We couldn't visit Holland without seeing how cheese and clogs are made! WE venutred to Volendam which is on the other side of Amsterdam to tour a cheese and clog place. It smelled.....well like cheese and I am not a huge fan to begin with! The demonstration was funny and interesting. Did you know each cow produces approximately 30 liters of milk a day and it takes 10 liters to make a small round cheese. They had all sorts of flavors which I tried just to say I did. Zach loves cheese and couldn't get enough! He bought the garlic and onion kind. It's not too bad. After that we saw how clogs are made. Before technology all wooden shoes were made by hand and a good shoe maker could produce about 10 pairs a day. Now with machines they can make around 200 pairs a day! It was really cool to watch the guy make a pair. They sit them on a shelf to let them dry out before sanding them down and such. There are work shoes, ceremonial shoes and one other kind I can't remember. It is tradition for a groom to carve a pair of shoes for his bride. The wedding could not take place until the shoes were complete and the bride accepted them. This was to show the groom's level of commitment. Then the shoes were nailed to the wall to symbolize the commitments made when getting married and used to hold flowers. If the bride didn't like the shoes then she rejected them and the wedding was off.
We then set off to find the bridge to far! Zach was sure it was in Nijmegen, but we don't know if one of the bridges we saw was it. We also went to Arnhem where some major WWII events happened. We will have to google it and see if we can get more details and go check it out another time.
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