Touring the Countryside

I left Amsterdam for a day tour to go look around the Holland countryside.
First stop was a museum.

The traditional dress of the peasants. The snowman looks really out of place.

The religious attire.

A replica of a sailor’s boat.

A replica of a house.

These three are pieces of a larger mosaic made out of 22,000 cigar stickers. That man is going to die of lung cancer.

Flags of the provinces.

If I wanted to see the Statue of Liberty, Netherlands, I’d go home. Being as I’m here, I want to see more of your stuff.

One can’t think of the Netherlands without thinking of windmills. Many are out of commission in favor for electric ones now and are falling into disrepair.
Too bad tulips weren’t in season. I would’ve loved to see the fields of them.

Cheese is a big thing in the Netherlands. Sheep, cows, and goats are everywhere. Much of the country is below sea level and completely flat, making for great grazing territory.

A cheese factory. Milk is heated in the silver cauldron in the lower right to separate the curds and whey. The curds are pressed in the red machine in the back right. Then the cheese is soaked in a salt bath for flavor and preservation. Later, the cheese is wrapped in a layer of wax allowing it to exist 2 months outside the fridge.

The third symbol of the Netherlands is the wooden shoe. It used to take five hours to make a pair but now it takes five minutes thanks to machines. The right ones carves the shoe while the left one hollows out the inside. When they dry, they’re sanded and ready to go.

The finished product. Surprisingly, the wooden shoe is still used today. They’re great to protect the foot of farmers from horse hooves and construction workers from dropped steel beams. They can be worn plain or painted.