Lancaster Diary
12/12/04
AMSTERDAM
Last Friday, Jen, Susan, two other American students and I headed
off for Amsterdam. We arrived Friday evening and stayed until early
Monday morning. Our accommodation was a hostel in the Red Light
District. None of us had ever stayed in a hostel before…and frankly
we’re not looking forward to repeating the experience, but hey it
was still fun!
On
Friday we met up with some other American students who happened to
be in Amsterdam the same weekend. We ventured across the city to a
Mexican restaurant for dinner and then hung out in a local coffee
shop. On Saturday, we ventured out around midday and wandered around
our part of the city buying souvenirs, and just looking around until
we made our way to the Anne Frank House. The Anne Frank House was
the original building where Anne Frank and her family hid during the
Nazi occupation during World War II. The canal house is now a
museum. In each room there are pictures or artifacts or a video
talking about Anne Frank and that period in history. It was really a
very moving experience. I’ve never read the Diary of Anne Frank, but
I’ve read many others about the holocaust. In the U.S. we learn
about WWII and what went on in Europe, but its so different to
actually visit a place that was victim to the atrocities we can only
read about.
On Sunday we wanted to visit the rest of the museums on our list
because it was basically our last day. First we went to the Heineken
Experience—a very worthwhile trip. It consisted of a self-guided
tour about the history of the Heineken brewery, how the beer is made
etc. Included in the tour were 3 free drinks in the museum bars as
well as a gift that turned out to be a Heineken glass in a Heineken
tin. There were also simulations where you could feel what its like
to “Be a Heineken Bottle,” and monitors where you could make a short
video and email it to anyone—which we did. After that we ventured
over to Museumplein, to see the Van Gogh Museum. While the museum
was very good, we were a bit disappointed not to see some of our
favorite paintings, like “Starry Night” and the one with the café in
Paris—we were told those are in London. Next Jen and I went to the
Rijksmuseum, the museum that holds the largest collection of
Vermeer’s. We were very excited about this because last year in
Honors we studied Dutch Genre Painting, which included Vermeer and
Rembrandt. Surprisingly they did let us take pictures in the museum,
but only without a flash, so they didn’t come out that well. But
here you can see one of the paintings from the museum that we talked
about in honors last year. It’s called “The Love Letter.” The most
famous painting in the museum is Rembrandt’s “Night watch” which we
saw as well.
Vermeer is without a doubt my favorite painter and the painting I
most wanted to see was his “Girl with a Pearl Earring.” However the
painting is located in the Mauritshuis museum in Den Haag, which was
an hour outside the city. My original plan had been to go to Den
Haag and see it, however because we were really only in Amsterdam
for two full days, the trip would’ve cut back on what we would see
in Amsterdam itself. So I suppose I’ll just have to make another
trip so I can see it.
To round up our evening on Sunday we went on a canal boat ride. It
was very nice with an audio tour showing views of the city via the
many canals. If the tour had not been at night then I’m sure my
pictures would’ve come out much better. However, I really liked the
architecture of the canal houses, they’re tall and thin with high
ceilings and because they’re narrowly and compactly built each one
has a pulley on the roof so when you move in and out don’t have to
navigate the stairs with heavy furniture—even new houses are built
like that. Early Monday morning we got up in order to make our 9am
flight back to Liverpool, and then take the train to Lancaster so
that we could attend our afternoon classes.
Now
we’re done however and very relieved to be going home for Christmas
break. To celebrate the end of term, last night two of our
corridor-mates cooked a fancy dinner for us. It was a good time and
here’s a picture of 14 people stuffed into the tiny boys’ kitchen
next door. This will be our last entry for a while, but we return to
England on January 7th, so check back sometime afterwards to hear
about our adventures in the New Year.
Erica
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