Amsterdam - Friday 16 Sep
I awoke to my alarm in the dark of pre-dawn Prague, regretting not having forced myself into bed earlier. Still, despite my few hours of sleep, I managed to ready myself on time to catch a tram to the airport bus.
The Czech are early risers. Though it was no later than 5:30 am when the bus was on its way out of the city, it was more than half full, and there were enough people that I felt embarassed about speaking too loudly on my phone to my sister, who was awake since it was barely past midnight in Boston. The sun still hadn't begun to rise when I entered the airport.
I checked in and walked through passport control, finding myself quickly at the gate, where I met my traveling companions, Sam and Emily. They had arrived an hour before me and looked even more exhausted than I felt. We waited around until at last it was boarding time, interrupted by a short but pleasant phone call from my parents, and soon we were on our way to the Netherlands!
We arrived at Schipol airport at 9 am, where we each bought an Amsterdam Card (72 hour pass with free and discounted admission to lots of tourist sites). Then we took the train - possibly the slowest-moving train I've ever seen - to Amsterdam Centraal Station. We found our hostel, which was only a few blocks away, and were quite amazed. The place was beautifully decorated in rich tones of red, purple, and blue, with silver and gold jewelled designs framing the ceilings and doorways. I have a photo or two, but they don't really do justice to the place. Also, the people at the front desk were incredibly friendly and helpful. To anyone planning to travel to Amsterdam, I highly recommend the Aivengo Youth Hostel. (Oh, and it was cheap too!)
Our first tourist stop of the day was the Anne Frank Huis, where, thanks to good planning by my friends, the wait to get in was short. The bottom floors of the former warehouse contain models of the annex during the war and informational displays about Otto Frank's company and the workers who helped hide his family and friends. The annex has been kept intact structurally, but inside has been distinctly changed into a museum. The original bookcase hiding the door stands permanently open, providing entrance into the rooms inhabited by the Franks, Van Pels, and the other man whose name I forget. The rooms are bare, allowing for a large capacity of visitors, and the walls are lined with a few display cases containing items owned by the people in hiding with quotes from Anne Frank's diary written on the walls and descriptions of life in the annex. The only area with anything truly kept intact are the walls of Anne's bedroom, which are covered with magazine cutouts and postcards that she put up to brighten the place. The whole place is carefully laid out to guide visitors on a single path, and the last stop before the interactive exhibit and the bookshop is a room with information about the capture and death of the people in hiding, as well as a short video of Anne's best friend describing their reunion from opposite sides of a wall in the concentration camp (I believe they were in Bergen-Belson). The bookstore, as you can imagine, contains copies of the diary in every language imaginable, in addition to several books about Otto Frank and other scholastic works about the Franks' secret annex.
After the Anne Frank Huis, we headed off to a quick lunch and then to the plaza called simply Dam, which has the Royal Palace and the New Church (from the 15th century) on one side, Madame Tussaud's on another, and the entrance to the Red Light District on another. The plaza regularly has several people dressed up as celebrities and well-known movie characters, such as Tigger (of Winnie the Pooh), Jim Carrey's character in The Mask, and Michael Jackson. Emily and Sam made me take a picture with Michael, who decided to handcuff me for the photo and request "bail" afterward (I gave him 50 cents). I've decided to swallow my pride and post this picture on the internet with the others from Amsterdam, so you may look forward to that.
We then went to the Red Light District, which is fairly quiet in the afternoons, where we saw many prostitutes in store windows and coffee shops that served marijuana products. We also found a very interesting store that we'd found in our guidebook. It was a condom shop that sold every kind of condom you could ever think of- they had every color, texture, and flavor, in addition to condoms in strange packaging (like candy or gum wrappers) and condoms that were purely decorative and painted to look like animals.
After departing the Red Light District, Sam (who had bronchitis) left us to rest in the hostel. Emily and I went to see the New Church, whose beautiful interior was rather hidden behind a large exhibition of nature art from various continents and time periods. Then we went to another place we found in the guidebook, called the Albert Cuypmarket. This was a cheap and non-touristy market where there were three blocks of stands selling literally everything. We spent an hour looking at all the flowers, food, clothing, souvenirs, fabrics, and other things. We got excited at a stand that had various kinds of chocolate sold in large chunks, but found out later that we'd bought baker's chocolate by mistake! At least it was cheap.
