July 20th
We pull into Amsterdam on Lauren’s 25th birthday and surprise surprise its actually beautiful! I guess one hears so many stories about certain activities of the city and assumes the average individual is walking around in a cloud of chemical confusion… If you know what I mean… But actually Amsterdam is another city built on canals and has beautiful architectural canal homes. They are so tall and narrow that they all have hooks on the top in order to be able to hoist the furniture through the windows. Amsterdam is a city of museums. It boasts some of the biggest impressionist museums of the entire world including Van Gogh and the Reicht museum. Day one here we check into our very first hostel! After certain movies, we were certainly slightly apprehensive of what was to come so at one of the gas station stops prior to arriving in the city we pulled the birthday card with our TG and asked him to set us up in the one room that was only going to have 2 peeps in it. Heck yeah. You only turn 25 once and why not use it for a little leverage to avoid sleeping with 6 other girls…?! We crossed our fingers, played it cool and upon check in he slid our key at us and sure enough we scored the double. After the door shut behind us, I’m not going to say that a little celebration dance didn’t happen.
After listening to all the other group members complain about their room set up, we went on an orientation walking tour of the city center. Our hostel is very close to the I Amsterdam sign, so everyone had to stop for a few pictures. We walked by Van Gogh museum, across canals, past waffles stands, and “coffeehouses”, and in through the Leninplatz square. Amsterdam has a whole street dedicated to its flower market so we got to see the little stands setup up on the water filled with tulips, roses, sunflowers, lilies, etc… They also have an entire shopping street dedicated for pedestrians only. Yes mam! Why is this so exciting you ponder? Because Am-dam (as I’ve been abbreve’n it) has a raging love affair with bikes. It makes Munich’s bike population look like they just found out what a bike is. Everyone here rides bikes. And after our recent experience wheeling around the German streets we agree that it’s actually a pretty fantastic way to get around… They have lanes dedicated for bikers only. If you so happen to cross into one of them as you casually stroll the streets the locals start with a polite bell jingle, and if that doesn’t jog you out of your stupidity, they will literally pop you as they pass. These people are serious about their lane. Let’s just say, between Lauren and I, there’s been some close calls…
We journey onto Anne Frank’s house. And yet again, get to experience another once in a lifetime location. The building is a discrete little canal house which was originally a factory/warehouse that Anne’s father worked at. There’s always a line to get in and so we waited for about 30 minutes, but finally got to go in. Otto Frank requested that the annex never be re-furnished to its original state after the Germans trashed it. But the museum has set up models and pictures of what it used to look like. It was chilling to get to see the bookcase that hid the narrow, steep staircase leading to the annex. In Anne’s room, the wallpaper that she had pasted pictures on is still intact and in place. They have Margot’s schoolbooks, the family Bible, and Anne’s actual original diary. It was amazing to see her little handwriting. There was video documentary of a friend and her father. One friend was able to tell about how she was on the other side of Aushwitz and right after Margot died of Typhoid, she found out Anne Frank was on the other side so they would meet even though they couldn’t see each other. Anne told her that everyone was gone, her whole family had died. She didn’t know her father still lived. Then one day Anne didn’t show up. Anne’s father spent almost 2 years after liberation desperately searching to find out where Anne and Margot were. He believed that they had actually survived and there are letters between him and his brother discussing where the girls were. It was such a sad place, and to know that they were concealed for 2 years and almost made it out.
For Lauren’s birthday bash a group of us headed out to Boom Chicago. In Am-dam. An English-speaking comedy club that did hilarious improv! We all had a blast laughing and actually understanding the language… Post comedy show, we strolled down the busy nightlife streets , stopping to watch some break dancing (see Lauren’s profile pic) and then on to yet another American experience: Bourbon Street music bar. We got to hear spectacular live New Orl’n blues played by 40 year old Dutch men in sleeveless shirts and converses. Last but not least, we topped off the evening with Apple Bottom jeans at a dance spot called “Amsterdamed”… Kimbo and Carrie: Lauren made no promises ;)… I did have a total old lady moment on the dance floor though. At the part in the song where it instructs one to “get low”, I was working my way to the floor and was getting a little fatigued as one will get when trying to bounce to a techno beat, so since there was a step there (which led to another dance floor) I just use that as the opportune moment to “get low” by sitting down… And continue dancing from a discrete sitting position before it was time to Apple Bottom again. Wow I’m getting old.
So Lauren is officially 25.
-Jenny & Lauren-