Day One: Amsterdam

Even though this is labeled as our first day in Amsterdam, I'm adding a bit of the day before since it was spent in the plane on our way there. Our flight took off at 4:00 PM on Friday and landed in Amsterdam around 11:00 AM the next day. I've never been on such a long flight, but it went alright.

I was able to get some sleep and the food on the plane wasn't too bad. When we landed the excitement kicked in to help mask a certain amount of my fatigue.

After we checked into our hotel, Chris, Annie, and I headed off to a nearby grocery store to pick up some food.

After a bit of food and rest, we made our way to the Van Gogh Museum. I found a new favorite Van Gogh painting.

Wheatfield under Thunderclouds

A nice Dutch man offered to take a picture of my mom and me in front of the painting. A group of guys came up behind us and he tried telling them to move, but they didn't realize he was talking to them. He then walked in front of them and forced them to move for us. After the picture he asked if we were Scottish or Irish. Apparently we didn't sound like Americans. When we told him we were Americans, he started talking about President Trump. Mom diverted his attention and we parted as friends.

After the Van Gogh Museum, we walked to the Anne Frank House. I couldn't help but stop and take as many pictures as I could along the way there.

Before going into the attic space Anne Frank lived in, there was a presentation to give context to the rise of the Nazis and why the Frank family went into hiding. They don't allow pictures inside of the rooms and so that's why I don't have any.

This is a replica of Anne Frank's diary.

It was amazing to see how small the rooms are that they lived in. Anne Frank's father is the only person that lived there that survived the concentration camps. When he came back, the rooms were emptied. He decided to leave them that way so the visitors could have that same experience he had. There was a peaceful reverence in the rooms as we went through.

The windows are still blacked out in the upper rooms.

We went down the street for dinner at The Pancake Bakery. I got the pannenkoek spek en kaas or the bacon and cheese pancake. Dutch pancakes are thin like crepes. We also shared an order of poffertjes. Those are little bit sized pancakes that are fluffier than American pancakes.

Dinner was delicious! If anyone ever plans on going to Amsterdam, you will want to eat there. There are tons and tons of options and we went there two days in a row because it was so good.

Instead of walking back to our hotel, we decided to take the tram (light rail) back. We ended up having to wait for quite some time because the ones that we could take back wouldn't stop or would somehow get delayed. Eventually, we shoved our way in and made it back to our place for the night.

That was day one!