Amsterdam

Canal in Amsterdam

After a nerve wrecking last hour driving to JFK and missing my flight I got on a plane to Berlin, Germany!  Once I got to Berlin it took a little to figure out how to get to the metro station I was meeting Tonya and Dave at and then actually find them! 

I spent three days in Amsterdam and it is a great city!  The first night that we were there we walked around had dinner at Hard Rock Café on the canal then I went back to the hotel and crashed!  I was so tired and I slept most of the way here from Berlin.

The second day we woke up and went to Anne Frank House.  I read the book when I was in sixth grade because I wanted to not because I was told to by a teacher.  I loved the book so much!  It was definitely a hard read for me since I hadn’t been reading that long at grade level and also because it was a hard subject as well.  While reading the book I even had nightmares that I was living in the annex and mom wouldn’t let me read the book at night.

The tour was amazing, it cost 9 euro and you went through the whole place.  The tour started in the new museum/ visitors center then brings you into the warehouse that Otto Frank had his spice and pectin company in.  In every room there were quotes from Anne’s Diary on the walls and some pictures or posters from the company.  Then you headed up the stairs into the office that Kruger had who ran the company while Otto was hiding.  Behind that was Meip’s office that she shared with another women that helped hide the families. 

The train station in Amsterdam

The entire house is empty exactly like it was left following the discovery of the families exactly how Otto wanted it.  To give you an idea of what the annex looked like however a model was built to the exact specifications of Otto Frank.  To get into the annex you had to climb up the front set of stairs and wow they are steep! I hit my knee on the step just walking normally.  Once at the top of the stairs you walk through a room not really sure what it was for and find yourself In front of the movable bookcase.  Seeing that bookcase being in that space was crazy.  I had imagined what it looked like for the last 10 years of my life and to actually be inside of the annex was mind boggling.  Anne’s room was so much smaller than I imagined it to be.  It was also surprising to see how well the window shades really did blackout the rooms. 

To be in a place that I had spent so much time imagining was crazy to see what I thought it looked like compared to the real thing was amazing.  It is something I wish more people could do.