'Culture'

When foreigners come to the Netherlands they always want to see the things that are so typically Dutch: like everybody wearing clogs or the national dress, the windmills and the cheese markets. Well, despite what every tourist seems to think and what the photo seems to suggest: not everybody in the Netherlands wears clogs. As a matter of fact, I know only a few people who actually own them! And most of them are farmers or have large vegetable gardens. I own a pair, but only wear them when I work in the garden. Which most of you know is a rarity!

And what about our national dress? It's not! It's the dress of a small village just North of Amsterdam. Because where I live close to, they wear something completely different and when you go down South, it's different again. Those windmills then: well they are still here and do actually operate. Most of them were and are used for our ongoing battle against the sea, although they are now mostly monumental museum pieces, only to be used in dire times. Others were used to mill flour, mustard, rape seed oil and plenty more. 

And then the cheesemarkets. Well, there still are cheesemarkets being kept, but only for the tourists. The cheeses there are mostly sold to the tourists, because if we go to the supermarket, market stall or cheese shop, we can't buy those little round edam cheeses! We buy large wagon wheels or parts of it, probably about 40 cm in diameter!! 

Never mind about all that though: several years me and my parental units (otherwise known as papa and mama) went to the Edam Cheesemarket. The weather was nice, a local celebrity opened the proceedings and men in funny looking clothes ran up and down with those wooden slabs full of cheese. Just like in the old days. 

This is my 39th entry for Photo Theme for Thursday. Why not join?