I decided to go to Amsterdam on my way back to India to help with time adjustment. I have heard really great things about Amsterdam. I had be warned to stay out of the way of bicycles - they are everywhere!! and amazingly I haven't seen overweight Dutch people. Maybe if the US made cities more bicycle friendly, we would be better able to battle obesity. I also knew that marijuana was legal but was not expecting to constantly walk through clouds of smoke - I think I smell like pot!
I had three and a half days to just hang out in Amsterdam and I enjoyed walking around the city and just looking at the canals and old building. I did the Hop on Hop off tour one day and got to hear some history and see the city. I went to the Dutch Resistance museum and learned a lot. I also went to see the annex where Anne Frank and others hid for over 2 years. From 9:30 - 3:30 you can go if you purchased tickets online for a certain time. After 3:30, you can get in line to see it. I got in line about 6:30 and waited for 1 hour and 27 minutes. It was really crowded in the museum and hard to see things. People were reading everything but most of what they had on the walls were quotes from her diary which I just read a few weeks ago so I didn't need a refresher. They had documents and actual pages of her diary and the Dutch people were reading every word, but since I can't read Dutch, I didn't really need to see them. Her father was the only one of the 8 that survived and he had the annex preserved as a museum and had her diary published.
I went on the Charm of Holland tour to several Holland villages. We went to Edam which is famous for it's cheese market. We walked through Marken and saw how wooden shoes are made. We took a boat to Volendam and had a Dutch lunch. The villages were so quiet and cute - the windows all had displays of pottery and other things on the sills. At the end of the day, we went to Zaanse Schans to see working windmills. The miller showed us how the windmills are used to make oils like linseed oil and peanut oil.
I was supposed to go to Bruges on my last day, but I was exhausted and decided to stay and spend the afternoon with Addie - one of my beloved Math cohort peeps. She has lived in Rotterdam and has worked at the American School of The Hague for 14 years so she showed me around and gave me some insight into Amsterdam. We walked around a park, the museum district, flower market, and the red light district - crazy.
I had three and a half days to just hang out in Amsterdam and I enjoyed walking around the city and just looking at the canals and old building. I did the Hop on Hop off tour one day and got to hear some history and see the city. I went to the Dutch Resistance museum and learned a lot. I also went to see the annex where Anne Frank and others hid for over 2 years. From 9:30 - 3:30 you can go if you purchased tickets online for a certain time. After 3:30, you can get in line to see it. I got in line about 6:30 and waited for 1 hour and 27 minutes. It was really crowded in the museum and hard to see things. People were reading everything but most of what they had on the walls were quotes from her diary which I just read a few weeks ago so I didn't need a refresher. They had documents and actual pages of her diary and the Dutch people were reading every word, but since I can't read Dutch, I didn't really need to see them. Her father was the only one of the 8 that survived and he had the annex preserved as a museum and had her diary published.
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| my hotel |
I went on the Charm of Holland tour to several Holland villages. We went to Edam which is famous for it's cheese market. We walked through Marken and saw how wooden shoes are made. We took a boat to Volendam and had a Dutch lunch. The villages were so quiet and cute - the windows all had displays of pottery and other things on the sills. At the end of the day, we went to Zaanse Schans to see working windmills. The miller showed us how the windmills are used to make oils like linseed oil and peanut oil.
I was supposed to go to Bruges on my last day, but I was exhausted and decided to stay and spend the afternoon with Addie - one of my beloved Math cohort peeps. She has lived in Rotterdam and has worked at the American School of The Hague for 14 years so she showed me around and gave me some insight into Amsterdam. We walked around a park, the museum district, flower market, and the red light district - crazy.
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| Amsterdam Centraal |
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