Amsterdam

My last journey was to Amsterdam, Holland, in the Netherlands.  Talk about a nice cold journey up north!  I met up with a few new friends who are studying in Barcelona, Spain with Cameron.

We didn't really have much of an agenda, but we did get a chance to visit Anne Frank's house. Inside, we were able to see the original bookcase, stairs, and rooms (left unfurnished) on where she and her, her family, and friends lived.  If you haven't read The Diary of Anne Frank, I strongly suggest you do so.  What a sensation walking through the same rooms and halls that she lived in for over two years.  I almost got a strange feeling as I was walking through because there were memorable quotes posted. Where she would write a passage, you would be standing and looking exactly at what she was writing about.  You could literally see what she looked at back in 1943.  Believe it or not, the house/annex was much larger than you would imagine.  It was essentially a whole house, but smaller.  A small apartment, really.

Inside of the museum was her actual diaries.  Yes, she had multiple.  Literally hundreds of pages of her thoughts and feelings on boys, family, and what was going on in the world.  Let me tell you, she had some of the most beautiful scripted handwriting that I have ever seen.  She had multiple diaries (or journals) that consisted of movie/book quotes that she thought were memorable, some short-stories, and also some poems that she wrote out.  One part that caught my attention was when she wrote about when Peter received a board game for his birthday being the Stock Market board game.  They had on display the board game that he received.  The passage is, "Yesterday was Peter's birthday.  At eight o'clock I went upstairs and looked at the presents with Peter.  He received a board game, a razor, and a lighter."  That shook me, staring at the board game that she once did.  I'm very glad I got to visit this house.  It fit well with the history that I learned in Poland about Auschwitz.

So, I'm sure you've heard that Amsterdam is full of some good ol' coffee shops and the well-known red-light district.  You've heard well my friends!  But, smoking isn't really as big as you would think...it's more just the college-aged kids running around the city.  Locals aren't really into that kind of stuff, and believe it or not, they think it's gross (which I agree with).  So walking into cafes and restaurants was no problem, as they were all smoke-free :).  But it wasn't uncommon that you would walk past a coffee shop and get a strong smell of the gross smoke.  

Then there's the red-light district.  We won't get into much detail about this particular area, but let's just say that it was...well, interesting.  The picture is actually the Amsterdam Flag, no pun intended*

The Dutch people are extremely nice and can speak English pretty well.  Talking to locals was a no-brainer.  Just think as though you're talking to a normal American, but they have a nice Dutch accent!  Funny.  The food really wasn't all that much different than American food, but a lot of burgers, french fries, soup, and meat-like dishes.  I will say that they LOVE their french-fries.  Why?  Great question.  We couldn't figure that one out.

The canals were beautiful and full of boat homes, row houses, and bridges on every corner!  This is very much a walking city, as there were little-to-no cars driving through the streets.  They actually had a designated bike-lane.  As a matter of fact, we almost caused a couple of accidents in the bike lane because we kept forgetting about it!

I would have to say that this overall experience in Amsterdam was quite memorable.  Would I come back here again?  Probably not for a long time.  Aside from the couple of museums and beautiful outdoor sites, there's not too much to do.  At the same time, this city is expensive, in addition to the USD being so low in price compared to the EUR.  The experience was great, I had a great time and met new friends, at the same time had a wonderful experience visiting a Dutch country.