Amsterdam, Holland

First day-trip!  Amsterdam was characterized by bikes everywhere (even more than in Maastricht), beautiful canals throughout the city, tons of boat houses due to a housing shortage, fascinating architecture, and a New Age culture of sex, drugs, and acceptance.

I went with a really fun group of 14 of us Baylor students, but after a delicious brunch, we all split up into smaller groups and did whatever interested us.  It was fun to have a big group because there were a lot of options, but we still ran into other people from our group randomly as we wandered the city!




Brunch was delicious, we went to an incredible pancake place, where they put meat and cheese and all sorts of other things in the pancakes, so that they more resembled pizzas, but with pancake batter.  It was fantastic.

Weather varied from a 15 minute hail storm to beautiful sunshine and everything in between.  It was weirder than Waco.

Then I explored the city with Anna and Kristen, including a beautiful canal tour by boat,

lots of shopping, running across a gorgeous famous church (Westerkerk), and exploring a ritzy hotel by acting like we belong.

 I realized traveling is really not about "making sure you see all the sights" or "doing everything," but that it is really more important to just wander around and see the city!  It's fun to have nothing on your agenda and just enjoy whatever comes your way!

We concluded the afternoon with a trip to Anne Frank's house.  It was a beautiful learning experience: very sad, but very eyeopening.  Anne's writings are so powerful and her thoughts so beautiful; I did not fully appreciate it when I read her journal in 8th grade.  I can't imagine spending two years in the same couple rooms without ever seeing the light of day.  Her story is so full of purpose, yet so tragic.

"I long to ride a bike, dance, whistle, look at the world, feel young, and know that I'm free."-Anne Frank

[PS if you ever go, which you SHOULD, everyone should, it's definitely an experience to have, buy tickets online and you get to bypass the line that is outside in the cold for at least two hours.]

After an italian dinner (which is way better everywhere in Europe than in America- YUM),  we got a chance to see a little bit of the early nightlife of Amsterdam.  We walked through the very front of the red light district and watched people embrace the culture of Amsterdam, which was unlike anything I have ever seen before.  It was good to experience.

As I said in my journal, it was "saddening to see that our society has come to accept that stuff so openly and really glorifies using our bodies in the opposite way that God made us to."

Overall, Amsterdam is a beautiful, very neat city, but the culture is morally heartbreaking.  This city needs Jesus more than anywhere else I have ever been.

"We cannot change what happened anymore.  The only thing we can do is learn from the past and realize what discrimination and persecution of innocent people means.  I believe that it's everyone's responsibility to fight prejudice."

-Otto Frank, later in life after finding out his whole family died in concentration camps