I have finally made it to the leg of my trip that I have been so excited about. I cannot tell you how long I have wanted to backpack across Europe. While London and Paris are the two lest that I am most excited about Amsterdam is pretty cool.
The arrival at the airport was a bit overwhelming. I did not speak the language, need to mail thins to the states, find my hostel and not kill anyone with my huge backpack. Luckily all was achieved with little problem, I only got seriously lost once.
On my only full day in the city I did some serious sightseeing. I went early to the Anne Frank house in order to avoid the long live. It was really sad but a must see. To know that 8 people hid in three small rooms for so long was odd. The most moving part of the house was the very end. I did not realize that Anne's father survived the war, he was the only on in the family. After his release form the concentration camps he knew his wife had died but he searched for months for his kids. He put ad's in the paper, went person to person asking, ect. She died 1 week before the liberation of the Jewish people, at a time when she thought all of ther other family members were dead. Her father died in 1980 after he had published her diary and set up the Anne Frank Foundation.
"We cannot move to the future, without learning from the past" Otto Frank, 1977.
After leaving the house I took a canal cruise. It was neat to see all of the houses, including the smallest house in Amsterdam that is only 1 meter wide! It is 5 storied tall though. Can you imagine how narrow and steep the stairs are in that place/
After the canal cruiseI bought my ticket to Paris. I am so excited. The price was three times what I had planned to pay, but how many times do you really get to do something like this? I asked the women why it was 120 euro and she said it was becuase I was traveling over the weekend. Apparently if I had stayed in Amsterdam until Monday my train ticket would have been 43 euro. I am too excited to get to Paris though.
Next, I did some light shoppig. Light becuase I kew I just paid a small fortune for my train ticket. I did see some awesome necklaces that i think my mom could make and I bought this cool wax braclet.
My iAmsterdam card gained me free access to the Amsterdam history museum, so I wandered around there a bit. My timing was peferct as it had just started to rain when I arrived.
And then I did it.....took a walk through the red light district. It was ummmmmm interesting. Maybe sad is the better word for it. Several people asked me to try to get a picture of the pot menu at the coffee shops. Well doing that almost made me loss my camera. Only after I deleted the picture did the bartenders / barista leave me alone. LOL. But I did get some other photos that are interesting, and no they are not of prostitutes. Is it shocking to anyone that this area of Amsterdam is where the best restaurants are?
Yesterday I went to the Van Gough Museum it was amazing. Made me think that mom should start painting again, The two most famous can gough paintings "starry night" and "the bedroom" were either not there or undergoing restoration. It was neat to see his lesser known works though, and to hear more about his crazy life. I bought a couple of postcards of his lesser known works.
Did I mentation the length of day here? It was something I should have thought of but really did not. I am typing this at 10pm and it is still completely bright outside. The sun is setting somewhere around midnight.
PARIS TOMORROW. Hope Parisians are nice like Jessica said. Everyone here at the hostel seems to disagree with her.
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