One of my big bucket list items for my trip to Amsterdam this time was to see the famous windmills. I'll write about those soon (wow! don't miss these!), but one thing I really really enjoyed when visiting Zaanse Schans, where some of the cool windmills are located) was visiting the amazing Clog Workshop / Museum and learning about how Clogs are made.  

So first, Clogs (Klomp in the Netherlands!) are wooden shoes that you might have seen in the form of popular souvenirs from The Netherlands:

They're made from a piece of wood and carved with a super simple but amazingly effective machine!

A clog of the size you want to carve is placed on one side, while the piece of wood is placed on the other side. The machine moves up the existing clomp as it rotates while using that exact shape to carve out the new clog!

Afterwards, a similar process is used to carve out the inside of the clog! An already-carved clog on one side is used to carve out the inside of the new one!

Finally - and this was the super cool unexpected part - the clog needs to dry! It is made out of super wet wood for easier carving. To demonstrate how wet the wood was, the clog maker blew into it and a ton of water dripped out. It was the coolest! 

Look closely - you can see the water dripping! Look closely - you can see the water dripping!

Another surprising thing I learned is that there are clogs for every occasion! 

Including roller and skating clogs!!!!

Oh, and massive clogs!

At first glance clogs don't look comfortable... but as the clog maker explained, they're made a size bigger than your size and you're supposed to wear super comfy big socks with them! They protect you from all the elements!

I'm a fan