AMSTERDAM day 2: things can't get better

Woke up at about 9:45am on our own to see another beautiful, sunny Dutch morning. We got ready and headed downstairs for our free hostel breakfast. Mmmmm granola! Our plans for the day were go to the Anne Frank house and visit the Hemp Museum. Word. We had a map telling us where the Anne Frank house was; it is located in the historical Jordaan District which is a gorgeous, tranquil area filled with canals, bikes, and cute little artsy independent businesses (think bookstores and whatnot). On the way we passed through Dam Square, one of the main plazas, and took many a picture and watched some street performers. We then headed over to the Jordaan District which was cause to fall in love all over again with Amsterdam. It’s so quiet yet lively there. Beautiful architecture, so many cute little cafes and restaurants, a vibrant bohemian/artsy/hippie population intermixed with a posh family population. This is definitely one of the wealthier areas, and yet it’s so modest. There are also numerous houseboats along the canal. We found the Anne Frank house (the office in which her family hid during the Holocaust, therefore the place where she wrote her diary and was eventually captured). There was a huuuuuuge line all the way around the corner, but we are patient people and knew that it’d be worth it. While waiting in line I enjoyed the sun and listening to/watching this cute British family in front of me. The kids reminded me of the kids in Harry Potter and the mom reminded me of the Emily character from “Friends”. They were a good time. So proper and…British. I can’t even describe them, they were just great. Anyways, turns out the line moved faster than we had anticipated and it only took us about a half an hour to forty minutes to enter the house. The exterior of the Anne Frank house is nothing like you’d expect. You see, it’s been renovated in order to accommodate so many visitors but with the intention of keeping it looking the way that it was in the 40’s. The outside looks really modern and is covered in glass like a museum. Kind of disappointing. We entered, paid the entrance fee, and began the mini tour. It started in a small room with a short video with a voice dictating Anne Frank’s diary giving an intro to how they ended up in the top loft of a Pectin sales office. We then headed into all of the rooms including the second floor which was home to the office and then up to the loft which had many little rooms. Each room was not furnished (at the request of Otto Frank) and contained excerpts written on boards on the wall from Anne’s diary that describe each room and important things that occurred in each room. The entrance to the loft was behind some bookshelf that’s teeny and hard to climb through (we don’t climb through it, though). Leading up to the loft is this tall, super-narrow staircase. Actually, all staircases in Amsterdam are extremely steep, it’s like walking up a long stepping stool or ladder with a railing. It’s so weird...kind of funhouse-like. Even my hostel had a steep staircase. It’s nerve-wracking. So we went up to the upper level where the Frank family hid out. They had to keep the windows drawn and be completely silent up there. For all of the years that they were up there the family never went outside. Can you imagine? However, I learned that the conditions weren’t too terrible—they did have indoor plumbing (a toilet but no bath…they had to use basins and pails). There were sad captions that really struck me from her diary—they were about seeing Jews being marched away in the streets and her feeling guilty watching it from her window. It’s weird because the cobblestone streets and old buildings of the Jordaan District have not changed since the 1800’s it seems. There were pictures of the street with Jews with their pins being marched along the street. I looked out the window to see that this street looks exactly the same as it did in 1945. I mean, Anne Frank looked out that very window to see persecution of the Jews. Being at the Anne Frank house really got me in touch with the horrors of the Holocaust. I really felt like I was living it; I got a first-hand glimpse of a life of persecution. There were video clips of the Jews going off to the camps. I can’t even imagine…Anne was nearly my age when she was taken to the concentration camp and died simply because she was Jewish. I can’t even imagine. It makes me indescribably sad. The final room was back on the first floor and it was dedicated to following the Frank capture and the publication of the diary. There were video interviews with Otto’s co-workers who had been hiding his family. After the invasion of the office and the capturing of the Franks, one of the workers for the office found loose sheets from Anne’s diary dispersed throughout the loft. She took them and arranged them and then guarded them for when Anne would return, if she did. All of the Franks died in concentration camps except Otto, the father, who survived Auschwitz. He came back after the liberation with hope of finding his daughters and wife. After awhile he got a letter at the office stating that his entire family had died. He read the letter in the office, and immediately following his co-worker opened her desk, handed him the humongous pile of papers and said, “This is your