We left the market to meet Sam back at our hostel and, after a brief rest, decided to have dinner at a Mexican restaurant across the street. We had a short dinner, hurrying to make time to change into nice clothes and to find the Portuguese-Israeli Synagogue, where we were going for services.
We spent about half an hour getting lost, and finally found the synagogue. We were led by a nice man into a side chapel- they only use the large sanctuary on Saturday mornings- where the service was luckily still in the first half. There couldn't have been more than 15 or 20 people there, but the service was still very nice. I looked around the chapel, which I discovered was quite old when I looked at the walls downstairs in the men's section. They were covered with names of deceased congregants. It took me a minute to realize the years of their deaths were in the 5400s- that's 300 years ago! After services, a woman approached us and asked where we were from, and then immediately told us we were going to have dinner at her house. She didn't even phrase it as a question.
After waiting a little after services, we followed the woman and her family to their house, which turned out to be next door to the synagogue. We were then introduced to their family, who were rather amazing. The woman, Leah, is half black and half white. She was born in Israel and, from what I could tell, grew up both in the US and the Netherlands. She spoke accented but natural English, as well as Dutch and Hebrew. Her husband was the child of a Chinese man and a Jewish Surinamese woman, and he grew up in Suriname. They had lived in Israel for a while, where their two older sons were born, and then moved to Amsterdam, where they had two more sons and took over the management of the Portuguese Synagogue and its community. Their sons are 17, 13, and 7 year old twins. The eldest was eager to talk to me about American culture; the 13 year old was a wisecracking smart-alec who sustained a long conversation with Emily and Sam about Harry Potter; one of the twins was shy and barely spoke; and the last boy was excited to show off a card trick and some of his toys to me several times during the evening.
The family told us that they invited tourists to dinner every week. In fact, there were three other visitors at their table, and they were very warm and welcoming to us all. I made sure to tell Leah before any food was served that I was vegetarian so as not to offend, and was pleasantly surprised to find out that nearly every dish was vegetarian- simply because they never know what kind of guests they'll have to dinner! They have had over 3,000 international guests in their home since they moved to Amsterdam ten years ago. It was possibly the nicest birthday dinner I could have hoped for in a foreign land.
We left late- close to 11pm- and went happily to bed with full tummies and big smiles.
The Czech are early risers. Though it was no later than 5:30 am when the bus was on its way out of the city, it was more than half full, and there were enough people that I felt embarassed about speaking too loudly on my phone to my sister, who was awake since it was barely past midnight in Boston. The sun still hadn't begun to rise when I entered the airport.
I checked in and walked through passport control, finding myself quickly at the gate, where I met my traveling companions, Sam and Emily. They had arrived an hour before me and looked even more exhausted than I felt. We waited around until at last it was boarding time, interrupted by a short but pleasant phone call from my parents, and soon we were on our way to the Netherlands!
We arrived at Schipol airport at 9 am, where we each bought an Amsterdam Card (72 hour pass with free and discounted admission to lots of tourist sites). Then we took the train - possibly the slowest-moving train I've ever seen - to Amsterdam Centraal Station. We found our hostel, which was only a few blocks away, and were quite amazed. The place was beautifully decorated in rich tones of red, purple, and blue, with silver and gold jewelled designs framing the ceilings and doorways. I have a photo or two, but they don't really do justice to the place. Also, the people at the front desk were incredibly friendly and helpful. To anyone planning to travel to Amsterdam, I highly recommend the Aivengo Youth Hostel. (Oh, and it was cheap too!)
Our first tourist stop of the day was the Anne Frank Huis, where, thanks to good planning by my friends, the wait to get in was short. The bottom floors of the former warehouse contain models of the annex during the war and informational displays about Otto Frank's company and the workers who helped hide his family and friends. The annex has been kept intact structurally, but inside has been distinctly changed into a museum. The original bookcase hiding the door stands permanently open, providing entrance into the rooms inhabited by the Franks, Van Pels, and the other man whose name I forget. The rooms are bare, allowing for a large capacity of visitors, and the walls are lined with a few display cases containing items owned by the people in hiding with quotes from Anne Frank's diary written on the walls and descriptions of life in the annex. The only area with anything truly kept intact are the walls of Anne's bedroom, which are covered with magazine cutouts and postcards that she put up to brighten the place. The whole place is carefully laid out to guide visitors on a single path, and the last stop before the interactive exhibit and the bookshop is a room with information about the capture and death of the people in hiding, as well as a short video of Anne's best friend describing their reunion from opposite sides of a wall in the concentration camp (I believe they were in Bergen-Belson). The bookstore, as you can imagine, contains copies of the diary in every language imaginable, in addition to several books about Otto Frank and other scholastic works about the Franks' secret annex.
