highlifer

Amsterdam, day 3.1

In case you were wondering as to how we entertained ourselves doing nothing but walking around, I hope these pictures of Amsterdam architecture help clear that up.

And that is what we did. Tom, Montie and I were up relatively early - since they were showing our house to prospective buyers and we wanted to be up and out before people started traipsing in. Montie had been raving about the Dutch pancakes (a combination of pancakes and crepes) so we went to the pancakery by our house. I had pancakes with a cherry topping (and a macchiato) and they were much better than I might have thought.

So, more wandering. All of us did a little shopping, Tom and Montie for chocolate, me for shoes. (Click on the yellow ankle boots on the third row to see the ones I bought.) Then we found an amazing record store probably the best one of the 3 we visited. (I still haven't played all of the cds I bought, and I'm not sure Tom has either.)

Wander, wander, wander, look, look, look, and then we were hungry again. We saw the Pancake Bakery (more on that in a minute) and ate pancakes again - and the first ones were good but these were amazing. What we also realized was that this place was just blocks from the Anne Frank House, the tour guides had said the crowds are slimmest right before close, and it was ....right before close. So we headed there for our tourist attraction.

The front of the house is very modern, and we didn't have the spirit yet (Tom: Couldn't they hear the Nazis coming up these metal stairs?) but as we kept going, and once you got into the house itself, it was quite chilling. Being in Anne Frank's room, with the news clippings on the wall, and seeing the growth chart that her father measured them with was beyond heartbreaking. All this little girl wanted was to be a famous writer, and I can only hope that she somehow knows what she has meant to the world with her writing.

Whew! So enough of that. We went back to the house, packed up, and back to London. Another one of those delicious train sandwiches, and we went to bed

posted by jamie @ 8:32 PM