Amsterdam

Happy Monday everyone! I returned from Amsterdam yesterday and like I've said probably after every trip I've gone on, I had a great time and loved the city. Most of my pictures are of buildings because I absolutely loved them. Weather wise, we didn't have the best weekend because it was rainy and pretty cool, but I must say I didn't mind the break from the hot sun and humid days we have had and returned to back in Milan. We arrived on Thursday night and headed to our hostel which, get this, was a boat. Yea, Amsterdam actually has more canals than Venice and they have tons of ports that cargo ships dock on and some have been turned into hostels. Ours was named Christina and usually takes groups on trips around Holland, and then when not traveling , it docks and sets up as a hostel. It was small and cozy rooms, but we enjoyed it and it was perfect for us since we were pretty much only in the rooms to sleep at night. Like the Dutch town of Cedar Grove that I come from, I saw tons of wooden shoes, windmills, tulips, and unfortunately, many streets and names that contained "Oost" in them :) Unlike the Dutch town of Cedar Grove though, Amsterdam is an incredibly liberal city having the Red Light District and the smell of the very legal drug there, marijuana, lingering in many coffee shops. Differences apart though, it was interesting seeing the culture. We started out our Friday by walking the streets in the rain and taking a canal cruise throughout the city. Bikes are EVERYWHERE. They have their own roads and traffic lights as well. All of the houses there are pretty narrow and have small stairwells so the buildings are built with hooks on the top , able to enable a makeshift pulley system that they still use to this day for moving and getting large things to the upper apartments. Many buildings are built slanted forward as well so that as you pull things up, they don't scrape against the side of the building on the way up - those Dutch, pretty smart people. There are also a lot of floating houses on the water. They are incredibly expensive, and despite their rather run-down exteriors, we did some peeping while on our canal cruise and whooooa they are pretty nice inside. We then went to the Anne Frank House and saw the annex where she and her family were in hiding for 2 years before getting betrayed and turned over to the Nazis. (It's the middle building in the 3rd picture from the top) I really appreciated seeing this because I read Anne's diary as a little girl and have still, to this day been amazed at her story. It was chilling seeing the place where it all took place and then hearing her father's story of coming back for the first time, being the only survivor of the family, and reading Anne's diary. From there we had dinner and had a few drinks at some bars. We strolled through the Red Light District just to see what all the fuss was about and yikes, it was pretty disturbing. Women in ALL different sizes and sadly, all different ages, some waaaay too young in very minimal clothing standing in windows. It was disturbing just because it's hard to fathom any woman selling herself that short. So that was probably the least thing I liked about the city. The next day though, we headed out and stopped at a flea market and later a flower market. I really wanted to buy some tulip bulbs, but I asked and they said I wouldn't be able to take them back to the U.S. After that we went to the Van Gogh Museum and I got to see the original of my favorite painting - Starry Night. Enjoyed that, and then we all did a very American thing, and ate dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. I can honestly say that I've never been to one, so it was my first time. It only fit for the evening because we followed it by getting tickets to a comedy show, "Boom Chicago". It was a show in English that made comparisons between the Dutch and America and it was actually really funny. That was pretty much the end of our trip then because we left early the next morning for Milan. On my flight back, I sat next to a man from Amsterdam and I started telling him about the small Dutch town I'm from; our annual Hollandfest and growing up Klompen dancing. He thought this was great and even thought that he had heard of Cedar Grove?! I told him our neighboring town was called Oostburg and he absolutely loved that, especially that it had kept the original Dutch spelling. He said he's going to have to try and make it over to Cedar Grove/Oostburg sometime.
Anyways, enjoy the pictures and I'm off to study for my classes while most everyone else back home is enjoying the beginning days of summer :( Ciao ciao!