There's Rain in Amsterdam!

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Not the best of nights with screaming laughter punuating the air throughout, finally sleeping we woke to heavy rain. We shouldn’t complain as this is the first real rain we have had on our travels to date but being British….we DO!! Woolly was all for staying in bed for the day but we wrapped ourselves up and set off to Amsterdam for a second time. The trams are so efficient and running every ten minutes makes it easy to get to everywhere you want to. Alighting in Dam Square (still no Dams to be seen) we took a couple of snaps before following the map to Anne Frank’s House.



Woolly says – Jo made me stand in the rain for over half an hour in the queue for Anne Frank’s House. I could have stayed with Ian who very sensibly went for a coffee but thought it would be interesting to see where Anne and her family were hidden for over two years. While Jo stood and chatted to a lovely Brit couple who were over for the weekend I stayed warm in her bag, although I did pop out to say Hi. Finally we paid our 9 Euro (approximately £7.30 GBP) and headed inside the museum. We understood immediately why the queues were so long! With videos running on continuous roll and one item on each wall to look at we were like sheep following each other round (sorry Sion, that was Jo’s expression, not mine). Opened in 1960 the museum is very thought provoking and given the space that eight people had lived in with no popping out to the shops, cafes or anywhere else, it was very humbling. Anne spent over two years segregated in the annex of her Father’s business with her Mother, Father, sister and another family, with the office workers putting their lives at risk every day to provide them with food, newspapers and all their other needs. They had to be silent during the day to avoid detection; I thought long and hard about this and decided that it would be impossible for me to do! The museum/former home for Anne and her family is empty of furniture which was Otto Frank’s decision on finding that his family did not survive the camps they were taken to and to represent the other millions of Jews who also lost their lives in the war. Having made our through the museum Jo and I thought to take a photograph of the outside (photo’s not allowed inside), it didn’t look anything much but then you never know what is behind closed doors!



Woolly was very good in the museum but once reunited with Ian and a coffee later we took him on a search to find the house with the Heads. The heads of Greek deities where supposed to stand proud of the building, we were slightly disappointed to find that they were fairly inlaid and looked more like Mozart and Beethoven than Apollo and Aries. Having looked at quite a few more canals we set off to find food.



Woolly say – We thought Chinese……WRONG! There are lots of Chinese restaurants but they were so pricey, averaging 18 Euro for Chicken Noodle dish we gave up and found ourselves in an Argentinean Restaurant. I had a chuckle to myself as Jo being a pescatarin was sat in a Grill bar!!!! While Ian tucked into a large steak (and I stole some of his chips), Jo chomped happily on her veggie skewers. Once revived we meandered along the canals and, though the rain had turned to a mere drizzle, it was getting colder and colder. We were still seeing ladies dressed in their underwear, maybe I could knit them some vests! Stopping to look in some of the souvenir shops I was quite tempted with their choice of cookies but went for a lolly instead! A beer at Rick’s Café (we didn’t see Rick) and we found our tram back to camp ready to snuggle down in Bertha for our last night here. Off to Armhole tomorrow should be interesting!

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