Amsterdam was much different than I expected in many ways. I am still deciding on my feelings for it. It is very pretty and unlike any other city I have ever visited. The houses are all tall and narrow much like SanFran but its somewhat dark out all day every day. And there are canals!! Kind of like Venice but wider canals and less of them.
Brianne and I arrived in Amsterdam at 8:30am and were so incredibly exhausted because we had been traveling since 2am!! Amsterdam is so hard to navigate...probably the most difficult city I have been to yet. It is shaped like a spiderweb and none of the streets really line up with each other. Luckily, all hostels are in the poorer part of town...so we just had to find the Red Light District to find our hostel... which happens to be in the very core of the spiderweb. As it was 8:30 in the morning I assumed that I wouldn't see any ladies in the windows until night...WRONG. At first I saw a leg in a window...as we passed by I realized it was a man. I saw this one lady in a leather bikini standing in one of the windows and I thought it was a manikan...wrong again...she jetted her head toward us and gave us this flirty look. Seriously I did not think I was going to get phased by the Red Light District here. But my stomache did like a 360... It was really hard for me to see these real life women in the windows trying to sell themselves especially when the girls looked really young like 18 years old. Say what you will about the culture and ethics whatnot...the first time was just rough for me.
Our hostel was pretty cool though it was right on the edge of the District. Each of the rooms were decorated as a theme to a movie. We were in the Godfather and next door was American Beauty. Bri and I took a quick nap before our free walking tour. Erin arrived just before we left for the tour and it was soooo great to see her! Every time I see a friend here I just feel so rejuvenated.
The free walking tour was great and I learned so much about Amsterdam...it really is a strange place with very quirky people. It was snowing very hard however so we only made it half way through. One weird thing about Amsterdam is there is men's urinals all over the city. I guess back in the day this made the women very upset because just like any other place in Europe you have to pay about a euro to use a public restroom. So they decided they were all going to wear long skirts and go to a bridge and pee all over it. Each day they would do the same thing on a different bridge until the government would let them have free bathrooms as well. They did win and got free bathrooms but this was banned a little while ago.
Another crazy thing about Amsterdam was the last names. When the French were trying to take over Holland, Louis decided that they all had to have last names. So as the Dutch like to joke around with people they told the french people that their names were like Mr. BrownButt, Misses ILikePoo and etc. They thought this was hilarious until it was official that that really was their last name. And today there are still Dutch people with crazy last names like that thanks to their ancestors.
On the walking tour we saw parts of the Red Light District, the old churches, anne franks house, rembrandts house and much more. We did learn a lot about the drug policies in Amsterdam as well. I found it interesting that Marijuana is actually illegal in Amsterdam. I always thought that it was legal...but its just that one will not get in trouble for it. The Dutch are known for finding loopholes and having their government turn a blind eye. So there are smoke shops, but they aren't called smoke shops they are called Coffee Shops. SO if you are looking to buy some Coffee in the morning don't go to a coffee shop they won't have any coffee... you need to go to a cafe. Magic Mushrooms was another drug that they had these kinds of shops for as well but they are called Smart Shops. This last December 1st they made it illegal and it is something one can get in trouble for having. The EU is really cracking down on Amsterdam and trying to get them to clean up their image aka the banning of shrooms.
The second day we started with going to Anne Frank's House. This also had a huge impact on me. I have grown up with learning all about Anne Frank, seen plays, read her diary, etc. I probably know more about her than the average person. It was just crazy to be in her house and look out the window seeing Amsterdam as she probably saw it only about 60 years ago. The Holocaust really didn't happen that long ago. We saw the bookcase door just like it was yesterday. After climbing through the bookcase you had to climb up these really steep stairs to get to the hiding place. The rooms were so small like half the size of a small bedroom. I recognized Anne's room as soon as I stepped in. She had written about pasting photos all over her room to make it look less gloomy and there it was. One of the rooms just shocked me. It said that it was a couples room along with the living room, kitchen and storeroom... it was no bigger than my room back at home (which is SMALL). Downstairs in the museum was a bunch of interviews going on. One with Miep, who was one of the people who helped hide them. They still don't know today who ratted them out. I bet one of the people told a friend who ratted them out since it could have been one of the people hiding them since they would get in trouble too. One of the interviews was hard to listen too (well all of them were), but it was about the last time someone saw Anne. She had a friend across an electric wire fence in the concentration camp and this friend had recieved a Red Cross care package with little scraps of food. She decided to give it to Anne and tossed it over the fence for her. Anne screamed because some lady had taken it and ran off. The friend said not to worry because she would get her the next package. They were supposed to meet the next night...but Anne had given up and died. This friend spoke of how this 16 year old girl had given up all hope since her sister and mom had died and she had no idea where her dad was. If Anne had only known that her dad was going to come get her after the war was over in about a month...maybe she would have held out longer.
After Anne Frank we visited the Van Gogh Museum which was great. I didn't like it as much as the Picasso Museum just because it was so interesting to watch Picasso's work progress over the years. But Van Gogh's work really is unique and beautiful. The two most famous pieces, Starry Night and The Cafe, are on tour right now and do not arrive back until February :(
That evening we went on a Red Light District Tour and learned all about the history of it... it was very...um... educational. It did make me sad however that the District was formed by Human Trafficking originally. Men would go to really poor countries and tell women that they could make a great living back in Amsterdam. So they would bring them to Amsterdam and leave them in these windows basically as prisioners to bring in money. Anyways we learned all about the District and its history.
The last day in Amsterdam Brianne and I went to the Heineken Museum. This was fun to see how they brewed it and all about the history of the making. The Guiness was definitely more impressive because of the shape and the Bar at the top but Heineken was still fun.
That night we took a train to Brussels, Belgium.
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