Friday morning we had a VERY early flight but all of us were still exhausted from Spring Break and refused to sleep in the airport so we ordered a shuttle service at 4am to take us from our apartment to the airport, I forgot how nice it is to be driven places so quickly. Luckily our flight went smoothly and we were in town before we knew it and had a whole day head of us to explore. Our hostel was location about a 30 minute walk from the city centre or Dam as it's called. Once we got checked in and settled we set out, had some delicious Doner Kebab for lunch, as always. (Side note: Kebabs in Europe are not Shish Kebabs on a stick their usually wraps if you order a Doner or a pita sandwich if you order Kebab. Their everywhere in Europe, cheap, filling, and even offer veggie options of Falafel or just veggies for people like me. Anyone traveling to Europe, you could live off these while you travel.) Then once we were refueled continued to walk into town. Lucky for us it was beautiful weather outside with the sun shining and perfect temperature! On our way in we came across a little street market and took time looking at the random excitement of literally just stuff. It was so random and nothing I'd ever expect to see anywhere. We continued into town, passing tons of "coffeeshops" and really realizing we were in a much different place than the rest of the world. I think Amsterdam is such an amazing city because of its uniqueness. It's so carefree and has such different ways of living than the rest of the world. There's no where else where you can walk along a beautifully canaled city that has perfectly built buildings that literally are stacked right next to each other holding one an other up; then turn a corner into a puff of weed smoke from a street lined with coffeeshops only to turn your head and see windows lined with prositutes giving you the creepiest smiles you've ever seen. I was loving it- it's so weird. I may have gotten a job application to fund the remainder of my trip- just kidding ;). But we were definitly just laughing at the sight of everything we saw. The last time I was in Amsterdam I was definitly too young and ignorant to realize exactly where I was.
We didn't have very many "strict" places to see, besides of course Anne Frank, while we were here and had a lot of freetime which was a nice change of pace. We took our time walking and of course stopped for an afternoon coffee to refuel all of the walking. Those bicyclists are deadly there and I swear we almost got run over about 204982905 times but somehow made it out alive- I guess it's a good thing they have bells on their bikes. We did some shopping, took some pictures, especially of this huge statue of "I AMSTERDAM" get it? But its right in the city centre and everyone has to take a picture there, we decided it's basically a rule. I wanted to climb on top but my legs couldn't reach and I didn't feel like being lifted by a stranger, who offered, no thanks bud. We also got a good picture inside a ginourmous wooden shoe they had outside a tourist shop- hilarious.
Before we knew it it was dinner time! We'd been so entranced by all of the sights we didn't even realize how late it'd actually gotten. Amsterdam has amazing food, especially of my favorites: Asian! So many choices, how could we choose? We came across a fun little place called Wok to Walk where you bascially go in and order stir fry in a cute little to-go box. Delicioso. I think the main reason theres so many darn good food places is because of all the pot-heads with the munchies but hey they get their business. After a nice long dinner we had to hike it back to our hostel and by this time it was freeeeeeeezing. It was like the winds of death trying to blow us away- bleck. But we made it back in time and passed out so quickly we were pooped. Luckily we were staying at a really nice hosotel that had great beds I was in heaven.
Saturday mornign we got up and feasted on the free breakfast- yes!- to fuel our hike into town. Today we were determined to be at Anne Frank house right when it opened, ha, well we somehow all slept through our alarms, aka mine never went off, so we were off to a little bit of a later start but eventually made it, an hour later, only to wait in like for about 40 minutes which really wasn't too bad and went by quite quickly. I'd visited the Anne Frank house before but I was thrilled to have the chance to see it again and relive everything. As I'd mentioned in earlier posts, my sick obsession with the Holocaust is always alive inside me. I was so excite for my roommates to have this oppotunity as well because it's definitly something that needs to be on everyones bucket list.
The Anne Frank hosue is so tiny they've had to make it into a big circle thing so people can walk through it and have room for everyone which is why it takes so long. You begin in the workshop which was where her fathers business was and your introduced with a background video on the warehouse, see some old papers from the workshop, the Jewish star they were forced to wear and some other old time papers. From there you walk up some tiny steps to the offices of her father and the people he worked with and get an aerial view of the house. Unfortunately your not allowed to take pictures inside and theres not furniture in any of the rooms- per request of her father who didn't want to relive his horrific experience. After the office you enter the annex. You begin walking through the bookcase which acted as the door that hid the door that lead to their annex. As soon as you enter you can't help but get chills and are silenced by the overwhelming sights in front of you. The first room is her father, mother and sister's room which was a tight fight just with the 3 of us- you can't help but imagine what it was like with two beds in here in addition to 3 people at anytime. One of the main differences I noticed in these rooms was that the windows are now blacked out- similar to how they were when they lived there- when I first visited they weren't blacked out.
