Amsterdam

 Amsterdam: The Venice of the north

On Saturday, we got on a two hour train to Amsterdam, in the Netherlands 🇳🇱 which is where half Tasmania's population comes from. The first thing we noticed is that everyone looks Dutch. You know how people from a certain country look that country? Like French people look French, and German people look German; and Dutch people look Dutch. Very much like the typical stereotype we see in Tassie, tall, blue eyed, and blonde, most people in Amsterdam look like that too, as well as being doppelgängers for pretty much everyone Dutch we know in Tassie. 

After we had arrived at our hostel, Stay Okay, a vibrant and wacky place that overdoes it with the wallpaper, we wandered around the streets looking for dinner, and probably looking very lost. Turns out, instead of there being Dutch food, like waffles and frites, we were staying in the Middle Eastern area, so we had a chapati 🫓 type bread with a yoghurt pesto dip 🤔. 

The next day, with very little breakfast, (for me, just a small yoghurt drink because we didn't want to spend to much) we set off to the Anne Frank House, meaning the actual house she lived in. It was awesome 🤩 and emotional 😭 , filled with stories and pictures, showing the secret annex and where she slept, and it tugged many heartstrings for all of us. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take photos, but I'm sure you can have a look online. Did you know that the only moving image of Anne was when she stuck her head out the window 🪟 to see a wedding? The annex was tiny, I do not know how they survived, but Anne was a very keen and gifted writer and she wrote many books and stories in her time in hiding. 

After Anne Frank, we went to an awesome place called the Happy Pig 🐷. It sold amazing crepe like pancakes 🥞, and delicious waffles 🧇! In the afternoon, we stayed at the hostel and just chilled😎. 

On Monday, we went to the Rijksmuseum and saw some amazing artworks and cool sculptures that were made by some really famous and influential artists 👩‍🎨. I loved seeing their work, particularly the awesome model of a sailing ⛵️ ship. 

Afterwards, we headed to a river cruise through the canals of Amsterdam. Did you know that it has more canals than Venice and more Bridges than Paris? Then we went for a bike ride. Let me tell you that the heatwave we though was going to hit Europe over summer hasn’t come or is delayed. The last few weeks have been pouring with rain and with a ‘boiling’ temperature of 22 degrees at the highest. So it really isn’t that different from Tassie. This also coincides with the fact that we were going bike riding. In the rain. And we had initially decided to pack bathers instead of rain-jackets. The bike ride was wet but fun. We rode to a farm which was in the middle of an enormous park. I mean, any park that’s big enough to fit a functioning farm in the middle of it without being able to see the city from it is enormous! I got to feed baby goats at the place, and we got some delicious ice-cream. On the way home,the heavens opened and we got drenched. We then went and got some Dutch frites with yummy sauce and ate them in the doorway of a fancy hotel in the rain. Tomorrow we leave for Germany.