Amsterdam

I arrived in Amsterdam's Centraal Station around 5 in the afternoon, and took a tram to the Orfeo Hostel, located in a very touristy part of the city called Leidseplein. After check-in, walked down the Singel canal to the Anne Frank House. The weather was very mild, and there were a lot of people out in outdoor cafes and bars. Even more fun, there were groups of people who were on boats having dinner parties.
There are usually very long lines at the Anne Frank House, but because it was later in the day, I was able to get in after about 30 minutes. This is the house where she and seven other people hid for two years. It was incredibly moving. You can actually walk through the secret annex and see how cramped they were. The pictures of movie stars, children, and roses that Anne glued to the walls to brighten up her room are still there. At the end of the tour, there is an interactive gallery that asks visitors their feelings about some very complicated issues we face today... should Holocaust deniers be allowed to have a FaceBook group? Should the cross be removed from public schools? Should hard-line right wing political parties who have a low tolerance attitude for Jewish and Muslim communities be allowed to run for office? Is it discriminatory to ban headscarves in public? Does freedom of speech mean we have to tolerate intolerance? You are given the results of your group in percentages after each question, as well as results from the sum of all previous groups. Afterwards, I walked back towards the hostel and stopped by an Argentinian steakhouse (there are at least three on every block, it's amazing) for dinner. There was a football game that night, Italy and I'm not sure who else, so people were pretty rowdy in the streets.
Amsterdam has been said to be Europe's jazz capital so there are plenty of great venues to choose from. That night went to Jazz Café Alto, which plays live jazz seven nights a week. It's just what you want from a jazz café, small, dimly lit, and ready to serve you til late. That night it was a quartet featuring Roberto Haliffi on drums and guest vocalist, a very charismatic Martha Cambridge. They played three sets, with plenty of old standards as well as some I hadn't heard before. I really enjoyed the show.
The next morning, which happened to be a Sunday, I decided to walk to the Red Light District. I figured it has to be the safest time to go, right?
Amsterdam in the morning is lovely with narrow, chocolate and cream colored brick houses, the canals lined with trees, cafes, and markets, and I was able to take some amazing pictures! Speaking of which, you are not allowed to take pictures of the ladies working the windows. It's considered incredibly rude, and at best a thug or the girl herself will come out and destroy your camera, at worse, throw a cup of urine they keep handy at your face. Nasty, unless you are into that :)
The Red Light District on Sunday morning still has some activity, mostly tourists walking through to get a quick peek before they go on to somewhere else. I wasn't sure where I was until I ran into the first red curtained window that was open for business. I'm not sure what I was expecting. The first girl I saw was in her early 20's and very beautiful. She could have been a model, but I was really struck with her youth, so young! I can't say I felt sorry for her, but I wondered how she got there. I left the small side street she was on and entered the main canal of the District, Oudezijds Achterburgwal. There were lots of other women working, of all shapes, ages, colors, and sizes. I'll never forget, one middle aged woman sitting at her window in a bikini, eating a box of noodles, and putting it down to start dancing at a man who walked past her window. After he walked by, she sat down and started eating again. No lunch breaks, I guess. I found out later that these women rent out the windows for 8 hour stretches for 75 euro and 15 minutes with a girl costs about 50. It was a strange experience to walk through the rows of women selling themselves, but I tried to keep in mind here they are registered independent workers with rights and benefits (pimps are illegal).
Later, I joined a walking tour with New Europe. For the next four hours, our guide Kendra walked us through most of the historic sights of the city. She was very sassy, really loves the city, and had been living here for a few years. By day she is a guide, and musician by night. We learned a lot from her. Afterwards, we stuffed ourselves with burgers and beers at a cafe next to Anne Frank House.
I had dinner that night with Michelle, a girl I had met on the tour from Vancouver, Washington. Michelle had just arrived that day and had joined the tour almost immediately after getting off the plane. I was amazed at her stamina. Dinner was at another Argentinian grill, and a couple of very nice and funny guys from Philly joined us later. We talked about the joys of traveling in hostels and how we loved the word "platz". It was a fun night, but again, low-key (I guess even Amsterdam slows it down on Sunday nights). I would definitely come back again.

Centraal Station






Leidseplein






More break dancers



















Westerkerk, a Protestant church designed by a Roman Catholic architect and built in 1631. Rembrandt might be buried here.












Anne Frank House












Café Alto






Early the next morning, these guys are still going at it!
























Oude Kerk, or "The Old Church", right next to the Red Light District.






And a coffee shop just outside of it. Doesn't seem like what you would expect from a notoriously shady district, does it?






In Amsterdam things are just called what they are, hence the Nationaal Monument. I am not sure what the demonstration was about.






The Koninklijk Palais in Dam Square












Unstoppable Kendra.


















If you are ever in Amsterdam, you have to try one of these waffle cookies! Delicious!












Nieuwmarkt, a popular square filled with cafes and shops. The building in the back is the Waag, Amsterdam's largest surviving medieval building. In the small tower on the left is where Rembrandt worked on The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp.






Het Houten Huys, or "The Wooden House". One of two wooden buildings left in the city, all the others burned down in a fire centuries ago. This is in the Beginhof square.












The narrowest house in the city. Due to the narrowness of most of these buildings, when someone wants to bring in a large piece of furniture, it is hoisted up with a rope attached to a plank of wood the extends out from the top, rather than carried inside. Thing is, the object would often hit the house while it was going up. The solution was to build the houses slightly pitching forward to avoid damage. Later they realized that they could have just made the plank extension longer :)












The two days in Amsterdam just flew by. There are only a few days left before I head back to the states. The plan is Brussels, London, Ireland, and then I fly out of Heathrow on May 17 th.

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