The Thirty-First Day: Amsterdam, Anne Frank House, Red Light District

Sunday, March 9

We flew to Amsterdam today! Shortest flight of my life, it was like 45 minutes. Silly.  After we figured out the train system (the first train we were on was SUPPOSED to stop at the Amsterdam RAI station, and didn't! Sneaky. So we had to get off at the next station, catch a train going back the way we came, then ride it back to the RAI stop), and got checked into our hotel, we ditched our bags and went exploring.

The buildings here are lovely.

We grabbed a quick snack: Frites with mayo. Very Dutch. 

 Then we made our way to the Anne Frank House.  After Anne Frank and her family fled Germany, they lived in hiding for 2 years and 29 days in the Secret Annex, a hidden part of her father's office building in Amsterdam. Being in the Annex was a pretty emotional experience from me. I'd cherished Anne's story since first reading it when I was a 12 year old girl, just a year younger than Anne when she went into hiding.  When I was a girl, I always admired her optimism. She wrote, “I don't think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.” 

They don't allow photography of the interior of the building.  This is the exterior. 

The canal just across from the Secret Annex.

After leaving the museum, we wandered the city. 

A nearby statue of Anne.

The Rembrandtplein. They sure do love their Rembrandt in Amsterdam. 

Out of curiosity, we ventured into the Red Light District, the world's most renowned area for legalized prostitution. I was pretty nervous about the kinds of things we'd see, but to be honest, I'd seen women a lot less clothed walking down the Las Vegas Strip.  It's a very weird, very interesting cultural phenomenon, to be sure. 

See those red windows? Yup. All filled with ladies just waiting for their customers.  

Definitely not in Utah anymore. I found it hard to come to grips with the fact that the majority of these ladies have chosen this as a career path. A friend of mine put it exactly right when she said Les Miserables conditioned her to feel exceedingly sad about prostitutes.

Anyway, we got outta that part of town pretty quickly, and headed back to the hotel, where I took about a million baths during the course of our 2-night stay. I've missed having a bathtub. The things you take for granted, huh?

More about Amsterdam in the next post. Until then.

Cheers!
Kami & Chris, the Pseudo-Londoners