Amsterdam

Wow.... Amsterdam was an experience. After about 8 hours of traveling (flight to Philly then a 6 hour flight to Holland) and probably an hour of sleep, we arrived safely to Holland. We spent 2 days exploring Amsterdam, and now I am at Clemen's house for the Christmas (Clemens was our exchange student last year).

Amsterdam is a cool city because there are canals everywhere. There is a new canal every block or so. Way back in the 1200s and 1400s, the ship owners built their houses and storage facilities close to the canals for convience. Every house has large hooks at the top to hoist furniture up and down. The steps inside the houses are very narrow, so moving is impossible w/o using the hooks. The houses are side by side, with apartments inside the houses.... Behind most of the houses is a beautiful (but small) garden, green grass area. Towards the center of the city the houses have 4 or 5 floors, but all the houses on the same block are the same size. This is because it was rude to build a big house next to a small house. So, the poorer merchants built 3 story houses further from the city, and the richer ship owners built their 4 or 5 story houses near the center of town.

BIKES are EVERYWHERE. I almost got run over I don't even know HOW many times by people on bikes. And all the bikes look like they are from the 1940s (style wise) Hans said they all look a little old because if you have a nice, new bike it gets stolen. Clemens said this style is popular because it is nearly impossible to break.

The Red Light District.... wow. Prostitution is legal here. You can find any race, any size, and any aged woman (mostly 20 to about 55) just waiting for a customer... they stand half naked in a clear glass door all over the place. If the drapes are closed, they are with a client. It was crazy... There were sex stores all over the place, even a few sex museums. Oh, and coffee shops where they don't serve coffee. Resturants and cafes and pubs do not sell pot, but they sell alcohol. Coffee shops, on the other hand, do not sell alcohol, but they do sell pot. Listen to this Dutch law. It is illegal to grow it and sell it, but they turn their head to that so they can tax the sales. So, you can sell it in a coffee shop, smoke it anywhere, but you can't sell more than 2 grams at a time and you can't have more than 30 grams in the coffee shop. Interesting.....

My dad has a friend from Holland who grew up in Amsterdam, so our second day he came to the city and gave us (Dad, Lynn, Anton, and I) a walking tour of the city. That's when we went to Anne Frank's house... it was so moving to be there.... very interesting to see where they lived and hide from the Nazi's... if you ever get a chance to check it out you really should. The steps were so narrow, the bedrooms so small.... yet it seemed as if they managed. It's so sad that most of the family survied until the last month or so of the war (after they were discovered).... poor Otto (Anne's dad...)

Around 3:00 in the afternoon Hans daughter Stephanie came and met us for a boat tour of the city. That was neat. We got on a canal boat and were given a tour of the city from the canals.... I must say I didn't pay that much attention because Stephanie and I were speaking Spanish. Later, Hans's other daughter Alina met up with us and the three girls went shopping for a few hours. The shopping here is really nice. Really really nice. Designer clothing, normal clothing, and of course touristy stuff.

I really enjoyed Amsterdam. It's fun to just wander around and get lost in a city.