Amshterdaam

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Thank goodness for free internet. I'm sitting in the brand new library that's behind out hostel houseboat. It's extremely nice and they have free computers and internet everywhere. I'm sitting on a bed of cushions typing this. Dave and i have been here for about 3 hours.
In our "hostel" we are sleeping in bunks that overlap each other and are no more than 2 feet wide, if that. Our room is probably 6 X 6. Extremely small, but very cool. Although it's really cold out, we slept with the window open last night for 3 reasons. 1. the heat is ridiculously high in such a small room. 2. dave's feet REEK after 4 days of walking, i can't wait for day 22. 3. over david's snoring, the water hitting the boat has a very lulling affect. i havent slept in a boat in a long time.
Amsterdam is not like I expected it to be. All my friends really enjoyed the city, to me it is just a dirty city on canals with a lot of drugs and naked women. Outside this risky district which is about 3 blocks by 8 blocks, I can see the charm. All the narrow houses together on the canals. It's hard to imagine it ever being a classy city before all the tourism and the 60's. Today we took a walking tour (I forgot to mention in the paris blog that our walking tour guide was James, from Big Brother. I think only Aunt Judi and Carol will know who that is...lots of tattoos and a mohawk). Anyway, we learned about the history of the city and why it is the way it is today. I didn't realize the red light district dated back to the start of the city. It's just a surreal experience to be walking down the street with women on your right and left behind glass doors trying to get you to look at them. We learned on the tour that the women actually go each day to rent the rooms themselves. Never would have guessed that. The government is actually getting rid of the district slowly and replacing a lot of the windows wth high fashion. So, woman, woman, mannequin in expensive clothing, woman. Very interesting technique. Enough with the prostitutes, its also surreal to have someone walking in front of you smoking the night away and then have police walk right past them. Funny enough, Holland has one of the lowest marijuana user statistics, the only reason they have any sort of statistic is because of all the tourists who come in to take advantage of it. Crazy how taking away the fun of doing something illegal works.
This morning, Dave and I went to the Anne Frank House. Ever since I learned about her I've wanted to actaully see the house. Kind of a dream come true for me. I have actually been reading the diary over the past week because I knew we were going to go. It's a great museum and nothing like I expected. it really was a genius hiding place, you can't see anything from the main office. Just being in the rooms where she wrote the diary and it being so fresh in my mind was almost overwhelming. I could have spent a lot of time in those rooms. They are completely unfurnished but some of the wall postings are up still (all of which she talks about in detail) and some books and papers are displayed, but other than that the rooms are completely empty. It's really amazing how well known she is throughout the world as a symbol of hope and peace. Definitely a very meaningful experience for me.
On another note, Dave and I had the best chinese food yesterday. For some reason, the chinese restaurants here are quite popular. it was definitely some of the best chinese food i've ever had. tonight we ate in the library cafe because not only was it some of the cheapest food we've found outside of supermarkets, it looked delicious. It was buffet style but they[ cook all your food once you order it. We each got a pizza. We have been living very sparingly. we get free breakfast at the hostel and we eat as much as possible. we then walk for ages until we get so crabby we need to walk 5 feet apart. we then find a supermarket of some sort and find something cheap to eat, like a bageutte or today, a crossaint with ham. we then walk some more and do dinner, which, so far, has been splitting a meal because everything is soo expensive. The chinese food, thankfully we split it because it was a ridiculous amount of food (we were very excited). Tonight, we got our own food because after 4 days of splitting, i was ready to devour the entire buffet. Tomorrow, we're off to Cologne to eat some chocolate at our chocolate museum. I think my entry on food was longer than the amsterdam blog. David is convinced im a bottomless pit because i get hungry much sooner than he does and i'm always talking about food. I'm definitely looking forward to Italian food. YUMMM.
Sidenote, kind of, one of Amsterdam's staple foods are french fries...you see them everywhere and I didn't see them all that often in France. strange.

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Comments

[A.Emily]

Josse, Your comments are great. I was there when I was 18 with A.Nat and Nana. We also went to the Ann Franks house. It is really anazing how they all lived there and well worth the visit. I loved it. a.emily