Day 63: Amsterdam, Netherlands

Crazy to think there's officially only one week left!

Today we saw a lot. We did the free walking tour from our hostel and started in Dam Square. We made our way to the Red Light District (certainly an experience), saw the smallest house in Amsterdam, J. Biebs' new place that he bought for 25 million euro, the first ever condom shop, and the smallest stock exchange (for the wealthiest country at one point). Apparently Amsterdam held 45% of the world's wealth at some point in the past.

We also saw the most crooked house that makes the leaning tower of Pisa look like nothing. Also, the houses generally lean forward as they attached pulleys to pull things up to the third floor so it wouldn't smash the windows. Houses in Amsterdam as generally thin as in the past, residents had to pay taxes on the width of their houses so they tried to make them thin. If you had a wide house, it was known that you were wealthy. We also stopped by a cheese shop and had samples and saw workers in the canal taking out the bikes that drunk people usually throw in during the night. Apparently it's a very common thing for a person to throw a bike in the canal.

For the evening, we bought tickets to the Red Light District tour, which turned out to be pretty interesting too. There is a kindergarten right in the middle of the district where the kids walk up "Big Mommas Alley" everyday on the way to school. This Alley is said to be popular if you wish to be in the company of a large African American woman for as long as you pay for.

There's also a church right in the middle. As it was very common for sailors to live in Amsterdam, they would be gone two months at a time and would "sin" the night before they left. As the church wouldn't be open as early as they left the next day, they allowed the sailors to go in and pay for their sins in advance. They could go in before they sinned, pay a fee and let the church know that they plan to sin and apparently that would make it ok.

After the tour, we tried to go to the Anne Frank house for the second time. He told us they just released a few tickets for 11:30 the next day if we wanted to buy them (they are usually sold out two months in advance) so we were lucky to get some as we would have only had half an hour inside.

After that, we headed back to our hostel and sat by the canal for a bit.Read more