I was amazed though that once I got there I found such a beautiful city! The center of the city has numerous amounts of canals with cute little bridges that go over them. The architecture of the buildings was also very beautiful. It was all mostly 17th century building's. They were also only about 5 or 6 floors so it did not have that big overwhelming city feeling. It felt rather homey actually.
The first day we got in at around 10 in the morning. We dropped out bags off at the hostel and then began to walk around. It was amazing to see that a majority of the stores were not open until about 11 or so. We were just walking around going down random streets and then ended up walking through China town, which is always quite an experience. We then turned off one of the streets and we were all rather surprised to have found our selves in the red light district. I could hardly believe that it wasn't even noon yet and there were already these women who were barely wearing anything, standing in these windows trying to get guys to come in. It was a very strange thing to experience.
Later on in the day we went to the Rijksmuseum. We had heard amazing things about this place. When we got there however, we found out that they were actually renavating and only a small portion of the pieces were being shown. We did however get to see some of Rembrant's work and also this piece that is called "For the Love of God". This piece was very interesting. it is a skull which has had over eight thousand diamonds placed on it.
The next day we went to the Van Gogh museum. Many of his famous art works like two of his self-portraits, sunflowers, and many others were there. It is always amazing to see this famous art pieces in real life. After the Van Gogh museum we went to some small little markets where the people were selling such things as produce along with some sort of flee market items as well.
Sunday started off with us hearing some honking from our hostel. We soon found out that there was a huge parade that was going on. We still aren't exactly sure what the parade represented, but a lot of the people dressed up in these sort of "joker" outfits and got make-up to turn their skin black. At the end of the parade, Santa from Spain came riding through on a white horse. It was rather entertaining.
My friend Becca and I then just spent a majority of the day sitting in this coffee house which was along one of the canals and read. We then walked around for sometime. Amsterdam was truly one of the greatest cities that I have been to just by the fact that I can just simply walk along the streets and just be so thrilled and so happy to just see the beautiful city.
On Monday we had another coffee house reading day and then later on went and visited the Anne Frank House. You go on a tour of the house in which they were living in hiding before they were caught. It was amazing to take a small look into the living conditions and small quarters that they lived in for months just to save their lives. The rooms were all very small and I could hardly imagine not being able to get outside and breath in the fresh air for so long. It is so tough to take a look into one of the families and see the struggle and the hurt that they went through and to imagine that that is how it was for all of those people during that time. it's truly putting a face and a story to just one of the millions of people who were killed during that time.
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