A Dutch Girl Goes to Holland: The Windmills of Kinderdijk

 

 

One day, my Mom and Oom Hans and I took off to go to Kinderdijk, where many the old windmills are.  Like lighthouses, windmills were not only tools but homes for those who worked them.  Two of the windmills you could tour through.  I was surprised to find, not a shabby old and sparse living space, but a beautiful and homey and surprisingly spacious abode!   I *adored* the bed coves in the walls.  I have been seriously considering doing something like that in the girls' room ever since (when we finally get to it, that is) but I was warned that the air can be stifling in summer.  And since that is a problem for us in this house already...I don't know.   I also loved the outdoor 'homestead' that they had set up to replicate old time windmill homesteads.  The little thatched barns and sheds- the willow tree branches cut down every year for fencing and so forth.  The gardens and herbs and flowers.  The animals and fences.  I love to admire little homesteads and gardens. 

These windmills are not in use for wind power anymore but people do still live in them!  And, as the tour person told me, though the windmills are not used for power, the people who live inside of them must have several years of experience and go through quite extensive training for windmills in order to be allowed to do so. 

This day, the air weighed thick and heavy upon us but we were able to go quickly to tour the windmills and to see the insides of the two open to the public.  We had to return to the beginning at a very quick pace as the sky was turning black and rumbly and lightening spurring us on.  We had *just* made it back to the bus stop when a deluge poured down.  By the time we arrived back home, there was many inches of water on the roads we had to drive through.  The bus driver said "I am not a bus driver!  Today, I am a sailor!" 

I watched from my seat as all the men and women who were returning from work on their bicycles, pedaled through inches of water to get home.  They were drenched, poor souls.  On that day, I thought, perhaps cycling everywhere wasn't always idyllic.