Suzyki's Travels: Day 2--I amsterdam

July 10

The date on the previous blog is wrong!!! It is supposed to be July 8/9 not 14/15 haha.. The jetlag is really affecting me!

I forgot to mention yesterday that the sun sets in Amsterdam at around 11 pm!!! It was strange because it felt like it was earlier than it really was since we were used to the sun setting at around 9.

I did not sleep well. I woke up at 5 am, still not used to Europe's time yet. I relaxed a bit then got ready for the day before Jenny woke up. I looked outside and it was raining! The hostel served free breakfast so we went down to eat the breakfast. We had a choice between fresh fruit and toast or "pancakes". The pancakes had less flour and more eggs so it was more "heavier" than the one we usually eat here. It came with syrup which was like real maple or molasses, less sugary than it is here.

After breakfast, we went back to the room to pack our stuff up so that we would not have to wake the other people up when we left early the next morning. After packing our stuff, we took off to explore the city. We decided to go to the Van Gogh museum first. We figured out the tram route and walked to the first stop. Looking at the map posted at the stop, we realized we were at the wrong stop so we walked to the other one across the street. By the time we got there, the tram we were supposed to get on had left so we decided to walk to the next stop, and before we knew it, we were at the Van Gogh Museum after a lot of walking!!!!!! On the map, it looks closer than it really is. They should post a warning saying "Images in the map are further than it appears". Maybe there is one, but it is in Dutch, or German and we did not understand it. Whew!
We got to the museum just as it was opening, so perfect timing! We entered and observed Van Gogh's paintings amidst 1000 other people it felt like. In the beginning, his paintings were dark, simple and of still life. Towards the end, it became more brighter and more complicated strokes. There was one painting that Jenny and I especially liked so we took a picture of it. It can be seen in the Picasa album link below. Towards the end, it was evident that he had some kind of mental illness although the museum narrative did not say so. It said that he had eplipsy and was placed in an asylum. He discharged himself from the asylum and killed himself. Jenny and I tried to figure out what mental illness he had, to no avail.

After the Van Gogh museum, we vowed to take the tram after all the walking we did! We wanted to find the I amsterdam statue first. Thankfully it was only behind the museum and we took a few pictures. By that time, it had stopped raining, thankfully.

We took the tram to get to the area of the Anne Frank House. We stopped first for lunch at an cafe and ordered a hamburger with "salad". The salad was actually the toppings on the hamburger and the hamburger looked and tasted like what Americans would consider meatloaf. Very interesting.

We took off for the Anne Frank House (Annefrank Huis) after lunch. We waited in line for about 1 hour and for a brief time, it rained! Good thing Jenny and I still had our rain gear from earlier (her a water resistant jacket and me an umbrella). It was finally our turn to enter. Upon entrance, we saw some pictures of Anne Frank and quotes from her book. It was amazing to see how the family of 8 people (Anne Frank's family of 4, and another family of 3 people and a guy) lived in the small space to hide from the Nazis during Holocaust. Anne Frank's dad owned a business in the house, but what the Nazis did not know was that there is a small entrance to the hidden part of the house concealed by a book case and a steep stairwell. Wow!!! They did not allow pictures, so we did not take any.

Near the Annefrank Huis, there is a monument for the Gay and Lesbian people that were killed by the Nazis called the homonoument. The Europe tour book that I had said that it consisted of 3 pink triangles. When I got there (behind the house), I only saw one so I took a picture of it. Later that evening when we walked by it, Jenny found the other two that were concealed (one was near the water, another was in the sidewalk). They are connected by a line. One triangle represents the past, present and future each.

We wated to see an old church so we went to the center of Amsterdam. While there, we found a palace that the royalty of Amsterdam stayed in and next to it, a church. They charged too much money for an audio tour, so we opted not to go in. The palace looked beautiful from what we could see. In the search for the church we wanted to see, we walked through the Red Light District again, but in a very concealed area (you could access it by a very small alley that we did not go the night before because it was dark and very small). The church turned out to be closed (only closed 30 minutes before!!!!) and when we turned around, we found the famed Red Light District prostitutes. They posed in windows with a red light around it (one girl each window) in "sexy" clothes hoping to get clients. SO THAT IS WHERE IT WAS!!! I wanted to take a picture discreetly but Jenny refused to let me because she heard of stories where cameras were destroyed after taking a picture of them. It was strange because it was in front of a church... I guess people would go there to pray for forgiveness after sinning.

We both had to go to the bathroom so we walked around forever looking for a toilet. We did not want to go in a bar or "smoking" room because who knows what condition their bathrooms were in. I was about to give up and just go in a bar, when Jenny decided to go to a hotel and use their toilet. I thought they would kick us out because we were not guests at the hotel but they did not!!! Whew!!!!

After our bathroom situation, we wanted to go to the street where we saw a lot of shops, so we walked there. On the way there, we saw a huge souvenir shop with a huge wooden shoe in the front so we took a picture of us in it. Looked around and did not see anything we liked. We walked around the corner to the street. After our shopping escapade, we were STARVING and tried to find a place to eat. After looking at several restaurants around and not liking anything, we went ahead and ate Italian again!!!! That place was DELISH and had a TIRAMISU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I nearly screamed out when I saw it on the menu! Of course, we "shared" one after eating our Ham and Cheese pizza. It was here that we wrote our Amsterdam postcards.

We were exhausted after all the walking (must have walked 100 miles that day!) so decided to go to the hostel and turn in although it was around 7 pm. At the hostel, we signed up for early departure breakfast take away service for our early train ride the next day and mailed the postcards. In the room, we packed our stuff again to get ready for the next day's early departure and went to sleep. I was surprised I could go to sleep although it was still bright outside. I slept through the night with no problem! Finally, good sleep!!!