No such thing as Dutch yarn

Most of the relatives we are visiting live in Naarden, which is a medieval city about half an hour outside of Amsterdam. It has a star-shaped fortress with a double moat, and narrow streets with brick roads. My husband's grandmother (I don't even know her first name--everyone just calls her Oma, which means "grandmother") used to knit underpants and swimsuits for her sons during the 1940s or so (she's now 88!), so I asked her about where to buy yarn around here. She used to get her yarn in a little shop in Naarden, but it closed ten years ago and in its place now stands a women's clothing shop. Actually, Naarden is in the midst of gentrification of sorts, with boutique-y shops and professional offices occupying most of the city center's commercial place. And apparently it's getting very desirable--and thus expensive--to have a home within the walls of the vesting (fortress).

So we ended up going to the nearby--and larger--town of Bussum. The two towns are contiguous and share the Naarden-Bussum train station. Bussum has the big shopping district, which includes a shop that sells yarn, embroidery supplies, and supplies for other handcrafts. Interestingly enough the clerk in this shop was a man--and not only did he speak English (thank goodness), but he also knew his stuff. I told him that I wanted to get some Dutch yarn to take back to the USA for some friends (I'm thinking this would be something fun for my secret pal!), and he shook his head and said, "Unfortunately, there really isn't any 'Dutch' yarn now, since everything is so international." He did have some rather uninspiring worsted-weight superwash wool made by a Dutch company, but that was it. I bought three skeins. It's nothing special, but hey, it says "Holland" on it, so it makes the tourist in me happy.