March 27: Amsterdam

A Wonderful Sunday
By Augusta

Us at the Anne Frank House

Today, we went to Amsterdam to  Anne Frank's hiding place until she and her family were betrayed in August of 1944. We arrived around 12 noon and hiked to the back of the line that stretched all the way back behind 2 buildings!

It being cloudy and very windy; we jogged in place, checked out a cheese store and souvenir shop, and pushed each other around to keep from freezing completely in the cold air. :)

After waiting for an hour and a half,  we finally entered the museum's entrance. We got guidebooks explaining each room in detail as we moved throughout the secret annex.

 Life in the Secret Annex was stressful! The 8 people living there were not allowed to move around, shout, peek out the windows, or go outside for fear of being discovered and deported to the concentration camps. Otto Frank was the only one to survive the war, making it to the grand old age of 91.

He fulfilled his daughter's dream of publishing a book about her experiences in the Secret Annex. Her diary has and continues to inspire millions to rise above despair and firmly believe that life will get better and has meaning!

After we were finished with the tour, we went to a pancake house and ordered pancakes. The pancakes were humongous!! They were the same size as the big plate they arrived on. We tried a variety of sweet and savory panakoeken.












Next,  we walked through Amsterdam, stopping to look at candy in a chocolate shop before walking to Centraal Station (the train station). Once there, we grabbed some snacks for dinner since we didn't want to buy dinner at the hotel.  We barely made it inside before the rain predicted all day started dumping buckets of water on the town. We took the escalator upstairs and stood waiting for the train at which turned out to be the wrong place. When we realized it, it was almost too late! We could see our train waiting down the rail line and we all ran as fast as our pumping legs would carry us to jump on the train before the doors closed. We made it just in time (whew!).

 

The train took us to the bus near our hotel, then the bus took us the rest of the way home. This is the first day since embarking on our adventure that we arrived back before daylight faded, which was so nice! We arrived and saw the most BEAUTIFUL rainbow and relaxed for the evening.

March 26: Amsterdam

Saturday March 26
By Margaret, Alex, and Lucille

We went out to Amsterdam today. We noticed that the buildings looks different from France. The houses are tall and narrow. They were all lined up by canal/water ways.

There are many bikes here in town. This town is famous for bikes. There are few cars and many more bikes! We have to look out for cars, trams, people walking and bikes when we cross the streets!

We had some Dutch fries which are famous here. All fries are always eaten with Mayo. Most of us liked eating this.

We enjoyed walking around and seeing this new place.  We also went to the center of town and took pictures with the "I AMsterdam" sign. It was big and many people got on it or stood by it for pictures. We sat out at park and relaxed a bit and chatted before going back to our hotel. We all were very tired and wanted to go back early to get more sleep!

March 25: France-Lux-Germany-Netherlands

4 Countries in One Day!

by Scott and Joi

 

 

 

 

783 kilometers. 12 hours on the road. One small CRV/Van filled with 6 people and some bags. One car with three people and oversized luggage. Countless potty breaks. Four countries in one day. At last, We made it to Amsterdam, Netherlands.

We rented a van and car to drive up to The Netherlands via Luxembourg and Germany.  The drive was beautiful outside of Luxembourg. We enjoyed the sunset out in the countryside where everything was green and lots of tall trees. All this was something we don't see everyday in New Mexico and it was a nice change in scenery.

We look forward to more beautiful scenery in The Netherlands over the next few days until we return home.