We were supposed to go on a bike tour around the city on the first day in Amsterdam, but it was raining pretty hard so we asked if we could postpone the ride to the next day. It was a great decision, because it literally rained cold miserable rain all day. We had coffee/drinks at a nice little Irish Pub ( I know, again… not sure what our obsession with the Irish is) and watched soccer for an hour or so.
Our friend Eddie introduced us to a native named Jesse, and he invited us to go up to his loft to checkout his art. His loft was very nice and I really loved the concept of his art. He took recyclable boxes and painted Rembrandt-like pieces on them. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a loft in Amsterdam that you dedicated solely to art making?? Jesse then proceeded to tell us that he is an actor and showed us some of the commercials he’s been in world-wide. He was in a McDonalds commercial, BMW commercial, banking commercial, etc. and had won an award from Warner Brothers for a project he helped them with. We were hanging out with a true celebrity here and he was extremely down to earth and hospitable.
After leaving the loft, we decided to go to the Anne Frank house. Most of you have probably read “The Diary of Anne Frank” when you were in grade school/middle school, but this house/exhibit was exquisite and I highly recommend you visit if you come to Amsterdam. Scott’s mom had recommended we go (thanks Becky!), and I am happy we did because it was one of my favorite adventures in the city.
Besides the fact that Anne Frank and I share the same birthday and that we are both writers, I felt a weird connection with her. I ended up being the same height as her as well (her measurements were on the wall). I can’t imagine what it would be like to be stuck in an attic for years while being hunted by Germans and not being able to breathe the fresh air/run around/be free. How claustrophobic! I also can’t believe that after all that, they were actually caught by the Germans and only her father survived. It was nice to have the story brought back to us to remember a) how recent WWII is to us in our history and b) to remember that we never want something that hellacious to happen again. We must love one another.
The one part of the museum that I thought was truly sobering was watching a video of her Father’s thoughts after the whole ordeal was over and after he read Anne’s journals about the incident. He said that after he read Anne’s journals he was surprised and how little he actually knew his daughter and what was going on in her mind. He had no idea that she was so critical of herself and wished he could have known that so he could have been there for her more. It’s amazing how little we actually know about our closest friends and family members.
That’s something only our journals know…
That night, we went to dinner at a very “posh” place for a five course meal and entrance into an exclusive night club. The food was delicious… goat cheese salad, miso soup, vegetarian ravioli, chocolate strawberry ice cream dessert. The dinner that night was one of my favorite dinners of the trip. The night club was okay… it had a great D.J. (ACE) and Eddie kept saying “Let’s keep it poppin!” so that is what we did : )
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