This morning we took our time getting up and ready. It was about a quarter till 10 when we finally went downstairs. For breakfast, they had some Special K. There were two jugs of milk, all written in Dutch of course. I asked Scott which one he thought was skim milk and he told me I definitely wanted the one with the red cap. So I poured it onto my cereal. I chose....poorly. It was nasty, bitter milk. Apparently, buttermilk. Poo!
After breakfast, we walked to the Sheepvaart Museum (Maritime Museum). It was a pretty cool museum, with a lot about the shipping history of Sneek and general history of the area. There was a whole room dedicated to skutsjes, which is the type of boat Scott's great grandfather and great great grandfather sailed on up and down the Frisian waterways, and also the type of boat Scott's grandfather was born on. They were called "roof boats" because there was a tiny cabin on the roof where the family lived. There was a replica of one of these cabins in the museum. As many as 8 people would live in there.
We also learned that when babies were born on the boats, they went to the nearest town and registered the birth, that's why Scott's grandfather is listed as born in Lemmer. Children growing up on the boats went to school in a separate room just for these kids, so when the boats stopped in towns up and down the waterways, the kids stopped in for school. We learned that the picture of Scott's grandfather with his classmates is not in Sneek, and was most likely a small town along the waterways. There was a skutsje outside of the museum, too. All of it was very neat!
After the museum, we walked around exploring and took pictures of the waterpoort.
We had lunch at this fast food place across from our hotel. Scott went to order my lunch and accidentally ordered two chicken sandwiches because he held up his index finger while ordering, which means 1 in America, but two in Europe. He forgot to hold up his thumb.
After lunch, we went to the library and below is an archives section where the Sneek historical society was busily working. When I showed them the pictures of Scott's grandfather and other documents I had, they got so excited. One little old man pulled out his magnifying glass, trying to see the documents on my Iphone. It was hilarious and fun to watch how excited they all got. One of them kept pushing buttons on my phone trying to see more and messing it up. Unfortunately there wasn't enough time for them to do any research, but I got their card and they told me to email them with my info and they'd try to look up information for me.
After this, we walked all the way back over to the train station to see the National Modelspoor museum (train museum). It was full of model trains, of course, and was a kid's dream.
On the way back, we stopped at a bakery truck on the side of the road that was selling all kinds of fried dough treats. We got two oliebollen, which Scott said could be the treat his dad used to enjoy from his mom's kitchen growing up. It was yummy, like a fried dough ball you'd get at the fair or a doughnut.
We still had a lot of time left before dinner, but we had pretty much done everything there was to do, so we went back to the hotel to rest. Very rare on these kinds of trips!
Tomorrow is a long day of traveling again. We have to ride the trains for about 5 hours with 4 stops again to our next destination. We must start early!
1 comment:
Awesome!!! Good stories.
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