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Alex and I spent the day in the Jordaan and Canal districts of Amsterdam. We started off at the Centraal train station and worked our way to the Westerkerk area. On a whim we took a short canal tour, and it was great to see all of the major neighborhoods adjacent to the canals. Our skipper spoke perfect English, and he did a great job explaining the history of the city. It humbling to learn about the rise and fall of Dutch power and how much bigger the world, past and present, is than day-to-day life.
By the end of the tour, we were baked by the sun. Our beautiful cool weather is gone...now it's really hot, and we are sweating non-stop.
After the tour, we ate lunch at Amsterdam Pancake. Alex was smart to get real food (ham & cheese on a thin pancake). I, on the other hand, indulged in poffertjes, a traditional Dutch treat of miniature pancakes swimming in butter and sugar. They were SO GOOD!!
We walked the Jordaan shopping district looking at interesting stores until our tour of the Anne Frank House. Having read much of the diary and seen the play when
I was younger, I thought I was well prepared for the tour, but really was not. Walking through the actual rooms where Anne, her family, and four other people hid from the Nazis for two years was heartbreaking and overwhelming. Though the tour was packed, no one spoke through the whole event. Everyone was overwhelmed by so many feelings. At the end of the tour we learned that Amsterdam had 85,000 Jews at the start of German occupation, and by the end of the war that number was 5,000. Everyone else was murdered. Just so pointless and sad.
We dropped some things at the flat and returned to the central city soon after. This time, we went to the Museumplain, an area that houses the city's museums. Though the museums were closed, we saw the incredible architecture of these huge buildings, most of which dates back hundreds of years. Truly awe-inspiring. We also visited Vondelpark, a giant park in the middle of the city. Lots of people were just hanging out, catching sun and enjoying their herbs. Alex and I stuck to enjoying only the beauty of the flowers and trees - and it was indeed beautiful.
We
walked the canals looking for someplace to eat that was not outrageously priced. Our first stop at the Dam (the original city square and center of Amsterdam) was not a good one. This was our first truly awful meal. We left in search of ice cream for Alex, and the tiny little shop we found was incredible! That dark chocolate and salted caramel was about the best ice cream I've ever had. After a bit more walking, we stopped at a cafe, where we had drinks and bitterballen, a traditional Dutch snack of meat, cheese, and flour fried into little balls. That was truly delicious, too, and the ambience of the café was perfect. We watched people walking the streets as the sun slowly set. We finally got back to the flat around 2330 and got ready for our trip to Brussels Thursday. We also Facetimed with Whitney, which was really nice.
I feel like I am writing so much and posting lots of pictures, but it doesn't begin to capture how amazing this trip has been and how special the time with Alex is. Here's hoping that this blog gives you a tiny sense of our wonderful time
together.
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