Tonight marks our last night in the absolutely gorgeous city of Amsterdam. Brendan and I have adored our visit so very much. This is by far the most beautiful city I have ever laid my eyes on (besides Vancouver of course). There are canals that course throughout the city, blooming flowers of all varieties and the native Amsterdamers (yes, that’s the proper term for an Amsterdam native) are so tourist friendly. On our third day, we bought tickets to a hop on, hop off canal tour. Originally we wanted to see the Anne Frank museum, but we had a bit of later start than intended and decided the line was too long upon our arrival. With our ticket, we had access to as many rides as we wanted around the city canals on these long and flat boats. We visited two street markets that reminded me of the Richmond night markets. The canal had a pre-recorded ‘tour guide’ giving out random facts and information about the sights we were passing as we floated along in the sun. We met a lady from the States that we sailed with to the Hard Rock Café (we wanted dinner and she wanted a shot glass for her collection). It’s interesting briefly meeting new people as we voyage through different cities.
The next day, we rented bikes to cycle in to town (about 9km). We saw the Van Gogh museum (which they pronounce ‘Van Hoff’ here) and the Anne Frank house. I quite enjoy the paintings and style of Van Gogh, whereas Brendan says he prefers more realistic and life-like art. Afterwards, we cycled over to a café that offered us a free drink (beer, pop, tea or coffee) when we showed our Van Gogh ticket. I got an Earl Grey tea and Brendan got a coke (how typical of us). As we were about to depart to the Anne Frank house we FINALLY found a bookstore with more than a few books written in English. Three whole floors of pure joy in which we spent an hour searching for something new to read. I chose the Diary of Anne Frank, 1984 and Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and Brendan chose two fantasy books. We then headed to Anne Frank, which was an utterly gut-wrenching, heart breaking experience. The museum is a walkthrough of the actual house she lived in while she was in hiding during the war. It was quite a different experience than all the other museums we have seen over the course of this trip. Lastly, we headed to the infamous red light district. Since it was a Saturday night, the place was packed! We walked around the streets for about an hour then decided to head home. The ride home was quite the experience because we got lost multiple times on the bikes and couldn’t seem to position ourselves in the right direction. Finally, by about 1am we made it home where we promptly fell asleep.
Today we decided we would embark on a day trip to some of Amsterdam’s surrounding villages. We first headed to Broek in Waterland which is a town that literally consisted of houses, a café, a physio, a lake and a pancake house. It was undeniably stunning though. We ate our lunch by the lake with the locals and then headed to the pancake house where we each got a pancake (they call crepes pancakes here though). Next we caught a bus to a place which we thought was Volendam, but ended up being (basically) the side of highway with a cheese/clog shop. As we were about the hop on another bus, a man in a 70’s, convertible, Volkswagen Beetle (Brendan’s description), pulls up and asks if we would like a ride in his cool car. He took us to Volendam and showed us around the market and gave us a little tour of the town. He was a very nice older man that moved to Amsterdam on his own when he was 16, met his wife at 17 and is now living with her in one of the small villages. In his broken English he told us that he likes to cruise around the villages in his newly restored car on nice sunny days when he’s not working. After walking around the village, Brendan and I bussed back to our hotel. Tomorrow, we will check out at 12 and slowly make our way to the train station. Our train for Berlin leaves at 5:41pm and arrives at around 4:30am. We have beds on this train and there are no transfers so hopefully we sleep right through it!
Hope everyone at home is safe and having fun without us (although it must be hard)!
Cheese and Clog store/town
Lunch in Broek in Waterland at the lake
Lake in Volendam
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