I AMsterdam

Friday started BRIGHT and EARLY! We were on the bus at 6:00 headed to Amsterdam. I was really looking forward to this day just to compare the cities. We had to leave Antwerp so early because of our first site visit. We were off to visit the Dutch Flower Market. 

Before this course I had never heard about the flower markets let alone even thought about where flowers came from. Essentially the flower markets are a place where all sizes of growers bring their flowers in order for them to be auctioned off to retailers and other middle men. It enables the smaller growers to be able to participate in the market. The logistics of the market is incredible. I took videos so that I could show how quickly everything moves. I also have a video of the auctioning that I hope to put together sometime soon. The auction is a Dutch auction meaning that it goes backwards. The price starts high and then drops from there. 

The automated tracks that moved the flowers

One buyer's flowers for the day

One of the three auction rooms

The flowers would come through the front of the room

So glad we got to see this. I definitely appreciate this market so much more now.

Also fun fact, 10% of all the semi trucks traveling through Holland are carrying flowers!

After the flower market it was back on the bus for another hour to head into the city of Antwerp. We got to the city just in time for our boat tour at 11:00. What a great way to start the morning. The tour itself was about an hour and a half and it was a good way to relax a little bit after our hectic days of traveling and our uber early morning. A few of us went to sit on the back of the boat and it was a great decision. A breezy day on the canals of Amsterdam, can't complain at all.

Our boat

Waiting to board

It was too early for them…

Also, sorry for the excessive amount of the canal photos. I have probably a hundred more on my computer that I haven't put up here. So hard to choose the best ones. We saw a lot in that hour and a half!

Our boat boarded right across from the Heineken brewery. I'd love to come back and get to go through the Heineken Experience. It's supposed to be one of the best brewery tours. 

Some of these photos appear a tad bit blurry. Taken from a moving boat..

A lot of people live on small house boats along the canals. Amsterdam has run out of land in the city to build upon so this is becoming a more common place to live. 

We hopped off the boat and had three hours to waste in Amsterdam. By the time we grabbed some food for lunch we only had about two hours which wasn't enough time to get through a museum so we ended up walking around the city.

First stop, however, pancakes!

So. Good.

Our map to find our site visits. Our visits for the day was first at Our Lord in the Attic and then second at the Anne Frank House. To find these we each got maps when we stepped off the boat and were told to find #25 at 3:45 and #4 at 7:30. I liked the challenge. 

From the pancake place we took off to explore the streets. 

This was definitely one of the most crowded cities I have ever been in. Very very touristy. It was a lot different than what I thought it would be like.

Blurry walking photo. I loved the canals though. 

Church in the middle of the Red Light District. 

We did walk into the oldest Coffeeshop in Amsterdam. Interesting to see but not my scene.

More walking.

And more walking.

Feet dying.

This was super cool! I definitely had my doubts when I heard that we were visiting yet another church especially when I heard it was called "Our Lord in the Attic".  The church was essentially built in a house during the time of the Protestant / Catholic conflict as a way for Catholics to secretly practice their religion. Apart from this there was also confessionals in a separate room as well as the priest's living quarters and the rest of a fully functioning house with two rooms for guests. 

This tour was self guided and only took about 30 minutes to get through. So what did that mean? More time to wander. We walked around the streets for another hour and finally decided to find a place to sit down. John was deadset on finding a cafe on the canal and after another 30 minutes of walking we finally found a place to sit all 8 of us with moderately priced food and drinks. Amsterdam is a lot more expensive than Belgium is.

Our view.

Wells got artsy with this one. But you can see the cafe storefront in the background.

Cheese

Soakin in Amsterdam.

We ended up spending about 3 hours at this little cafe. A lot of people had sprinted off to find a tour or a museum to run through but I'm so glad we decided to do this. We got to soak in a lot of the city around us. It was refreshing to have a good amount of free time in a city to explore it ourselves. It's easier to get a feel for the culture. Museums are great but I preferred the roaming here. 

After three hours of sitting, Stella and an amazing Mozzarella pizza we headed off to our last site visit of the day, the Anne Frank House.

Sights from our walk to the museum.

This is the street that the house is on. It shocked me that it was right in the middle of bustling Antwerp. It's easy to miss the building. They have constructed a facade around the outside of the house that is now the museum.

Unfortunately, there were strictly no photos allowed in the museum however I can tell you that it was a moving experience. You start with a short film on the background of the family and their story of going into hiding. There are videos of neighbors and the receptionist in Mr. Frank's office telling stories of their assistance in hiding. I was blown away by the fact that we walked in their house. If you have read the book she does describe it exactly as it is. There are the knee-breaking stairs that are more like a ladder. These take you from the second floor of the building which was the office up to the landing with the bookcase. 

The most moving experience for me was walking through the wall into their hiding place. The bookcase is still fully functioning and just like Anne described it you must first duck and then climb into the space. You're then greeted again with an even steeper set of stairs that take you to their hiding place.  Anne's room was also very moving. The original wallpaper in all of the rooms is still intact however in Anne's room the magazine clippings and pictures that she glued onto the walls are still hanging there. I think that was the moment that made it all feel real. Moving through the house you can see the steps up to the attic. They have glass over the ladder however with a mirror they have shown you what Anne would walk up to the attic and look at. It's the only window open and you can see the tree that she described in her diary. It takes your breath away. 

After touring the rooms, they have all of the concentration camp entry cards of all of the people living in the hiding place. There is also the book of all of the Jews killed in the concentration camps. With the size of the book and the size of the font, it's very powerful. I tried to remember the page number that "Frank" was on and I believe it was in the 400s. It covered both pages that the book was open to. 

Lastly, the last room takes you to see her actual diary. The pink plaid book is pretty hard to look at. Something that I did not realize was that she had begun to rewrite her diary for the possibility that it would be published after the war. The museum has pages and pages of these rewritten pages in cases around the wall as well as pages of her short stories, poems and the start of her novel.

If you are ever in Amsterdam, do not pass the house. It's one of the most moving things I have ever seen and definitely made the bus ride back a somber one.

All in all, it was not one of my favorite cities but Amsterdam was one of my favorite days on this trip so far. 

Emily