Amsterdam: Day 1

Our first full day in Amsterdam we went back to the flea market we thought was on Sunday, because it was conveniently on Monday. Kim bought some stuff, but I didn't see anything I liked. After that we wandered around some more shops, and headed over to a FREE TOUR! Some major cities have students or young graduates doing tours for tips-only, and to advertise the other tours, the ones that cost money. We had never done an organized tour before, because usually we prefer to see just the things that interest us, but we figured we'd try it and it was actually really good.

The tour lasted THREE HOURS (I wasn't expecting that at all) and took us all over - through the red light district, showed us the Jewish neighborhood, the shopping district, historical sights, etc. etc. The tour guide was great and really enthusiastic, and had tons of insight and stories. He even gave us discount tickets to a pub crawl put on by a partner company.....more on that to come :D

Notable sights:



This is the Jewish district? Notice that it looks like it was designed by college students on acid in the 1960s? IT WAS! During the Hunger Winter of 1944-1945, when the Nazis cut off the supplies to Amsterdam, 18,000 died of hunger. The city cut down all of their trees to burn for fuel, which is why none of the trees in the city are older than 65 years old. After they ran out of trees, they went into the Jewish district, which was empty because all of the Jews had been shipped out by the Nazis. They used the furniture for fuel, but after they ran out of that they started using the support beams for fuel. Of course, the buildings fell down. For a while, the city couldn't afford to fix it, but in the 1960s they got the architecture students to fix it up. This is what happened.



That is the old headquarters for the Dutch East India Trading Company. If you took AP US History you've probably heard of it. Probably the first modern corporation.



That is the narrowest house in Amsterdam. It's not a museum, someone lives in it, and he's taller than the house is wide. Houses used to be taxed on width, since merchants had to live on a canal and everyone wanted to be a merchant. Whoever built this house obviously knew how to minimize his tax bill.

After the tour, we tried to go to the Anne Frank House but the line was too long. Instead, we ate Dutch apple pie and wandered the Red Light District. Not at the same time.