daughter’s legacy.” Ah, I get chills just thinking about it. Can you imagine? I mean, can you even imagine? There were then copies of the original publication and even some of the original manuscript in the museum. There was also a huge display of the diary in all of the languages in which it’s been published. There was even an Oscar statue donated by the actress who one best supporting for the movie version of The Diary of Anne Frank. All in all the Anne Frank house was a pretty moving experience…despite the loud group of Dutch kids on a field trip, hehe. Speaking of that, they were accidentally blocking a caption next to a model of the loft and Katie tried to read it, they moved and spoke English to her. These kids were about 8 and knew English. This was evidence that Dutch kids learn English in school starting at an early age—no wonder the Dutch speak such great English. After the visit Katie and I were quite solemn. We needed a pick-me-up. We coincidentally found a restaurant called The Pancake Bakery that this website about Amsterdam recommended. There was a small wait, but it would be worth it. Because it was quite full we ended up sharing a long table with two American tourists. This pancake menu was amazing…I mean, they only had pancakes (and some omelettes). And they had anything you could ask for on a pancake: sweet things, salty things, veggies, cheese, fruit, chocolate, ice cream, you name it! It was a tough choice, but I settled on the banana and cheese pancake. Yes, banana and cheese. You see, I couldn’t decide whether I wanted a salty pancake or a sweet one so I compromised. Plus, I had known that Dutch cheese is quite tasty. We also ordered some hot chocolate because it was kind of cold out and we wanted to get some real Dutch chocolate. Our hot cocoas came and they were quite delicious, although nothing like a Spanish hot chocolate, I must admit. Then our pancakes came. Katie got a apple and banana pancake. On our table was powdered sugar, butterscotch syrup, “American” syrup (a.k.a. maple), and then a huge pot of thick, sugary syrup with a big wooden spoon. I mean, this stuff was thick, man. I put some on my pancake which augmented the sweetness of it, but I mostly ate the pancake plain. The cheese part was great, and the banana part was like a little sweet accent. The pancake was huge, thin, and kind of crispy from the cooked cheese. It was like a super thin pizza with just cheese and banana, haha. Katie loooooved her pancake, too. They were huge, and we both devoured our entire pancake. Love the Dutch pancakes! After that amazing lunch we were in good spirits. We walked back towards our hostel and found the Hemp Museum. The museum really wasn’t that impressive. It was one floor and just had pictures on the wall and old paraphernalia. There was also a room where you could see all different kinds of cannabis growing. That was interesting, I had never really seen so much cannabis, and it smelled quite strongly. But all in all, the museum was pretty disappointing. We wandered for a good hour with nothing to do until ultimately deciding to go to one of the Bulldog bars/coffeehouses for a bit…there’s one right next to our hostel, and another right down the street. We grew weary of that and then walked into the Bulldog hostel and went into the bar in the back and parked ourselves on one of the comfy leather couches in front of the big screen TV. We sat on the couch for a good amount of time watching soccer on TV. This middle-aged guy from Cincinnati struck up a convo with us. He was kind of weird—he kept talking about how he had been at the clubs until 6am. This guy was kind of your typical dead-beat middle aged man with a terrible mid-life crisis. He was staying in Amsterdam by himself for 2 weeks! Kind of strange. Then the man who shares Katie’s bed came downstairs and started smoking by himself. Such a strange guy. Soon the middle-aged man went off with some friend and Katie went to check her email and I just sat on the couch and watched soccer. After awhile I realized that I needed to get up, though, so I went to the computers and sat with Katie for a bit. Then I bought paprika Lays. By the way, the Dutch have a thing for paprika so they put it on everything. Paprika potato chips are everywhere, and honestly don’t taste that great. I then sat with Katie eating my chips as she emailed and facebooked. Soon we decided to go back up to our room which, thankfully, was empty. We then both laid in our beds with the lights on and relaxed and talked and joked around. It was really laid back but fun...just like Amsterdam! Simple joys. Soon the old creepy man who sleeps above Katie walked in stoned and climbed up to his bed and sat there reading the paper. Katie and I laid in silence for awhile not really knowing what to do next...he's so strange! It took us about 15 minutes to finally decide to go outside. I had just looked out the window and noticed that the sky had cleared up and it was a vivid shade of blue. So we went for a walk. On the way out of the hostel we spotted a cat chilling in front of our hostel. So cute! So many cats chilling in the bars in Amsterdam! We walked all over the center of Amsterdam and I completely fell in love with it even harder. I took so many pictures. I was really getting present to Amsterdam on this walk because we didn't