We landed from India to Holland in the month of November, 2022. We were so thrilled by the opportunity of living and exploring Europe, we literally ignored all warnings of post covid-19 and war impacted european challenges like record inflation, non-stop transportation strikes, housing crisis etc. As a result, we had to go through initial financial challenges we weren’t prepared for.

On top of it, winter weather is very harsh in this part of the world compared to the place we lived before. It is raining and depressing 70-80% of the days. Strong wind gusts and frequent snowy conditions make it more painful to perform daily tasks with bicycling like pick and drop the kid to school which involves 17 km daily cycling in this weather.

With god’s grace I could quickly adopt the go-getter dutch spirit of no excuses for weather conditions. Like other dutchies, continuing cycling in rain, storm or snow made our life a bit easier specially to deal with challenge like non-stop public transportation strikes.

How can we utilize the weekends in the rainy winter?

Fortunately we came to know about the museum pass where by spending €65, one can gain unlimited access to all the participating museums in the Netherlands throughout a year. Honestly speaking, we did not have much expectations from the museums at the beginning. We brought the pass to cover 3-4 museums or events e.g. Winter Station 2022 in The Railway Museum.

The next piece of the puzzle was to solve the transportation cost. Yes, public transportation system in the Netherlands is excellent but expensive to roam around freely every weekend. To give you an idea, a 30 minute train ride will cost you around €10 one way. So, an average 2-3 hours of journey with family turns out very expensive when traveling once/twice every weekend. Fortunately NS (the train operator company) offers weekend free season tickets for the train travelers, costs only €35 per month per person, which is a savior for us.

With museum cards and NS weekend free pass, we gained the freedom to roam across the Netherlands and visit the museums ignoring the weather conditions.

How can a museum be interesting?

We had the same notion until we started visiting the Dutch museums. As we do not understand the fields of arts well, and we do have a kid who gets bored easily without a constant supply of interesting activities, we had to limit ourselves visiting Kidsproof museums only.

We have visited around 10 popular kids-proof museums in the last 4 months during winter. All the museums here are based on unique themes and very well designed to teach and grow our interests in that subject. The experience was beyond our imagination. Learning the fundamental concepts on a variety of subjects through such playful and engaging activities makes a huge difference when it comes to our ability to relate and apply that knowledge elsewhere. I wish I could get exposure to such museums in my childhood.

A solid education system should not be bounded within the classroom, instead it should inspire the whole generation and make all the exciting research available and accessible to everyone. I think developed countries focus on building such a solid education system to create the best workforce of the future to help the nation to reach its height.

The museums we liked most (not in order)

• Children's book museum, Den Hague: It introduces children to literature in a playful way. Stimulate one's own imagination by helping them choose a theme, build their own character for their own story. It sparks the joy of reading children's books.
• Maritiem museum, Rotterdam: Here one can discover the enormous influence of the maritime world on our daily lives. It gets us through maritime history to the present day in a fun and educational way, provides insight into the high-tech maritime world of today and the innovations of tomorrow.
• Nemo science museum, Amsterdam: It aims to bring science and technology closer to the public in an interactive and accessible way, grow interest towards fascinating science and technologies around us and make research accessible to everyone.
• Museum Speelklok, Utrecht: The guided tour takes us through the wonderful world of self-playing musical instruments, the magical stories (history), technical craftsmanship and remarkable music of the different musical instruments.
• Railway Museum, Utrecht: Tell us how trains changed the world, a lab to learn a few fundamental concepts, a hyperloop train from the future etc. During Christmas it opened a big ice skating rink for every visitor to enjoy.
• Toy Museum, Deventer: With the largest public toy collection in the Netherlands, it is not just entertaining, but also tells us a lot about ourselves. ‘The essence of toys is fun, imagination, and imitation’ - Antonia Fraser (author).