Amsterdam Part 2

Amsterdam so far has been a blast. Yesterday we started with a walk around the Jordaan, which is beautiful. But it's more than just that...it's that no where in the Jordaan is NOT beautiful. I am very jealous of the people that get to live there. Brick streets, tons of cafes, canals lined with trees, bikers with Holland football (i.e. soccar) flags. Holland won against France two nights ago securing their place in the Euro08 semi-finals, so there was cheering and partying outside our hotel until about 4am. It's hard to blame them, everyone here likes to see the French get smashed. We walked around the Jordaan looking at the old houses (marked by engraved stone plaques above the door with the year it was built) for about 3 hours, but it didn't seem that long. The first place we went to in the Jordaan was the Noorder Market, which has stands selling cheese, meats, vegetables, flowers, purses, second-hand clothes, candy, etc. It was tons of fun to walk around in. It would be wonderful to be able to live here and do my shopping here weekly. We then went to the Anne Frank house and toured the secret annex and saw momentos of her life and videos of those close to her. It was an incredibly depressing museum, but I am glad I went. The hardest part was watching a video of her father (Otto, the only surving member of the 8 people who hid for 2 years in the secret annex) talking about when he realized his two daughters were dead (he did not positively find out until months after he was released from his concentration camp and went back to Amsterdam).

That afternoon we walked around the Old City of Amsterdam and saw DeWaag castle, which used to be the cities gates. There is a statue on the walls of St.Nicholas, who is Amsterdam's patron saint. Along the walk we got to see some of Amsterdam's skinniest houses. The skinniest is 6 1/2 ft. wide. Because canal space was so expensive and taxes were determined by the width of your house Amsterdam is filled with toothpick-wide, 5 story houses. It is very interesting to see, especially because of the interesting roofing designs they do here (when I post pictures you'll see what I mean). While walking around we met some little Dutch girls (probably 11 or 12) who had set up a nail painting stand and asking .5 euro for a nail painting. They were too cute to pass up, so now my nails are light blue and sparkly. Our last stop was the infamous red light district. Being Saturday night it was quite lively, not just with young guys, but plenty of tourists and families. It's actually a pretty fun place to just walk around and (literally) windowshop. There were lots of girls in windows to be seen, mostly dressed in bra and panties. Sorry guys, but no pictures from here. There are big, burly guys (sometimes seen, sometimes not) standing by the windows making sure you don't take pictures of the prostitutes.

Today we got up and first went to the Flower Market, which as one can guess has tons of tulips as well as other flowers and bulbs. In addition to flowers they have lots of cannibis starter kits, which go for about 6 euros. Mom and I decided customs probably wouldn't take it as a light-hearted joke to take them back into the States. Just for reference, here in Amsterdam anything that says "Coffeeshop" means they have weed and are legal to sell it. We went from there to a nice Sunday art market in the Spui area. There was good art abounding, but usually at a pretty high price. We then proceeded to Begijnhof, which has been around since....I think the 16th century? Now I can't remember...anyways, a long time! It was originally established as a place for devout Catholic women who did not want to live in a convent so couldn't be nuns, but wanted to live away from the hustle and bustle of Amsterdam life. It is now a general sanctuary and only houses women. The place is basically a bunch of houses in a square with a courtyard in the middle and 2 churches (one catholic, one protestant). There are some really nice gardens in the inside. We then had some lunch at a little cafe and I got to try a Danish classic, croquettes. They are hard to describe, but are kind of like the Dutch version of a hot pocket. They have a crispy fried outside, and inside a paste (kind of like mashed potato, but not potato) and pieces of beef. They were pretty good. I mostly enjoyed the cafe because I got to sit next to the owners cat who was napping in a seat near the window.

From there we went to a church across the canal that we had been looking at all during lunch. It wasn't on the map and not in the guidebooks, but it was open to tourists and had free audio guides in English. It was the most beautiful church I have ever seen. And I am including Notre Dame in Paris and all the churches I saw in Spain and Italy. It was called St. Fransicus Xaverius and I have no idea why it is not mentioned in both guidebooks we have, but if you ever come here it is well worth a look around. The architecture is gorgeous with tall vaulted ceilings and paintings along all of it, there are sculptures all around with incredible emotion sculpted on each face, and beautiful stained glass (although not as impressive as that stained glass church in Paris). On the way back to the hotel we picked up some food at the market for a picnic dinner tonight at Vondelpark. When we looked at the map of Vondelpark later we found we really hadn't walked far enough into it to see the pretty parts. The baguette we got was still warm when we bought it. I will definintely miss the fresh bread when I leave Europe. That's all for now, sorry these posts are so long, but I have a lot to tell and I'm sure you can just skim it ;)