A semester in Espana: Amsterdam Day 2: Anne Frank Huis, Bagels, Fries and the Red Light District

When we went to bed the night before we decided that we deserved to sleep in so we set our alarms for 9 am. This was a nice change from my Rome trip where we got up super early everyday and were going non-stop on site-seeing adventures. Today we decided we would go see the Anne Frank House museum, which is where Anne Frank and her family were in hiding when Jews were being persecuted during WWII and before.

We made the mistake of paying for breakfast at the hostel. It cost 5 Euros and was basically assorted dinner rolls with jam or butter, which is pretty standard for a European breakfast but neither of us like eating just simple carbs for breakfast. There are really no good breakfasts in Europe I’ve decided. America definitely does breakfast the best in the world and I’ve been missing scrambled eggs the entire time I’ve been here. Europeans seem to eat and use eggs for every meal except breakfast. They don’t know what they are missing.

So, after an unsatisfying breakfast we headed to the train/metro station and got tickets to take us into Central Station in the middle of Amsterdam. This would be our first day exploring Amsterdam and we were both excited. On the metro we were speaking English and just talking about school and random things and these two other girls our age asked where we were from and where we were going today. Apparently they were also staying at our hostel and they were also study abroad students studying in Paris. They also were headed to the Anne Frank house so we decided to stick together.

Getting off the metro and seeing Amsterdam for the first time made my homesickness really go away. It looked and felt just like Christmas; they had Christmas lights in all different colors and shapes and sizes everywhere and it was freezing cold again. It also had just a dark, home-y kind of feel about it that I liked immediately. It wasn’t as stunningly beautiful of a city as Rome or Paris but it was comforting and it had charm. Trams were everywhere and so were people on bikes. Everyone had those cute one speed comfort bikes too and little bells which just added to the “big(ish) city with small town charm” appeal.

Canals Amsterdam is famous for

We found the Anne Frank house pretty easily and the line wasn’t too long. It was one of the cheaper attractions in Amsterdam (only 9 euros, it seemed like all the other museums were closer 20 euros or more). I thought the house would be really sad but after going through it, I felt like it was more sentimental than sad. I felt like I knew Anne Frank after. You couldn’t take pictures inside but you got to walk through the whole house and in every room there would be a quote from her diary. None of the rooms of the house were decorated (by the request of Otto Frank, Anne’s dad) but they all had pictures of what it would have looked like. They also did video interviews of her friends about what Anne was like and her dad, who is the one that got her diary published and made the house a museum. In the interview with her dad he said something like how long it took him to read the diary and when he did it shocked him because Anne was so much deeper and more thoughtful than he ever knew. It said it made him realize that most parents probably don’t know their own children nearly as well as they think they do.

The last part of the museum had actual pages from her original diary and then a big display of the diary in all the different languages and publications. I thought it was really well done and really moving. It was very personal.

Anne Frank House (Huis in dutch)

More Amsterdam scenery

After the museum we were really hungry and we wanted bagels so we found this organic/healthy bagel place and got hot drinks and bagels. We both got cinnamon raisin bagels with hazelnut, walnut cream cheese. They were fabulous.

Samantha's drink: Hot chocolate with real chocolate chips that melt into the milk and a plate of whipped cream, amazing

Yum!

Cinnamon Raisin Bagel with Hazelnut Walnut Cream Cheese

Samantha had to get a lot of gifts for her friends so we just random souvenir shopped after that while also making our way back to Central Station. After a little bit of shopping we decided to get Holland French fries because this really interesting, worldly girl in my art history and painting class told me it was a must. The way to eat them in Holland is with a glob of mayo, but mayo kind of disgusts me so I got cheese. They were super good but after eating the entire thing (size small, but there were a ton of them!) I felt like I was gonna die of sodium and grease overload.

Trying on some wooden shoes

Cheese fries

After the fries we went back to the Hostel to rest. We were both so tired. We actually ended up watching a movie instead of napping. The hostel had a really good selection and I picked “10 Things I Hate About You” with Julia Stiles, Heath Ledger and JGL. It’s such a classic.

That night we went out again to do more souvenir shopping and to just see Amsterdam at night. We accidently wandered into the Red Light District at night, which I guess you aren’t supposed to do but it didn’t seem unsafe it was just a little bit disturbing. In case you didn’t already guess, the lights in the RED Light District are all RED and girls literally just stand in full-length windows in bikinis/bras and panties. It is really just weird. I still can’t believe people do that.