.png)
Amsterdam Day 2
On Friday we woke up bright and early to start our jam-packed day. Our first order to business was to secure tickets to the Anne Frank House. Most of the tickets go on sale months before the date they are for, but every day at 9am they put 20% of the tickets for that day on sale, so you have to be on the website waiting or else you won't get them. When I first went on the website about 10 minutes to 9 I had about 200 people in front of me in the queue, but when 9am hit I only had 60 people in front of me so I was able to secure tickets for Sarah and I, and Kendyl was able to secure tickets for her and Liv.
After we had the tickets all set, we headed downstairs to have our free breakfast. It wasn't much of a breakfast, as it consisted mostly of bread, spreads, some cold cuts, and plain corn flakes with an assortment of juices and coffee. But hey, it was free.
After we ate and got ready we took an Uber to the Van Gogh Museum because the tickets we had purchased were for a certain time and we didn't want to have to worry about trying to find the museum and risk being late. The museum was amazing. So many beautiful pieces of artwork not only from Van Gogh himself, but also from many other extremely talented artists of that time. I was surprised at the overwhelming emotions I felt just from looking at many of these paintings. I think that's what I love most about Van Gogh's work: you can truly see and feel the emotions he felt when creating each piece.
We had quite a few hours before we had to be at the Anne Frank House so we decided to walk around, explore Amsterdam a bit, and find some food. We eventually stumbled across a large street market where there were all kinds of goods and foods being sold. I ended up getting a Vietnamese Chicken Spring Roll which was really good, and then we all tried a stroopwaffle which was so delicious! We walked around for a while longer and went into a bunch of cute little stores and art galleries before finally making our way over to the Anne Frank House.
Having read The Diary of Anne Frank, it was crazy to actually walk where she walked, stand where she slept, and see first hand the place where her well known diary was born. The stairs were so steep, just as she had said in her diary, and there were still the magazine clippings and pictures on the walls of her bedroom that she had hung all those years ago. I think what was most surreal to me was walking behind the bookcase into the annex, and looking at the height markings in pencil of Anne and her sister that still remained on one of the walls. We were so lucky to have secured tickets to see her house. It was such an incredible and humbling experience.
When the tour had concluded we walked for a little while and grabbed dinner at a cute little Italian place by the canal. We then sat on a bench by the canal for a while and then decided to take a proper walk through the Red Light District. It was definitely.. different. When you're in a place like that it almost feels like you're in a whole other world. We just did one walk through and decided that was enough for us, but I'm glad we did it because you really can't go to Amsterdam without at least walking through the Red Light District.
We finished our night off with some gelato, although I must say, I prefer American ice cream over the gelato I tried in Amsterdam.
