Notice the Marilyn Monroe transvestite.
We lacked our regular journals to write in for this day because they were being “graded” by our respective group leaders. Excuse me if my narrative is sloppier and jumpier than usual with the lack of my regular organizational space.
This morning we got to sleep in as an almost-the-end-of-the-trip treat – little did we know we would seriously need it after misfortunes later in the day.
I was so enamored with European food at this point that I recorded most of my meals in minute fashion, so I will describe breakfast:
A crepe-like pancake filled with honey
Two croissants
One cup delicious fruit with yogurt
One glass orange juice
One roll with creamy cheese (I thought it was butter when I picked it up but the cheese was better by far)
After our early breakfast, we dashed to our coach with a new driver, and drove through slightly soggy and foggy fields towards a cheese and clog farm, so we were told. As we parked and hopped out of our coach into a gravel yard next to a barn with a rather imposing animal smell, we didn’t know quite what our activities were going to be. Kees Jan, one of the owners of the farm of Katrina and Kees Jan, where cheese and wooden clogs were the specialty, met us outside the door of their main wooden building. Before taking us inside, he encouraged us to walk through the cow barn – it was quaint and beautiful and of course I love cows, but the smell was almost unbearable between the animals and the fermented mash they feed the animals.
Kees himself is very good-natured and certainly farmer in aspect. He was wearing a huge and well-worn pair of wooden clogs, and it was a bit difficult to wrap my head around the fact he wore those particular shoes throughout his daily chores. He said they protected his feet from the weather, sinking into the ground, and careless animals. I still say they looked painful.
We all packed into the “clogging room” filled with pair upon pair of all size, color, painting, stain, and everything else of clogs. Choosing Robyn as his assistant, he showed us the method his great-grandfather had used to make clogs – basically whittling them by hand (about two hours by hand per shoe).
He then took us through the modern process, which takes about five minutes per shoe.
You first take a good size piece of wood (straight from the tree) and split it into about four equal pieces from the center with axe and hammer.
You take one piece at a time, and put it into a cutting machine with two blocks attached together.
As one side of the cutting device traces a premade mold, it cuts into the block of wood the same shape.
This creates the shoe, but a little of the large piece of wood is still attached to the toe of the shoe, and has to be cut off.
The shoe then goes into a similar machine that hollows out the foot hole.
The shoe is then smoothed using a hand-powered belt sander.
Afterwards, they can leave it au naturale, carve it (special carvings are made for engaged girls to wear on their wedding day), or paint it. They finally seal it, and sell it. The sizes available range from a men’s 15 to a keychain size, about two inches long.
We then moved to the cheese making room, where USA native Katrina showed us the cheese-making process. Their marriage story goes as follows from her: She came with her family on a trip in her youth, and Kees’ mother (who originally turned the farm into a tourist attraction) suggested she might want to see the cows being milked, which happened to be Kees’ chore…. And they got married. Sweet. Simple, to the point. Like them. She also told us how he said he always knew he would marry and American because he participated in a program mating Dutch cows with US cows – and now everyone jokes their children are half-breeds.
Such goes the cheese-making:
All the cows are milked at two times a day: 5:30 AM and PM.
The milk goes into a large vessel with hollow wall, with cold water pumped in continuously.
The next morning, hot water (30 degrees) is pumped in.
The Jan’s were very sweet and generous to us. They let us sample many types of cheese while we looked around the shop. Some people actually bought cheese, but most of us stuck to miniature clogs or other trinkets. We hopped back on the coach, and back into the main city we went. I believe we stopped for lunch and some shopping, and in that plaza we saw a huge plastic statue spelling out: I AM in one color, then STERDAM in another color. Very cute, very clever.
We were dismayed to find after lunch that our coach had been in some kind of minor traffic accident, and the driver would have to find a new coach, transfer our belongings, and drive back to the city before we could get back on.
After the unfortunate accident that the coach driver was involved in left us waiting in vain for an hour, we literally ran through a few blocks of Amsterdam to get to our canal cruise. I was glad to sit down, even in the tightly spaced, glass-topped boats. I’m sure it would have been a relaxing ride and I would have absorbed a great time of Amsterdam culture and history, but it was like a sauna with the sun beating on the boats glass tops and reflecting off the water.
We continued our sprint around Amsterdam with our fearless and quick-walking leaders, Adam and Mr. Druck, to our next rendezvous – a diamond factory. There were rooms and rooms filled with beautiful diamond- and other precious stoned-studded jewelry, some for sale, and I believe some was just for display. The very strange thing was the rooms of jewelry in little desks with sitting women in black clothes selling it. I can only compare it to, like, the Macy’s makeup counters, but even they don’t sit.
Our final event of the day was Anne Frank’s actual hiding house near the canal, now a very busy museum. I found it very interesting how late the museum was open – we went in around six or seven at night. Though we waited for quite a while, the house was well worth it. It is kept in the same condition as Frank’s father found it after the war – unfurnished, dark, boarded up. You can walk through the moderately normal downstairs, and then take the dizzyingly skinny stairs to the hidden attic. The feeling of claustrophobia from 15 minutes up there is strong; I can’t imagine being stuck up their for months, fearing to even glance out the window.
Whenever I think of Frank’s story (which I have read and seen on both film and the stage), I am struck to the soul by the cruelty people are capable of when not properly educated in understanding, openness, understanding, and kindness, and taught to sympathize/empathize with mankind.
Since we went into the museum in smaller groups, those of us who were finished sat outside the museum in a lovely church courtyard. We went into a small gift shop right outside of the church for a while, and then found a comfy curb.
I absolutely loved that not 20 feet from the church there was a small gay festival/PRIDE-like event, complete with drag queen. I cannot understand why people in the states, or Arizona for that matter, can’t just let people be.
I believe after the museum we returned to our hotel and spent the night packing for the trip back to the States.
