Week 4: Amsterdam

Last week was our second and final week in Amsterdam. At Audrey’s request, we did our morning work this week in a coffee shop (as in a café, not an Amsterdam “coffee shop”).  We ended up at Starbucks because as an American chain, they have free wifi. It was a wonderful week working in different Starbucks locations, and I think we will try to continue finding Starbucks throughout the trip. Plus, it gives me the chance to get a venti coffee instead of European sized coffee!

Monday was a hard day emotionally for all of us. We went to the National Holocaust Museum. The girls learned about all of the people that were taken from Amsterdam to the concentration camps. They were able to search within a database at the museum to find kids that were there own age that were killed. We had lots of hard conversations about how people could be so hateful. We also were able to have some great conversations about people who acted as helpers resisting the Nazi regieme. More than 600 kids were rescued by being smuggled out through the building the museum now exists in! After spending some time wandering around the museum, we decided to go visit the Jewish cultural museum. The girls had a wonderful time in the children’s museum section. They got to learn about the Torah, reading and writing in Hebrew, and being kosher. The hit of the museum was making kosher bread to take home! Audrey also got some matzah that she ate with lunch all week.

On Tuesday, we rented bikes and got around Amsterdam the local way! I have not ridden a bike regularly since I was a kid, and boy was there a remembering curve. The girls loved the biking! Biking in Kansas is very different than biking through a city where everyone is biking, and dealing with the bike traffic was very different for all of us. Maurene’s favorite part of Amsterdam was biking around.

Tuesday was also challenging in a great way. One of Audrey’s biggest requests for our world tour was to get to see Anne Frank’s house. We made sure to get our tickets before leaving the USA to make sure that we could get in, as the tickets sell out about a month in advance. Pictures are not allowed in the Anne Frank house, which I really appreciated because it kept everyone focused on the museum instead of their phones or cameras. Kris, Audrey, Maurene and I had the chance to walk through the opening behind the bookcase and see the annex where the Frank family and friends hid for years. It was absolutely staggering to consider how they could have survived for so long. We talked a lot about how Anne was one of so many, and how the people who hid her family were doing the right thing even though it was dangerous for them to do so. The girls commented a lot about how it isn’t fair that the other people who were killed in World War II don’t have their own museum and how they wished everyone could be remembered as widely as Anne Frank. It was an incredibly powerful day and I am sure we all will remember it for the rest of our lives.

After a few hard days in a row, we decided to have a very different day on Wednesday. We went to a microbe museum called Micropia. We learned about bacteria, viruses, algae and water bears! We got to see how many microbes are on common items such as kitchen towels and doorknobs. There was an exhibit about the microbes that cause bioluminescence that I thought was amazing. We learned about beneficial microbes as well as harmful microbes. Maurene got to help move some microbes from one test tube to another, which totally made her day. When we got home, Audrey put all of the dish towels in the laundry which absolutely cracked me up! Micropia was Audrey’s favorite part of our entire time in Amsterdam.

On Thursday we decided to leave Amsterdam and take a day trip up to the Zaanse Schans. The Zaanse Schans are an area 20 minutes North of Amsterdam that was created to showcase what Dutch life was like in the 1700’s and 1800’s. It was beautiful and so peaceful. We had the chance to go in what is believed to be the last paint mill in the world and watch as the windmill powered a stone that crushed limestone into dust. Color and liquid were then added to the limestone chalk to create paints! We also explored exhibits showing how Dutch chocolate, cookies and cheese are made. We tasted some different goat cheeses, including a lavender goat cheese! Audrey’s comment was that the lavender cheese tastes how her lotion smells, and I think that was a pretty accurate description.

To finish our week, on Friday we went to the Amsterdam Royal Palace. The Royal Palace was incredible to see, mostly because it was originally built as a city hall. It was turned into a Royal Palace by King Louis, after his brother Napoleon appointed him King of the Netherlands. It was fascinating to see how all of the crowd control pieces, such as the plexiglass blocking off some rooms, were all removable so that the building could still function as a palace for the royal family during reception events without feeling like a museum. My favorite part of the palace was the floor in the Citizen’s Hall, because it had maps of what the Dutch people knew of the world and stars at the time the city hall was created.

Saturday was our final day in Amsterdam. I tried to pack in as much as I could before we had to leave. In the morning, I went back to the Zaanse Schans. I walked around and enjoyed the quiet, and then I got to watch traditional Dutch clogs being made. I learned that what used to be a 2-3 hour process to create clogs by hand can now be done in only about 5 minutes with the assistance of modern machinery! The shoes were absolutely beautiful. After leaving Zaanse Schans, I went back to Amsterdam and found Brouwerij ‘t IJ. I got a beer flight and had the chance to talk to several groups of people over the next few hours. I really enjoyed the view of the windmill next to the brewery and soaked up some sun. To finish up my time in Amsterdam, I went on another canal cruise. This time, I decided to go in a smaller open top boat. The views from the boat as the sun was setting were fantastic. I even got to see the iconic dancing houses! It was a wonderful end to a great two weeks.

Things I’ve learned in Amsterdam:

1. Amsterdam has more canals and bridges than Venice.
2. If you leave your windows open at night, you will be eaten by mosquitos.
3. Amsterdam was founded on the Amstel River, where they put in a dam. Hence the name, Amsterdam.
4. Dutch clogs are a certified safety shoe, like steel toe boots.
5. Amsterdam was built on swamp land drained by the windmills.
6. Because of the limited newly created land, there used to be a tax on making new homes that was determined by how wide the home was. The skinnier the houses, the cheaper the building tax was. Some buildings in Amsterdam are only wide enough for one window on each floor.
7. The houses were built on top of wooden pillars shoved into the ground. The crooked houses are the result of the pillars not being put in straight under all of the houses.
8. The city of Amsterdam is not giving out any new mooring permits for houseboats. Because of this, the cost of having a houseboat in Amsterdam has skyrocketed.
9. There are more bicycles in Amsterdam than people that live there.
10. The average Dutch woman is 5’9 and the average Dutch man is 6’0.
11. There are a group of people employed full time to remove bicycles from the canals.
12. There is a museum dedicated to art depicting cats.
13. Rembrandt is buried in a grave in the Westerkerk church, right by Anne Frank’s house.
14. If it is a café, there’s coffee to drink. If it is a coffeeshop, there’s weed to purchase – not coffee.
15. Marijuana is actually only decriminalized in Amsterdam, not legalized. One of my tour guides during the week thought it was hysterical that marijuana is more legal in some states than in Amsterdam, even though people often associated Amsterdam with weed.
16. Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands, but not the seat of government.
17. Don’t ever walk in the bike lane.

Next stop: Berlin!