Amsterdam. Enough said?

Our next stop was Amsterdam, where we saw many canals, Dutch artwork at the Rijksmusuem, the Anne Frank Huis, and...lots and lots of "coffee shops". Oddly enough, no real coffee houses though. And no, we didn't do anything. Though I think we might have been affected by secondhand pot smoke, because half way through the day we started to feel lethargic and dazed.



But that might have been because we walked a lot the day before trying to find our "hostel", which actually turned out to be a campground on the outskirts of the city! But it worked out. Our A-frame was nice and snug, and it was fun camping for a change. We hit a warm spell around this time, too, so the weather was perfect. We evens saw some shaggy cows in the woods around the campground!





Like Bruges, Amsterdam had a carnival, with the highest swings ride that I've ever seen! And lots of good fair food.

The museum was interesting, and I liked their Rembrandts and Vermeers. But it was a bit of a rip off because the museum was undergoing reconstruction so most of it was closed off. We only saw a handful of rooms containing the famous stuff. And yet they still charged us a full price ticket, without mentioning the closures until we got inside! Bad form...



The Anne Frank Huis was an interesting place to see, and busy; we stood in line for about an hour to get in. As sad as it was, I felt it was someplace that I had to see. They had preserved Anne's room exactly as she had left it, with cut out pictures on the wall of movie stars and actors. On the wall of her parent's room were marks showing the children's heights as they grew. Finally, after the tour of the house there were exhibits about making sure that horrors like the Holocaust can never happen again.



After that, we did more sightseeing both around what I consider the "nice" and arty part of town, and the seedy part of town. We paid an obligatory visit to the Red Light district, but it was during the day and a bit of let-down after all of the stories I had heard about how shocking it was supposed to be. The coffee houses were more annoying than anything, to be honest. It was a rude awakening going from a place like Bruges to a metropolitan jungle like Amsterdam. On the upside, we found a couple awesome food places: Walk to Wok for cheap and yet freshly made right in front of you Asian takeout and a smoothie place. Amsterdam was also comforting because everyone spoke English--it really is less stressful when you have some way to communicate!