After the Anne Frank Huis, we headed off to a quick lunch and then to the plaza called simply Dam, which has the Royal Palace and the New Church (from the 15th century) on one side, Madame Tussaud's on another, and the entrance to the Red Light District on another. The plaza regularly has several people dressed up as celebrities and well-known movie characters, such as Tigger (of Winnie the Pooh), Jim Carrey's character in The Mask, and Michael Jackson. Emily and Sam made me take a picture with Michael, who decided to handcuff me for the photo and request "bail" afterward (I gave him 50 cents). I've decided to swallow my pride and post this picture on the internet with the others from Amsterdam, so you may look forward to that.
We then went to the Red Light District, which is fairly quiet in the afternoons, where we saw many prostitutes in store windows and coffee shops that served marijuana products. We also found a very interesting store that we'd found in our guidebook. It was a condom shop that sold every kind of condom you could ever think of- they had every color, texture, and flavor, in addition to condoms in strange packaging (like candy or gum wrappers) and condoms that were purely decorative and painted to look like animals.
After departing the Red Light District, Sam (who had bronchitis) left us to rest in the hostel. Emily and I went to see the New Church, whose beautiful interior was rather hidden behind a large exhibition of nature art from various continents and time periods. Then we went to another place we found in the guidebook, called the Albert Cuypmarket. This was a cheap and non-touristy market where there were three blocks of stands selling literally everything. We spent an hour looking at all the flowers, food, clothing, souvenirs, fabrics, and other things. We got excited at a stand that had various kinds of chocolate sold in large chunks, but found out later that we'd bought baker's chocolate by mistake! At least it was cheap.
We left the market to meet Sam back at our hostel and, after a brief rest, decided to have dinner at a Mexican restaurant across the street. We had a short dinner, hurrying to make time to change into nice clothes and to find the Portuguese-Israeli Synagogue, where we were going for services.
We spent about half an hour getting lost, and finally found the synagogue. We were led by a nice man into a side chapel- they only use the large sanctuary on Saturday mornings- where the service was luckily still in the first half. There couldn't have been more than 15 or 20 people there, but the service was still very nice. I looked around the chapel, which I discovered was quite old when I looked at the walls downstairs in the men's section. They were covered with names of deceased congregants. It took me a minute to realize the years of their deaths were in the 5400s- that's 300 years ago! After services, a woman approached us and asked where we were from, and then immediately told us we were going to have dinner at her house. She didn't even phrase it as a question.
After waiting a little after services, we followed the woman and her family to their house, which turned out to be next door to the synagogue. We were then introduced to their family, who were rather amazing. The woman, Leah, is half black and half white. She was born in Israel and, from what I could tell, grew up both in the US and the Netherlands. She spoke accented but natural English, as well as Dutch and Hebrew. Her husband was the child of a Chinese man and a Jewish Surinamese woman, and he grew up in Suriname. They had lived in Israel for a while, where their two older sons were born, and then moved to Amsterdam, where they had two more sons and took over the management of the Portuguese Synagogue and its community. Their sons are 17, 13, and 7 year old twins. The eldest was eager to talk to me about American culture; the 13 year old was a wisecracking smart-alec who sustained a long conversation with Emily and Sam about Harry Potter; one of the twins was shy and barely spoke; and the last boy was excited to show off a card trick and some of his toys to me several times during the evening.
The family told us that they invited tourists to dinner every week. In fact, there were three other visitors at their table, and they were very warm and welcoming to us all. I made sure to tell Leah before any food was served that I was vegetarian so as not to offend, and was pleasantly surprised to find out that nearly every dish was vegetarian- simply because they never know what kind of guests they'll have to dinner! They have had over 3,000 international guests in their home since they moved to Amsterdam ten years ago. It was possibly the nicest birthday dinner I could have hoped for in a foreign land.
We left late- close to 11pm- and went happily to bed with full tummies and big smiles.
posted by Unknown at 1:31 PM
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