The next room was Anne's and Fritz Pfeffer's room they shared. It's a breathtaking sight as you see all the pictures Anne would take out of magazines and paste on her walls that are still intact. Also on the walls is a measurement of how Anne and her sister grew while they were living in the Annex. Anne's room is even small than her parents. You next move into the bathroom which is just complied of a sink and toliet which they weren't even allowed to flush during the day. As we walk the floors are very creaky, which is an other thing they couldn't do during the day- walk around. Every step in that annex made noise in the floor, I can't imagine the amount of fear they had every day just to even move- the thought of being so confined is horrifying to me. You then go up even a tinier staircase than the one before where you literally have to walk sideways just to make it up these stairs to the upper part of the annex. This is the room of the Van Pels family who also was in hiding with them. It also acted as the kitchen and living room of everyone. All thats left there now is the sink and stove they would use. The walls have old documents and quotes from Anne's diary describing their daily lives. The next room, more like a closet, was where the Val Pels' son Peter lived. This also has a ladder than leads up to the attic which had a skylight and that acted as storage. They had a little paper that was a "menu" of what they'd eat depending on the rations of food they'd be able eat. It was one thing they could do to entertain during the day I suppose since what else could they do?
After the annex part is a little musuem with modern day footage of people who knew the family, shots from the Holocaust, and a section that said where each of them died and at what camp. Everyone but Anne's father, Otto, died. It;s heartbreaking because Anne died literally one month before her camp was liberated. In the video is an interview of one of her friends who knew her from before and while in the camps- and she was saying that after her sister and mother died she had no one else and thought everyone else had died, so she saw no reason to fight to live. It's so heartbreaking to know that if only she'd known about her father she could of made it one more month. It's so sad to think about. This whole experience is so emotion, none of us could even talk while we were in there but it was so evident we all had so much on our minds we were overwhelmed. They also have footage of her father after the war and you can just see the devastation in his face as he talks about Anne. It's such a miracle that Miep Gies found and saved Anne's diary after they were taken prisoners. This diary has given so many peope such a new perspective into this horrendous time and is such a strong symbol of the pain and suffering of the people under persecution during WWII, it's amazing. I could talk forever about this topic but I'll save you the torture.
Unfortunately they are workin on restoring Anne's diary right now so the real one wasn't there to see, but I'd been lucky enough to see it the first time I was there thankfully. My roommate Kelsey bought an amazing "real style" version of the diary that is basically the real thing in hardcover form. Collectors item!
After this depressing morning we headed off to eat some pancakes and make ourselves a little happier. We headed right down the street to the famous Pancake Bakery, where I'd been with the family the first time I'd been in Amsterdam! We all split a delicious banana, nutella pancake and a veggie omellete! So delicious, I love pancakes and have definitly missed these little gems. 
After a delicious meal we found an other little market outside filled with tons of cool stuff that kept us amused for a while. An other reason to love Amsterdam was veggie friendliness all over :) After walking around the weather kept being super bi-polar and COLD and windy. So we moved to an other place to get some coffee and warm up. I love Amsterdams streets filled with the randomest things- they have tons of sex shops with the weirdest sorts of things you could imagine. Kept us entertained on the cold walks. 
From here Kelsey had some ambitious touristy shopping to do for her her family so we went into a bunch of "Dutch" shops to help her pick it all out. Her dream was wooden clogs that were here size so we had a grand adventure of finding those. It was amazing- she tried on a few before finally settlting on by far the cutest pair. They were white with with beautiful colorful flowers and designs all over them, and the best part is they were life-size. Great find. 
After a long day of walking it was dinner time! We of course took full advantage of our many choices and settled on Thai! Something delicious we all missed, it was heavenly. We were dreading the long cold windy walk home but somehow managed to make it, it was freeezing. But we made it back hopped right into bed and sleeeept like little angels.
Sunday funday was upon us now and usually we go home Sundays but it was cheaper to book our flights home on Monday so we had a whole nother day upon us! Sad for me I had a HUGE presentation in Spanish class that Monday right when we got back and I knew I needed to work on it :/. But in the morning we rented bikes! Lucky for us our hostel offered us a great discount on all day bike rentals! It was freezing again but we bundled up and were ready to go. It was so much fun riding around and we found the park with a path to ride around. Before we knew it a couple of hours had passed by and it was time for me, grrr, to go work on my project so I found a cute little cafe to sit in and get some work done. I spent my whole afternoon working on this thing while my roomies had a photoshoot at the wax musuem. Their pictures are hilarious they lived it in there. I wasn't sad I missed out on that because max musuems freakkkk me the f out.
After spending hours perfectly this ghastly presentation I went back to the hostel where my roomies were since it was sunday and everythign was closed. We just ate dinner there, relaxed and went to bed early because we had an early flight out on Monday.
Made it safely and just on time to Spanish class only to discover I didn't even have to go that day for my presentation, of course.
But thank god we weren't traveling anywhere last week because that volcano is ruining the lives of travelers in Europe, let me tell you about 1/3 of school was missing this week because of it. But things seem to be looking up even though I'm secrelty crossing my fingers it doesn't so all my friends can be stuck here longer :).
Off to Portugal this weekend though ( by bus)! 
No comments:
Post a Comment