Amsterdam - Day 2

On our second day in Amsterdam, woke up early to avoid the crowds at Anne Frankhuis (Anne Frank House) – I think maybe out the door at 9am. After seeing so many people stumbling in the streets last night, we were pretty surprised to find nothing stirring in the morning. And believe me when I say that we struggled to find a shop open to grab something for breakfast.

We made our way over to the Anne Frank House, which has been converted into a museum. I don't think any of us realized how affected we would be by our visit- obviously the subject matter is so sad it is hard to wrap your arms around it, but the visit made me feel like I was transported back to the time Ann lived in the house. Throughout the house and the museum that follows, there are audio clips from the Dairy of Anne Frank and video clips of the people who hid the family, speaking about what they did to help the family and what became of each person living in the house. It was a lot to take in and quite honestly draining.

We heard there is a pancake house near Anne Frank’s House not to be missed, so we searched it out in vain; but not to worry we found another one close by and had breakfast #2.

Next, we walked through a neighbourhood called Jordaan, which is seemingly the new hip part of town; eventually, we made it over to the Rijksmuseum, which has a great collection of dutch art. It is currently under major renovations, which could deter some – but it actually turned out to be a helpful for our time constrained visit: because only one wing of the museum is open at the moment, they have loaded all the museum’s masterpieces into one section, so your visit is filled only with the highlights from the museum, instead of having to specifically search them out!

In the afternoon, we took a boat cruise on the canals, which gave us another perspective from which to enjoy the city. Strange tour company that I am sure none of us would recommend as they were not the most friendly in the world – good thing their audio guided tour was pre-recorded!

For dinner, we didn’t have a set booking, but we figured we would find something. After walking around in circles, we found a nice touristy Argentine steak house – let’s just say the company was better than the food!