frank Museum but after a short time of waiting we decided the line was too long and called it a night. Monday we stayed home and just had family time.

Tuesday we drove to a cheese farm. We were disappointed at the demonstration. It was only an explanation on how they made the cheese, we wanted to see it in action.

In the afternoon we drove to the Corrie Ten Boom Museum. A lady showed us the house and told some stories of Corrie's life in WWII. The real hiding place was very concealed! It was almost impossible to tell there was a false wall. She showed us what would happen when the police came and how the hiding place was used. What eventually happened was the Nazis knocked and Betsy TenBoom rang the alarm (an indoor doorbell type thing) and the Jews ran to the hiding place, while she, Betsy, slowly walked to the door. The Nazis took her to the dining room while they search the house. Oh no! Betsy forgot to take the sign out of the window, signifying this is a safe haven for Jews. She pushed it off the windowsill onto the floor but one of the Nazis noticed and sounded the alarm that they were hiding Jews. The Nazis put the sign back on the windowsill and took the TenBooms to the police station and then to a concentration camp. Using the sign in the window as a trap, 16 people were lured into the house. But the 6 in hiding were never discovered even though they had to stay there for 2.5 days. The Nazis tried to starve them out, figuring they were in there somewhere but gave up thinking anyone one could survive that long in hiding. Some or all of those six in the hiding place (I am not sure how many) made it through the holocaust and later told about the experience. Of the family, only Corrie TenBoom survived the concentration camp.

We headed home. When we were backing out of our parking space a man came cruising down the cul-de-sac so we couldn't finish getting out. He zipped down to the end and quickly turned around. As we started to pull out again he squeezed through the small space (dad had to slam on the brakes) and forced us to wait again. How rude!!!