The Anne Frank House

We were still plagued with jet lag today. I've never had it this bad before. I worked in London for two weeks in 2004, but the only problem I had then was always waking up at 4 AM. This jet lag has been not being able to sleep at all during the night.

We stopped by the train station to buy tickets for our return trip to the airport on the 23rd. We weren't really sure how crowded the train would be. But it appears the return will be rather casual. There are trains leaving for Schiphol every 15 minutes. What doing this two days ahead of time has done is give us one less thing to worry about.

The Heineken Experience was mostly a tourist trap where they did a lot of self-congratulating. But it is very well done with plenty of multimedia. After you were educated in the art of brewing beer (which included a simulator where we were brewed), it was pop quiz time. Guests were given a glass of beer, while the bartender asked questions. The person with the first right answer got another beer.

Finally, at the very end of the tour, we came to another bar where we were given our free beers. (Each guest had buttons on their wrist band. Each button was good for one beer. I really don't enjoy beer, so I gave my buttons to a 20-something, and made his day.

I had acquired a very good map which showed all of the tram lines and their stops. We jumped on another and slipped across town. There was road construction which caused the tram to stop a little off where the map said it would. We stepped into a shop and re-gained our bearings. Then we strolled along a canal to the Anne Frank House.

Yesterday we went to a museum dedicated to one artist. Today, we saw a monument to a single family of holocaust victims. The house has been restored to the days just before the Franks were captured. We learned the history of how the Franks had come to Amsterdam from Frankfurt fleeing the Nazi regime. They had done well until the war started and The Netherlands fell. Then it was hiding in their own attic for years, hoping the war would end one day. Anne had a desire to be a journalist when she grew up. She would write a book about hiding from the Nazis.

She was sent to Auschwitz after the family was captured and died just a few days before the camp was liberated. Her father survived the war and returned to Amsterdam. A women who had worked for him before the war had found Anne's diary, and returned it. By publishing the diary, Anne's father made her desire to tell the world about hiding from the Nazis come true. The diary is on display in the house. This museum on the surface is about one girl from one family, but it's really a monument for all the jews who tried to escape the Nazis. Just as you should see the Killing Fields when visiting Cambodia, this house should be one of your destinations in Amsterdam.