Sunday, August 21, 2011

Dam

    Our second day in the city started with us waking up early-ish to go to the Anne Frank House. We got in the disgustingly long line and waited for about an hour and a half before we got to go in, but I filled the time using Sarah's really shmancy camera to take some quality photos.


      House boats are really popular in Amsterdam and the concept fascinated Sarah and I, we would see people in houses on the water just making dinner or watching TV and we thought that it was a pretty cool way to live. Sarah took this gem of me while waiting in line.

      Once we finally got into the house, we spent a good amount of time inside. The history of the house was so rich and so surreal to be seeing in person, we saw the entire secret annex and saw the actual entries of her diary as well as her room. We were able to look at old pictures of her and her family and walk up into the annex the secret way that they used to have to enter through. Seeing the Anne Frank House was probably one of my favorite things that I have ever done because I have always been so intrigued by that story and to see it so closely was definitely a highlight of my trip.


Anne Frank's House in the middle of Amsterdam
The stairwell that Anne Frank would climb to hide
The secret entry way to the Annex
       After the Anne Frank House, we took a taxi to the flower market and walked along the street where they sell seeds for flowers. Amsterdam and Holland in general is known for tulips so there were a lot of tulip bulbs, we walked around and got flowers for our moms and did a little shopping before getting on the free tram again to go to the Van Gogh Museum.


    
       The Van Gogh museum was really cool to see as well, there wasnt a line which was nice and we got in and saw the history of Van Gogh and all of his most famous paintings chronologically which was interesting to see the progress. We spent about a half hour in the museum before seeing the "I Amsterdam" sign and taking touristy pictures in front of it.



        We then made our back to our neighborhood and shopped for the last minute things we wanted to pick up before leaving in the morning, we got some food at a restaurant across from my favorite coffee shop and people watched while enjoying the vibe of Amsterdam.

Sorry Gramma, but I didnt do anything illegal!
       We then dropped everything off at our hostel and walked back toward the canals because to end our perfect weekend, we were going to go on a canal cruise. We payed and got on our boat and waited for the captain to take us on our thrilling canal tour of Amsterdam. Only a few more people showed up for the sunday night cruise, and they all happened to be couples in their thirties or so. Amidst the four couples kissing and romanticizing each other, the captain welcomes us aboard to the lover's canal cruise. So there Sarah and I were, the youngest and only non couple sitting in a nice booth about to embark on the lover's canal cruise. Perfect. The canal cruise was really cool because we did it at night, so all of the lights around the city looked pretty, especially the lights on all of the arcs in the canals. The tour was about an hour and we surely enjoyed our cruise made for lovers.
most famous bridge in Holland 



           We walked through the bright light streets one more time before going to our hostel to pack up everything because we had to start our trek back to Oviedo early in the morning. I think it is safe to say it was one of the best weekends of my life. 

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