Long overdue vacation post, #3.5 - Amsterdam

The morning after our impromptu bar hop in Amsterdam, we woke up thankful that we had decided to eat pizza the night before.  I forgot to mention the pizza in the previous post.  AWESOME pizza at a random stand was the perfect ending to a fun night out.  I would have taken a picture, but it took two hands to wrangle that slice.
 

After a great phone call with British Airways (IN INDIA), where it was established that our luggage had finally made the trip to London and MIGHT, just MIGHT be joining us in Austria, it was time to head out to explore Amsterdam by day.  We grabbed our lack of luggage and loaded it onto the bus.  Our first stop was the Anne Frank museum.  Our driver, Johnny, was nice enough to drop us off at there, since most of us wanted to go before the lines got too long.  

 

We weren't allowed to take any photos while inside the museum, which was understandable.  Being there was very surreal.  Nick and I had both read The Diary of Anne Frank, but reading it and BEING there were too different experiences.  Being there was powerful, as we made our way from room to room, looking at pictures, reading letters and watching a story unfold.  It wasn't until we made our way upstairs to the Frank family's rooms that everything really came together.  We saw the walls that Anne decorated and the curtains that blocked the light.  We heard her words from her diary.  The littlest details made everything real.  It was more than reading the accounts of what happened, it was seeing PROOF that these people lived here for as long as they did, filling in the blanks, humanizing this family.  After we viewed the rooms, we walked through a final hallway that was dedicated to the liberation of the concentration camps.  Otis Frank was on video, speaking about his family and about the experience that they went through.  That is real.  That was history.  We were privileged to stand there and see the images and hear his words in the place where he lived and experienced his life.  As we made our way out of the museum, there was mostly silence.  I think that Nick and I looked at each other and asked the question, "How could someone ever claim that this never happened?"

Once we left the museum, we headed off to find the tourist area, which was supposed to have a few H&M stores for us to do some quick shopping.  Unfortunately (or fortunately), H&M wasn't open yet, so we wandered around the souvenir stores and tried to take in some sight seeing while we waited.

Every canal was picturesque, even though the day was a bit gray and chilly.  I found myself stopping to take pictures of all of them, knowing that when I got home I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between them.  Nick found himself rolling his eyes and stopping while I took pictures of everything.  In this picture, he's only smiling because I'm standing across the street, zooming in, and yelling for him to smile.  After I took this photo, he reminded me NOT to get hit by a bicycle when I came back across.  I crossed without incident.  The minor bicycle incident ALMOST happened in Munich.  Thank goodness for my cat-like reflexes.

Ok, so where was I?  Oh yes, the souvenir and tourist district.  H&M was still not open, so we wandered around, into and out of some of the little shops.  We bought our magnet (tradition and a long story) and a latte.  I also happened upon pot seeds, pot brownies, pot lollipops, pot chocolate and other miscellaneous legal (in Amsterdam only) paraphernalia.  Sadly, the voice of reason piped up again and I looked, but didn't buy.  We did buy some Gouda cheese though.  We fell in love with it when we were in Curacao, so imagine our excitement when we came upon an entire cheese store!?!?!?  My dad's souvenir purchase - DONE, after a bit of free sampling by us.

Finally, it was 11:00am and H&M was open for business.  Imagine my dismay when I discovered that ALL EUROPEANS WEAR SKINNY JEANS.  Yep.  SKINNY JEANS.  I am not built for skinny jeans.  I'm ok with that and am normally able to find other wardrobe options.  In fact, I consider it a public service that I keep myself OUT of skinny jeans.  However, in my desperate attempt to find and purchase clean clothes, I tried them on.  Um yea, bad idea.  Of course, Nick found what he needed, it was just me, having a semi-meltdown in the H&M dressing room.  Not so much because the jeans didn't fit - I KNEW that they wouldn't.  The meltdown was more because I so desperately wanted to be wearing clean pants. Instead, I stocked up on shirts and unmentionables and socks, and decided that I would figure out the denim situation later.  Well, later came about 1/2 hour later when I found "boyfriend cut jeans" at a different H&M on the same street.  These were pretty horrid, but they were clean.  Beggars can't be choosers, apparently.  So, clean clothes in hand, we headed to the bus to meet  our group, say goodbye to Amsterdam and hit the road to Germany.  But not before I took one more canal picture for the road.