Decisions

I am having trouble deciding what to do.  Since I have finished my last project for this block of classes and since I have finally gotten my discount card (which means I get a 40% discount on all non-rush hour train fares--yeah!) I thought that I might go and visit the Zuider Zee Museum.  The Zuider Zee Museum is a Living Museum (kind of like Williamsburg) where people dressed in period costumes, in refurbished buildings, demonstrate the activities customary to inhabitants of the Zuider Zee area before it was blocked off, made sweet, and called IJsselmeer.   This trip has been on my to do list for months, pretty much ever since I found out about it.  If you go here you can see a map of the Museum Village on the left hand side of the screen.  If you click on one of the little blue buttons, a little blue button will pop up on the right hand side of the screen, showing where the building is originally from (a lot of the buildings in the village are authentic but shipped in from different areas around the Zuider Zee area).  If you click on that little blue button, you will get a little pop-up window with information about the history of the building and the people who lived in it.  They are pretty interesting.  They are also in English although the translation is fairly awkward at times.

My trouble comes because I can't decide when to go.  Originally, I thought that I might go on this coming Saturday--the weather looks cooperative and I won't have any assignments until next week.  Also, since it is the off-season, I expect that it shouldn't be too crowded (also, though, less is happening).  Also, although I am surrounded by little waters--there are canals, galore, of course--this will be the first time I have seen a lake since I got here, so that would be fun.

However, when I looked at the Zuider Zee Museum website I saw that on Saturday the 26th, they have a Pietendorp.  What is a Pietendorp, you ask?  It is like a Santa Village, but with a very Dutch twist (Pietendorp means Peters' Village).  It commemorates the 5th of December, not the 25th, and it is centered around Sinterklaas's Moorish assistant Zwarte Piet (Black Peter).  There will 70 people in black-face, dressed up as medieval pages, doing all kinds of special activities, including wrapping presents and "laundering the Black Peters' outfits."!!  (If you click here you can go to an English language description of the event including a picture.)  There is also a new Sinterklaas movie being shown (it is not the horror film I mentioned before).  If you go here, you can seen the Pietendorp website.  It is all in Dutch but there are lots of pictures.  If you click on the top arrow (Wat is er te doen?--What is there to do?) you can click on each of the items to see pictures of the events and also pictures of people attired in a way that would get them shot in the US.  Apparently it is something of a national joke just how shocked American tourists are by Black Pete.  It looks like terrific fun and I think it would be interesting to see what holiday traditions the Dutch have.

On the other hand, I imagine that it will be terribly crowded when this goes on and I am not a big fan of crowds and that might diminish the fun.  Also, this looks definitely kid centered, so I wonder if it would be weird to be the only 30-somethinger running around in a medieval hat, washing Zwarte Piet's laundry and checking out "pills" from Zwarte Piet's pharmacy.

Decisions, decisions.