Zaanse Schans

Yesterday we took our first trip out of Amsterdam. We went to Zaanse Schans which is a recreated 17-18th century village. It has 6 working windmills, a clog factory, and a cheese factory among many other buildings. We took the tram to the Central Station and then took the train 20 min to Zaandam. This was Kaylin and Shane's first train ride. Shane slept and Kaylin really was excited. The look on her face when the train first started to go was adorable. It was like she couldn't even believe what was going on. To get to the village we also had to take a ferry. It was free and came every 10 minutes.

Zaanse Schans is a great little village and once there I remember that it was a place we went when I was here for school. It reminds me a bit of Old World Wisconsin but smaller. I remembered it by the big yellow wooden shoe. We walked around a little bit had a lunch of pancakes with meat and cheese. Sounds strange, but it was really good. (The pancake is similar to a crepe.) We then walked through the cheese house and the house where wooden shoes were being made. The cheese was FANTASTIC!!! With Kaylin having a bit of a shoe fetish, she enjoyed looking at all of the wooden ones. We wouldn't let her put any on because we knew we would never get them off of her. I am still tempted to buy each of the kids a pair. They are VERY cute! Kaylin fell asleep in the stroller and slept until we were almost home on the tram.

The people here have been extremelly friendly and we have had quite a bit of help with the stroller and directions.

The kids were great and aside from a whole bottle of chocolate milk spilling into the stroller (BOOOO) it was a great day!