have a destination--we just wandered with the intention to wander and admire the city on a gorgeous day. You see, I was already loving Amsterdam, but oftentimes with getting lost and being tired I would grow restless and cranky at times completely disregarding how lucky I was to be in Holland. After walking for awhile we passed a fruit stand that had pre-sliced fruit out front which just happened to be mango, papaya, and pineapple. It was all looking so good. We bought mango, but I couldn’t pass up the papaya because, well, I’ve never eaten papaya. We then walked around eating our fruit and completely loving on Amsterdam. After more walking Katie and I decided that for dinner we wanted sushi since we wanted something cool, fresh, and healthy. We knew that there were sushi places in the Chinatown area, but, of course, we got lost. We somehow ended up in the Jordaan District. Being lost made us a bit stressed again…until we walked down some random side street. I was walking, looking at the stores when I saw this big bird standing there (about 3-4 feet tall) which I thought was a statue. I walked really close to it ready to dodge it when its head moved! It was a real bird!!! Then I looked to my right in the middle of the road and there was another walking down the street! Then I looked a bit in the distance and there was one standing on top of a parked car! I’m not kidding. It was a gang of cranes (I think they were cranes?) chilling on the street. AND they were not afraid of us at all, they just acted like we were one of them. We walked up really close to them and took pictures. So yeah, cranes. It makes sense in retrospect because with the abundant canals there’s bound to be random sea birds chilling. It started to grow dark and cold and we needed to find ourselves some sushi. I walked into a general store and asked the man there were we could find a Japanese restaurant. Ironically enough he didn’t speak English, so we exchanged some broken communication. He guided me somewhere but we decided to just continue towards the hostel and try again in another direction. Soon we found ourselves in Chinatown and then found a restaurant called Japan City with a huge picture of sushi! We were happier than happy. It was now 8:30, and restaurants don’t stay open that late in Amsterdam, so we were happy to see that it was open. It was also empty. I guess sushi isn’t too popular in the Netherlands. It felt so good to be inside in the heat and sit at a table. We had been walking for two hours! We ordered a bunch of sushi and just sat around content, warm, and happy. After about 20 minutes our food came. I ordered salmon, mackerel, egg, and eel nigiri. I am not kidding when I say that this was honestly the best sushi that I’ve ever had. I repeat: it was honestly the best sushi that I have ever had. The fish was thick and fresh and delicious. Until then I had been searching for the best sushi that I had ever had and I finally found it. I have never been able to say what the best sushi I’ve ever had is, and now I can. Amsterdam: best sushi ever. It’s because Holland is really famous for its smoked/raw fish. Its signature dish is the raw haring that you order by itself or on sandwiches at random stands and kiosks. It’s also known for its smoked salmon and mackerel (you can get a kick-ass lox and bagel anywhere). So it makes sense that my sushi was delicious since it’s a Holland specialty to serve fish like that…and they get some quality fish over there. So it was probably one of the most amazing food experiences ever. I didn’t order that much food, and I wanted to order more, but that single experience of eating the sushi I had ordered was unbeatable. I just couldn’t push it. I was not full, but satisfied…satisfied with the whole experience. I didn’t want to mess with it. But I did want something sweet. I didn’t want any of the cheap sweet things sold all over the place, I wanted a fancy cake or something like that. Katie was feeling me. We paid the bill and set off on our journey to find a fancy café that sold fancy cakes. We stopped in a bunch of places before settling on The Grasshopper, this huuuuuge multi-floored bar, café, and steakhouse that is near Central Station and Dam Square. Therefore, we had passed it numerous times on our walks around Amsterdam. The Grasshopper is lit up at night in all green, it’s quite stunning since it’s a substantial building right on the water (the green reflects and it’s amazing). The top floor was the fancy steakhouse, so we grabbed a seat at this fancy wooden table with dim lighting and a single drip candle. Our table was next to a window overlooking the street and canal so we got an amazing view of Amsterdam. We both ordered a hot apple strudel—another Dutch specialty. Yeah, we had some authentic Dutch apple pie. Jealous? It was amazing. It was a strudel so it was more of a stuffed pie filling. It had a small scoop of French vanilla ice cream, Dutch chocolate sauce drizzled on the plate, and a rolled strip of Dutch chocolate. AMAZING. And it was exactly what we wanted. I WAS IN LOVE WITH AMSTERDAM! We wanted to go out that night, but we just really weren't feeling up to the whole crazy going out all night drinking thing. All we wanted to do was drink a hot tea and watch a movie or something like that. We decided to go back to the bar