Little Holland

As I said, Den Haag was just a little too frenzied for me, so we decided to go to Madurodam the next day instead. What's that? you might ask? Well, I guess the Dutch really have a thing for "small" stuff. They even have a little ending that they put on words to make them diminutive and thereby cuter. Crazy, eh? *grin* Anyway! Madurodam is pretty much a miniaturized Holland. You walk through the building and emerge on the other side greeted by the sight of child-sized Dutch cities. No need to travel all over Holland to see the sights! Oh no, it's all right there!

Yes, they had Schiphol, complete with planes, ships in the harbors with cargo, even one on fire that was rather unsuccessfully being put out (yes, yes, if they put it out it would ruin the display, okay, Marnix). That suspension bridge from Rotterdam was also there, and all those Dutch cities I haven't had a chance to visit yet. Alkmaar with its famous cheese market, Gouda, Utrecht... the list goes on. They had trains running on the tracks, cars driving on the roads, all seemingly to scale. They even had tiny whores in the windows in Amsterdam's red-light district. Talk about attention to detail! *grin*

They also had a Chinese ice sculpture festival at Madurodam, so I of course had to take a look. It was -8°C inside - yes, I was rather cold. They were nice enough to have some warm vests to loan to those who hadn't planned for the sudden drop in temperature, though. Thoughtful, aren't they? A rather small display, but still impressive in its own way. I don't think I could manage to sculpt ice, after all! Nice, but a bit of a disappointment. I think I just had the huge ice festival of Hokkaido stuck in my head.

I enjoyed a nice cup of warm chocolate after (yes, their shameless advertising for it as soon as we walked out worked on me) and sat and watched people wandering around the small park. I didn't think I would like Madurodam all that much, which is why I'd never visited it before, but it really was quite nice. I think it was the first time I actually felt tall in Holland. *smile* There was a small display of tulips/flowers, probably the closest I'll get to seeing the tulip fields here in Holland. They were almost as tall as some of the buildings, but I suppose they haven't developed mini-tulips yet. It was just a bit of a shock when a blackbird would land on one of the buildings. And the carp in the rivers were totally out of proportion as well. I wonder what the model people thought of it all? Did they make up stories that giants living in the seas would come and swallow you if you didn't behave? Were tales of giant birds swooping in and carrying people away told to scare children into behaving?

I suppose it's too much trouble for the keepers to scare away too-large birds, keep them from landing on buildings and ruining the illusion of it all, but I really wonder what they were thinking when they put carp in the water.