A Dutch Girl Goes to Holland: The Open Air Museum

A day spent with Anja and her husband Huib at the Arnhem Open Lucht Museum (the Open Air Museum), a place where period homes/buildings/windmills were moved for preservation.

This home, I was told, held 11 people.  The brick portion on the right is the home, the black planked portion was the attached barn.  And I complain about not having two bathrooms.

speculaas molds

Poffertjes making

Poffertjes- A bit like a puffy silver dollar pancake, a bit like a flattened doughnut hole drowning in butter and loaded with confectioners sugar.  It's rough trying new things.

Oom Hans was given a good gift of art that was made by Oma's brother that died during the war, his namesake.

The laundry house

I climbed to the middle of a windmill and looked out the window- and even half way up we were in the canopy of trees.

I don't know which photo I like better, so here's both.

 

oh my.

This is a bit of an trick on your eyes as you will see.

Another trick was just how REAL these wax people looked!

For the maple-syrup making men in my life, I took these pictures.  These are the syrup making tools of the Netherlands- but not using maple trees, but apple trees.  They make Appelstroop- a sort of thick, molassesy syrup made from apple juice.  It's delicious.  We would eat it on toast (big surprise!) growing up.

Yet ANOTHER trick for the eyes- the facade in front made a home look grandiose but behind the walls...

the small house was separated from the small barns by a small courtyard.  I love it!  

 

When someone suggested we stand by the antique car and we all stood in FRONT of the antique car, covering it up entirely.  

We stayed until closing and caught the last train to the entrance.

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.