day 3+4
ELLOOOOOOOOO!
okay so yesterday we decided to do the canal cruise, it’s kind of like another hop on hop off go at your own pace deal-y. suits us well as we’re indecisive and like to have our options open! the canals are great! there’s no current whatsoever so it’s a very smooth ride, lots of ducks, HUGE pigeons.. I think they bred with an eagle along the line or something.
we got off at the house of anne frank (or the anne frank huis… learning my dutch.. narrrttt) which was amamamamamazing, I loved reading the diary she kept, and love seeing places in real life where widely-known things have happened. does that make sense? hmm.
it was quite a discreet building, if there wasn’t a plaque you’d have no idea what it was. there was quite a queue around the corner so we jumped in line and waited patiently. I don’t know how long for. maybe 20 minutes. it was so insanely worth it though. you got to go around the house in its entirety. in each room would be a few quotes from anne franks diary, about the particular room you were in. there would be a mention of the steep staircase, and you’d go around the corner and then see it for yourself. and, it was indeed steep. it was basically a ladder on a tilt. I would go crazy having to walk up there each day.
annes father requested that all furniture be removed before it was turned into a museum, but he helped create a small model of the rooms with furniture scaled to size so that you could see how it was decorated when it was being lived in. in annes bedroom there were sections removed from the wall and encased in glass, so you could see the photos she pinned up to decorate it. it really was amazing. downstairs there was her original diary, too, in a glass box. such neat handwriting! shame it wasn’t in english, as I would have loved to read what the particular page read.
there was also an old video interview with her father, otto. he was the only one who survived the concentration camps, and was in a seperate camp to his family, so he didn’t know whether they lived or died until much later on. the interview is really quite heart-wrenching and mentions what he thought when he first read annes diary.
i’m blabbering - go see it for yourself folks it really is inspirational.
then we went and ate at hard rock cafe! so much yum I can’t put a yum-factor to it. it was that yum. we stupidly got a dessert each and felt sick afterwards from eating so much. who would have thought that was possible for bottomless-pit-emma, I know.
got woken up about 200 times during the night from our noisy roommates, though sam got woken up even more than I did. arrrrr.
TODAY! 21st October.
Today we got up and had to pack our bags as we were changing rooms (it was all booked out to stay in one room the entire week, so we did 2 seperate bookings.) sam got up to have a shower and I got dressed and packed my stuff away. she came back, got her stuff together and left while I got a few more things together as i’m incredibly slow. i walked out to try and find her thinking she was checking out at the front desk, walked straight past her without either of us seeing the other, I walked to the front desk, checked out and asked if my friend had already got our new keys, or just hers. the lady looked at me blankly and just gave me both the keys. I had no idea where sam had gotten to so I walked back to our rooms and she was right by them and we were both clueless about where the other had been. ahahah.
our new room has only 4 beds, hoorah! so we’re in for a peaceful night, touch wood.
we boarded the canal bus again and were off to the van gogh museum! soooooooooooo good. about 4 levels I think it was. it whad all his personal letters to his brother over a span of.. maybe.. 50 years? full of pen sketches of artworks he was working on, artworks he was inspired by etc. there were so many paintings you couldn’t belieeeve, from the beginning of his career using dark browns and greys, to the end of his career where he was using bright colours and bright backgrounds. it was really cool to see.
then we had hard rock again….. couldn’t resist. I tried ribs…. I’ll never look back! delish meal. and we shared a dessert this time. much wiser. still just as yum. coz man. ribs are filling. ahaha.
that is all for now. I have 4 mins to go and simply forgot to write in my blog until I only had 10 mins left to go! so. hope this is satisfactory for you.
P.S mum - what did work get you for your birthday?!
