Amsterdam, thank you ma'am

So on a layover, I usually opt for sleeping on a row of chairs, but thank goodness I am married to Troy whose main philosophy in travel is 'when are we going to be here again?' and 'you can sleep anytime'. That is why we have so much fun on the road. Even in the smallest small town, there is something amazing, and in Amsterdam, something amazing on every corner. What a city! We had a nine hour layover, so we caught the train into the older part of town. The buildings and canals are breathtaking, and the funny little house boats with full electric hook-ups were fascinating. They formed a sort of water trailer park along the edges of the canal, and I wondered if they ever disconnected and traveled around. It seems like that would be the benefit of living on a boat, but these boats looked pretty permanently affixed.

the front door of a house boat

The downside to Amsterdam is the possibility of walking through a more touristy, sex-shop-y, marijuana-y area. Fortunately I figured out where we were before Toby did, and called his attention to the intricate cobblestone walk... for a whole block. On the face of one building, large letters stated, "God is dead" and I lost count of the number of psychic healing and other establishments promoting humanism. But on another block, we came across a small Christian bookstore. We went inside, and Troy pointed out my CD to the owner, "This is Sara Groves" (I do not enjoy this, by the way). The proprietor looked at the CD, and then looked at my bedraggled self, and said, "It doesn't look like you." No. No, it doesn't does it. It was good to meet Ed Baker and have a brief conversation about faith in Amsterdam, and what the difference is between Holland and The Netherlands.

Talking with Ed Baker. Can you see Fireflies and Songs on the wall between us?

We wanted to see the Corri ten Boom Museum, but it was closed, and so from there we went to the the Anne Frank Museum, which is located in the factory and house where they hid. We went up into their hiding place, and saw on the walls of Anne's room, the magazine pictures and beauty adds that she had put up to make that time and place more bearable. We saw the one window she looked out of in the attic, and the bookshelf that covered the door at the bottom of the stairs. At the end of the tour, there is a short video of Otto Frank explaining how he never knew that the Anne of the diary was inside the everyday Anne he knew as his daughter. He wondered if a parent could ever really know his or her children. I asked Toby, "Do I know you?" He said "yup", but I suspect that Otto is right.