As you can see, this is a beautiful city, but, as we learned later, it's terribly easy to get lost. Because every single canal looks the same. They're all lined with bikes, they all have a few boats tied at the edge, they all have a bridge over them every 100 yards or so, and they're all lined with tall rows of buildings on either side. After about a 20 minute walk, we arrived at the Anne Frank home and popped in the casually long line.
We weren't allowed to take pictures inside of the Anne Frank home, but let me tell you, it was one of many sobering experiences on this trip. I thought I knew a decent amount about what happened, but this opened my eyes just a little bit to how it might have felt. They removed a lot of the furniture that was originally inside, but there were small details left behind that blew me away, like some of the drawings Anne did, the posters and pictures she'd hang on her wall, the spot where she and her family marked everyone's height and growth on the door frame... it was incredible. I fell in love with Anne and her story, so I bought a copy of her book, aka diary compilation. They sold this really cool, in which the cover was patterned after the patter of her original diary. And I'm a sucker for that kind of thing.
Lunch afterwards was spent with some of my favorite gal pals at a super hip fun cafe kind of place where I had the most incredible sandwich of my life... probably:
Pesto, chicken, lettuce, cheesy bun, tomatoes, some weird sauce, avocados.... it was supreme.
There is this incredible place in Amsterdam called Dam square. It's a wide open space where there are beautiful, large, historical buildings everywhere, people doing shows, people selling things, and actually, I had a run-in with some star wars home slices.
After chilling here for awhile, my friends and I decided to go to this beautiful place:
It was probably the best waffle I've ever had in my life. When Nutella was added to anything in Europe, it was always melted and heated beforehand.
Remember Dam square? There was a free 2-3 hour walking tour given by locals who'd lived and studied about Amsterdam since they were young. Our tour guide, Rocco. was quite a character. There were more dam puns and jokes than you can possibly imagine.
See that picture of our guide, Rocco, and a bunch of other guys? There is a quite awesome/embarrassing story behind that picture. It became a running joke throughout the trip and the reason why some people called me Sheryl. Just ask me if you want to hear it, because I don't think its full effect can be understood if I just type it out here. Ask me about the "Sheryl" story.
And thus begins our walking tour! One of the first things we learned about was the oldest church in Amsterdam. A lot of sailors and military men back in the day would stop by this church en route to other bases to go to a service and confession. Legend has it, the church thought of a way to earn a bit of extra money - the men passing through town for the church and visiting the now-red light district could pay extra to fill out these confession cards with the sins they were planning on committing while here. They'd pay extra and give the church money, the church would "forgive" them for their future sins on the card, and the red light district "employees" would earn a living, so everyone wins! That's how Rocco explained the story, anyway. I found it completely ironic and humorous, to be honest.
Next, Rocco talked about the cultural importance of coffee shops in Amsterdam. He told us that almost all of the coffee shops didn't sell much coffee, but rather cannabis. Yes- hemp, weed, marijuana, whatever you prefer to call it. People go in there to smoke, get brownies, whatever.
And apparently recreational marijuana is technically illegal, but there is a general tolerance amongst the people and the authorities. A "we CAN arrest you, but we won't" kind of mentality. Rocco thinks it's because the police go to coffee shops just as much as "you and I" do.
We also learned a lot about the canals:
I could bore you with a lot of the history, but instead, I'll just tell you that, on average, 12 people a year fall in the canal from getting drunk, trying to pee in the canal, and falling in the canal instead. Rocco did tell us that that's the #1 reason why people die in the canals, too. I'm not sure how much of it is really true. Oh well.
See that white hook at the top of the building? Those are all over the place. It's a pulley system designed years ago to help people haul heavy things up the building and through the window instead of carrying them up narrow stairs. That's also why the buildings are all intentionally leaning slightly forward - to prevent the cargo from bumping and dragging along the building/windows along the way up.
THIS IS IMPORTANT. In the picture above, do you see the narrow strip on the building that's brighter red than the others? That, my friends is the smallest apartment in all of Amsterdam. It's almost two meters wide, I think is what he told us. And 4 or 5 stories high. Can you imagine? An apartment as wide as I am tall?
At one point my friend got ahold of my camera and took some nice shots:
After the tour was over, we, of course, had to get a good picture of us with Rocco. He liked us, because we asked questions and laughed at his jokes. And because of the Sheryl story.
Rocco tried to show us where his favorite "coffee" shop was because he like us... we told him that none of us would be having "coffee," but he thought we were just saying that for show because we'd get in trouble of something. But really, we tried to tell him that none of us do cannabis, but he didn't believe us and showed us anyways. Nice guy.
We went on a boat tour that night for fun! It was freezing cold and we were all exhausted, but it was a good way to relax.
Here's a picture of our hotel I took in the morning. Hotel Van Gogh. I slept well again that night. A full day, indeed.
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