Amsterdam

Amsterdam feels like a long time ago now...we arrived six days ago on the 3rd of August. I will try to recall as many details as I can. We waited almost two hours to reserve our train tickets to move on to Berlin, only to be told we didnt need them (upon arriving at the station for departure 36 hours later, we found out that indeed we should have had them--not impressed with transportation in Amsterdam). We were immediately struck by all the bicycles when we left the station. There were several floors of parking for bicycles at the central train station!--all full.
We got to our hostel ¨The Shelter¨--a Christian hostel--in the centre of the red-light district around 8:30 or so in the evening. Quarters were crowded in our 16-bed dorm room. We headed out for supper around 9, finding a little cafe (the outdoor patio was wreathed in smoke-rings, tobacco and otherwise) at which to eat.

Then we headed out to wander the red-light district for an hour or two. It was slightly weird to walk down these narrow streets with window after window framing the silhouette of a prostitute in its red/pink/purple glow. Above is an example of what we saw. It was even weirder to see them at 3 pm the next afternoon, lights off, but prostitutes still standing in windows and doorways, always ready for customers. We also passed the Hash Marijuana Hemp Museum, and quite a few places with Sex Musuem or Porn Shop or Erotic Museum printed on the side...they get good mileage out of their reputation!
All of Europe seems to have these cute little trucks to sweep the street or pick up garbage from litter bins on the street, but Amsterdam has taken the prize so far for smallest trucks. Here stands Karen beside one of them.
This view is looking off one of the bridges into the canal our first night in Amsterdam. Our second day in Amsterdam was not as nice...it rained most of the day, so we were glad we had gone out the night before.
Here is a view of some of the houses along the canal in the red-light district. There was once (say, 500 years ago?) some kind of a tax on houses wider than 6 metres, so they built them all tall and narrow to avoid this tax.

On Wednesday (the rainy day), we spent time in the Joodisches Historisches Museum, showing some of the history of the Jews in Amsterdam from the 16th to the 20th century (housed in several Ashkenazi synagogues), and in the evening we got into the Anne Frank House. This latter museum was particularly interesting for Karen and I, having read her diary. We got to actually tour the warehouse and house (annex) where she lived during the war years. Apparently, she had planned to publish a book about her experiences after the war, and actually had several manuscripts going (her diary, her book manuscript, and several other novel ideas) at the same time. Very interesting.