Amsterdam: Day 1

Okay, so, technically I'm in Brussels right now, but it took us all day to get here so I'm just going to talk about what happened yesterday.

The flight from London to Amsterdam only takes 45 minutes, which sounds like a good thing, but really I needed a much longer nap. I was packing and saying goodbye to my closest friends right up until I left to catch my 1 o'clock a.m. coach. Bumbiest bus ride of my life, or maybe it just felt that way because despite how tired I was from the last week of not sleeping enough, I still couldn't stay asleep for more than five minutes before I was thrown around in my seat. Oh well, I got to Stansted. No sleeping in the airport, either.

The hostel we stayed in was called Shelter Jordan, and it is a christian hostel. It was very nice to sleep in an all female room. There was also free breakfast this morning, which usually means maybe dry cereal, but here they served us the most delicious pancakes. When we got to the hostel, which took a bus ride and a bit of a walk, we ended up taking a nap for a couple hours. Then we went to visit the Anne Frank House, which was only a couple blocks away. It was such a neatly arranged museum. It somehow is able to present a very clear image of what the Secret Annex looked like and give a lot of historical facts and biographical information. Very friendly to all languages. There was even this room at the end which was set up like a game show with a TV screen in the center and seats all around in a stadium figuration. The screen showed a series of human rights situations, and then asked the audience how they would vote in the issue. Each seat has a red and a green button next to it for voting pro/con. Then the results from the room and then all the guests that have visited before are shown. Our group was extremely for the freedom of speech, but not as much for the right of religious freedom. Cool project.