Yesterday we decided we needed an indoor activity so we headed to the Marine Museum in Den Helder. It is a great museum with a lot of information about the history of the Dutch Navy, but the highlight for us going inside the submarine!

After visiting the submarine, we continued to tour the grounds. There was another museum with a few interactive portions as well as two other boats to tour. We had fun and learned something, too!

We ended the day with some good luck–we saw Sinterklaas in downtown Den Helder. Sinterklaas is different from the American Santa Claus and from the German St. Nikolaus because he comes on December 5th and to give the children presents and has a complicated (to me!) story about coming from Spain and bringing a helper dressed in Moorish attire and in blackface (which I’m very much against and has recently been questioned by some Dutch as well). Anyhow, the girls were super excited to see him walking down the street. and since I know there will be no Santa Claus visit this year, we jumped out for a photo.