in our hostel and just chill out. We got back to the Bulldog in about 10 minutes and grabbed a table. Soon, this lame guy of about 29 or 30 came and sat at our table. He introduced himself...this guy was Awkward incarnate. It sounded as if he was reading a script, ya know, trying to sound smooth but failing brutally. He asked where we’re from and our names and stuff. He had a lame tattoo on his arm and wore a black t-shirt with some logo on it. He immediately brought up the fact that he’s in a band--logo on the t-shirt--as if that would impress us. Then his friend came over, looked pretty much the same as the other guy, equally lame and Awkward (I capitalize it because they have dominated the realm of the Awkward). They just sat there and kept talking about themselves. But everything they talked about sounded like it was out of some sort of book titled, How to Impress a Girl. Literally. I mean, they kept talking about how much they’re into their music, how they’re really passionate about solving pain in the world, how one of them injured himself snowboarding and is now so depressed because he can’t do the extreme sports he used to love (oh, and he even named every extreme sport). When they talked about their band they asked if we had ever heard of punk music. Uhhhh. Then one of them was talking about how crazy the nightlife is in Amsterdam and how they have gone out all night and gotten so drunk off of their asses. That segued into showing off how much they drink and how they can drink so much and how they do cocaine to stay up at night and when they can’t sleep they just drink. They said this all as if this was impressing us. Five minutes into the convo Katie nudged me as if to signal how much these guys suck at life and how we should go. I was just impressed by their lameness and Awkwardness and was interested to hear what else they’d come up with to “impress” us. We literally didn’t contribute anything to the conversation, they just kept talking about themselves and their fabulous lives. Many times I started laughing out loud a bit (I couldn't help it sometimes) because I was just in awe by them. It was unbelievably hilarious. I had no idea people like this actually existed. I mean, these guys were 30, unemployed (except for little side jobs like coaching LaCrosse…oh yeah, they threw that one in), and in a “punk band”. The whole time I was sitting there I just studied them and their mannerisms and decided that I’m going to write a one act play about them. About that whole experience. It was so funny, I couldn’t believe it. I’m seriously still determined to write that play. I’ve got plenty of material now. Soon they tossed out the fact that they are staying in an apartment through the Bulldog hostel system (you can stay in private apartments) down the street and we should go over there for a beer and then go out with them. Um, could they not get our signals? I mean, I literally laughed in their faces multiple times. And when they started talking about all of the drinking and the cocaine I started making fun of them and made really mean sarcastic comments about how great of an idea that was. And I also told them that that was terrible and gross. I couldn’t have been more blatant about not being interested. These guys were so dense. They must have thought that we simply had to be interested since they talked about so many impressive things. No, buddy. We told them no and that we were just chilling and didn’t even want to go out. They then started making fun of us and calling us lame. Lame for knowing that I’m tired and not wanting to put an exorbitant amount of liquor in my body after a long day? Lame for not needing liquor to sleep at night and cocaine to stay up during the day? Let’s discuss who’s lame here. I mean, I wish that they could look at themselves. After talking to them, or them talking to us for an hour Katie signaled that she had had enough. Honestly I could have listened to them all night, I was quite entertained by their lameness and Awkwardness. I wish I had a camera. These guys are just beyond explanation--words do not do justice. Hence I am writing a play. So we got up and headed out. We needed a place to go so we went to the other Bulldog café/bar about a block down the canal. This Bulldog was really intimate, except it did have a basement. There are fun pictures on the wall. We wanted a hot drink, and the bar had hot chocolate! Perfect. So we ordered from the British bartender who was super nice…I mean, nicer than nice. We then grabbed a seat and drank our hot cocoa which was not bad, yet a tad bitter. We finished up and headed back to the Bulldog hostel. We went straight to the room and got ready for bed and were asleep by 12:30am. I passed out. It’s so funny—when we arrived at our hostel the first night and people were sleeping at 1am we kind of made fun of them for being lame and going to sleep so early. Now we understood…Amsterdam is exhausting! We then slept so well. I guess after a couple nights of adjusting to the hostel situation allowed me to sleep better. I slept so well except for waking up in the middle of the night to hear someone puking up a storm in the bathroom. Oh hostels. Oh Amsterdam. This turned out to be my favorite day, so many amazing things happened! I loved every minute of it and I loved everything about Amsterdam.