Tiny Towns

Post written on Sunday, June 15: 

You know how there are those model airplanes? And model trains? And even model houses? Now imagine an entire COUNTRY in mini-model form. That's where we went today: Madurodam, aka the mini Netherlands. Basically, they've shrunk the majority of the Netherlands' important historical buildings and industries into incredibly detailed mini versions and stuck them all into one big outdoor museum. While they don't have every (i) single building and factory that the Netherlands have to offer, they do have a majority of the important ones ranging from churches, farms, factories, museums, castles, and everyday activities like stores, offices, etc. I can't even remember how many little buildings we saw today. Here's some of the pictures:

Carolyn in her signature pose on a platform above the main section of Madurodam.

A mini canal, windmill, and train.

In this picture, you can see the little model cows grazing by the windmill. Also, see those trees in the back? Those are real trees, trimmed down into banzai trees. The grass is also real. We were having a hard time imagining exactly how much effort they put into delicately trimming what must be hundreds of trees around the entire museum, plus the added difficulty of having to mantain the grass. Ugh.

A mini church (looking back on this picture, it kinda looks like the woman in orange is also a mini version in the model. Hint: she's not)

A cheese market

Look at the detail!

We didn't get to go to the real Reichs museum in Amsterdam, but here we are with the mini version! (Also, I'm wearing the hair tie from the Rotterdam flea market. Cool, isn't it?)

A tiny replica of some of the World Cup festivities 

The Dutch are famous for their cheese, so Madurodam  has a scale where you can measure yourself in units of cheese (they have rather heavy cheeses). What do you think of that, whenever someone asks how much you weigh you can reply "I weigh roughly one and a half cheeses?"

Old castle ruins

A Dutch church partly based off of the French church Amiens that we visited earlier in the trip.

A close up of the same church. So many details!

I think that this is a palace of some sort?!? I don't know. I wasn't really paying attention, because I was too distracted by the large not-so-large castle grounds.

A Dutch shoe company known for producing some of the Netherlands' signature wooden clogs.

At Klompenfabriek (the shoe factory in the previous picture), if you put a euro into a little machine the factory will dispense a pair of porcelain clogs painted with Delft blue. These are delivered by a little truck.

The shoes.

A harbor

Canals

A mini replica of a replica of the ship we saw in Amsterdam (that's really fun to say. Well, the first part is anyway.)

An office building (for comparison, this thing is taller than me)

A highway, complete with moving cars

Fields growing commercial flowers. The Netherlands are known for their flowers.

A book store. Sorry, I know that this one is kind of unrelated and minor, but in love how even miniature plastic people need books.

They also, apparently, need ads and phones.

The final picture in the series, also unrelated. I just thought that the mini Boy Scout camping session was cute.

After that, we hit the gift store to much souvenir success. I got 1) a postcard for my collection (I'm collecting a postcard from everywhere I've been and 2) a necklace with little pendants shaped like even tinier versions of the porcelain shoes. In my opinion, they're one of the most perfect souvenirs ever, because they represent so many different parts of the Netherlands (the Delft blue, the "Klompen," and the windmills painted on the front). We're leaving Jean's house late tomorrow morning, and then it's off to meet up with Mom and Dad. We can't wait to see them again!