Amsterdam 2.0

Good Lord. Amsterdam. I reckon its all the kinds of crazy you'd expect, yet remarkably its still a functioning city, where people still go about their day to day business like there's nothing unusual about the place.

So here's a map of where we've been in the Netherlands. I think its a pretty good effort! Unfortunately we weren't here in spring to see the tulips fields in flower, but we still managed to see a fair bit in the few days we had spare :) And although we're super tired, its been an absolute blast!

We showed up at Anne Frank's house early this morning to avoid the massive queues, which turned out to be a massive time-saver - the queue was snaking around the block by the time we got out. It was pretty strange to see "the bookcase", but the most sobering thing for me was seeing the life-sized photos of the only surviving member of the secret annex (Anne's father Otto Frank) when he returned back to the annex after the war. Plus there were some really eye-opening quotes about how those types of discrimination/slaughter are still occuring.

After a fairly sobering visit to Anne Franks' House, we continued on with checking out the rest of Amsterdam's city centre. Here's Mish at the Hard Rock Cafe Amsterdam!

The "I amsterdam" letters at Museumplein (where the Van Gogh museum is).

They were big cuddly letters!

M for Mish

We also visited the Heineken brewery but its closed to visitors at the moment for restoration. But that's ok because we had Heineken with our pancakes the other night and we reckon it tastes just like the stuff that's bottled in NZ anyway :)

Coffee shops near the red light district. This is the TAMEST photo I could find to take. There are a lot of... sex shops. Every first shop you see sells some kind of cannabis, and then every second shop sells food....

This is what the red light district looks like. Basically rows of glass-windowed cubicles which the ladies sit in. (I didn't take any photos of the area lol, I was too shy and I it's frowned upon anyway, so I pinched this closed-curtain version off the net). The curtains are opened once business hours begin. The weirdest part of the district I reckon is Oude Kerk, where there is a row of these windows RIGHT next to a church!!!

Anyways, it sure was an interesting day! We're both shattered now so had a nana nap and now packing for the flight back to London tomorrow!

Love to all,
xxx R