Welcome to the Netherlands!

3 things about Amsterdam;
Bicycles
Canals
Cafes
They are everywhere at anytime in any place. That about sums it up.

Out of all the cities I have visited this one seems to be the most live able. Although the city center is buzzing with tourists, most of which are either trying (poorly) to ride bikes or trying to (poorly) avoid bikes or trams, the city itself has a hometown feel. The canals are beautiful, day or night, and the architecture of the quirky narrow buildings and houses are great to look at.

I had heard stories about Amsterdam. Mostly about the legalization of marijuana and prostitution. But I was still not prepared to wander along the city and end up in the red light district, where women casually sat in glass paneled doorways waiting for someone to knock and then let them in. The thinking behind it's legalization seemed mainly to be control. If it is legal then the government and police forces can sanction and supervise it. It would be interesting to see the statistics behind it all in comparison to other cities. Despite all that though I never really felt unsafe or lost in the culture, to them it was commonplace, and as a visitor you adapt quickly. The highlight of the trip was a visit to anne frank's museum, which is located in the original building where she hid during nazi occupation, and a day trip to Utrecht to meet up with a friend.

Anne franks father, Otto frank had set up the musuem in the 1960s with the help of the city and donated Anne's original diary and countless pages of writing. At the time of her capture, there were over some 1,000 pages of writing and editing that she had accumulated during her time in the annex. These pages were sparred by the nazi ambush through some miracle and returned to otto after he survived the war and internment camps. The rooms are left empty to symbolize all the empty lives and rooms of Jews that suffered during the war, but some pieces of furniture, wall decorations and the original secret bookcase remain. It was truly a humbling experience to stand where that family stood and only begin to comprehend what they experienced.

On a lighter note, the next day was spent in a town called Utrecht which is about a 30 minute train ride from Amsterdam. There I met up with a friend who I had met just before leaving Canada, and she showed us around her hometown. We visited their clock tower, church, a beer festival and an amazing bar called Olivier's. During the Protestant reformation Catholics were faced to hide their places of worship in buildings that looked like simple houses or in other secret locations. On the outside, Olivier's looks like a normal storefront or house, but once you step in there is a huge organ at the back wall, a high vaulted roof and acoustics that bounce conversations back and forth. After the tour, we were treated to a traditional dutch dinner ( I won't attempt to spell the Dutch names of food) that consisted of homemade soup, meatballs, sausage, potatoes with kip, and a yogurt and vanilla desert. Delicioussss. You truly appreciate a good meal after eating out or sneaking sandwiches in your bag from breakfast at the hostel. Then it was a few drinks with her friends and a very late train ride back to Amsterdam, complete with riding on the back of a bicycle to the station. A new experience for me that the dutch found funny to watch as a I struggled to balance on the cobblestone streets.

The day after was dinner out with some Brits we met at the hostel and a flight to Dublin in the morning!