Amsterdam: a city of learning, not experimenting..

Amsterdam was a good time. Our hostel was close to the Dam Square, which is the main area in Amsterdam. We arrived on a Sunday night and the streets were bustling with people. We ate at the most delicious asian resturant called Wok Walk--wow my mouth is watering just thinking about it! Yum! We met some fun girls at our hostel--from Costa Rica, Brasil and Argentina. They were all super friendly and social and very interested in the US and comparing our countries. Two of the girls were only 18 but they were so educated and aware of political and social issues.

EJ and I did a lot of learning--and not experimenting :)-- while we were in Amsterdam. There was a free city walking tour given, so we, of course, went when we heard the word FREE!! Our tour guide was actually from California. She studied abroad in Australia and fell in love with a Dutch man and that's how she ended up in Holland! She took us to the oldest church in Amsterdam which is, and always has been, located right next to the Red Light District. We took a stroll down one of the many, many streets of the district. She explained to us how the Dutch view prostitution as just something that happens--its normal and no big deal to them. She said that the Government had always tolerated Prostitution, but that they choose to make it legal in order to regulate it and make it safer for the women. In summary of that topic, I'll just say the sights were shocking.... Next she showed us some buildings that have been around since Amsterdam was first a city and explained what they were used for, she showed us the smallest how in Amsterdam--see the picture-- The Dutch are taxed on how WIDE their house is, so in order to avoid some taxes, they all built tall, skinny houses. However, the houses are too skinny to carry anything us the stairs to the top floors. These ingenious people then built their buildings slightly tipping forward and placed a large hook at the top which is used for a levy-pully system. The house tips forward so that when they are pulling furniture up the side of the house, the furniture has not way of breaking the windows on the way up! Again, Ingenious!

The tour guide also gave us a bit of drug history: Marijuanna is legal, along with mushrooms, because they are viewed as 'light' drugs. In the 1960-1970's Amsterdam had 70,000+ junkies living in the city. The government then choose to focus their attention on the hard drugs and ignore weed because it doesn't cause as many problems. No one has been arrested for smoking a joint in Amsterdam for 31 YEARS.
Oh, she also showed us the smallest house in Amsterdam--it´s the red one on the left!!

We went into the Anne Frank Museum after our walking tour. Here is a picture of Otto Frank's actual store front door--ignore the bars, the building is under construction. The museum was shocking, amazing, unreal, and inspiring at the same time. All over the walls in the building where the Frank family and the 4 others lived were quotes from Anne's diary. They (the museum) did such as excellent job of explaining where you are in the house, who lived in this room, how the rooms were used, the pictures and newspaper clippings Anne used to decorate the bare walls....incredible. They had interviews with Otto Frank and with the people who helped hide the families. They had papers and documents from Aushwitz with Otto's name listed, hand written grocery lists the families wrote and gave to the the people helping them hide. They had so much authentic, detailed papers, writing, concentration camp papers that it was unreal. I was so shocked to see all that. Of course, the musuem also had facts, pictures, and film about the Jews and the concentration camps. I cried for those people, for their families, for the rest of the world and how long it took everyone to respond and stand up to Hitler. Our tour guide told us a story about how a few Jews in Amsterdam attacked and beat up a some Nazi soldiers. The next day, the soldiers went into the Jewish neighborhood and killed 425 people. In one day. You learn about WWII in school, but you don't hear about the little, local stories like that, it makes it so real and stomach-churning.

We spent some good times in Dam Square people watching and eating PB&J sandwiches. We rented bikes for and afternoon and it was stressful! I feel like I could conquer biking downtown Minneapolis now with my experience from Amsterdam! We walked past the flower market every day. They had some really cool cactus and I wanted to buy some!


Our last day in Amsterdam, which was a Wednesday, was grueling. We had to check out of our hostel at 10AM, but our flight into Madrid wasn't until 7am on Thursday... We hung out on a park bench--heres a picture of me below at our home for the day-- and we found this HUGE sign saying I AMSTERDAM and took lots of pictures. We slowing walked ourselves to the train station, which then took us to the airport. We arrived at the Shipol Airport at 7 PM and flew out at 745 AM. I didnt do much sleeping--only about 2 hours actually. Not exactly the best day of my life, but it was an experience! :)