Eurotrip: Awesome Amsterdam!

After I spent a few days in Paris, my friend and I hopped on a high-speed train that took us through the rest of northern France, Brussels, Belgium and finally into Amsterdam, the "Venice" of the north. The city itself is not too terribly large and has a very unique layout. The main centre of the city is built on canals much like the Italian city of Venice. The architecture is very Dutch (obviously) and different than the architecture in I have seen in southern Europe and France. We spend most of the time just walking around in the chilly air, admiring the pretty architecture sparkling with christmas lights along the canal. We also ate some very good sushi and Dutch donuts. Many Dutch people in Amsterdam speak English quite fluently and that was a relief because I don't know a single word of Dutch! Also, the people of Amsterdam are very fit because everyone rides bicycles here! Even in the winter! I really enjoyed seeing a culture that is quite different from Spain. A major highlight is that we went to see the Anne Frank museum, which was very powerful and kind of sad. This museum is located in the very same house which housed the secret annex where Anne and her family hid and lived in during the Nazi persecution of the Jews. It was very nice to see that much of the secret annex was extremely well preserved as requested by Otto Frank, Anne's dad. One side of the wall in the annex where various pictures, drawings and news clippings are hung still remains untouched to this day!!! It was really cool to go through the secret "door" and climb up the "hidden" steep and narrow staircase which leads to the annex. It was also sad to learn about how such an innocent young girl and her family had to live everyday in this tiny living space fearing that the Nazi's would find them. It was very neat to view Anne's original diary where she recorded the experiences, thoughts and reflections of her life in hiding. Here are the pics of the beautiful Amsterdam!