Anniversaries and Prostitutes

My feet are sore. We must have walked over 10 miles. The day started by waking up at 3:30 and being unable to fall back asleep - remnants of the jet-lag and yesterday's nap. By 8AM the local grocery store opened and we stocked up on items for a picnic lunch and a "home" cooked dinner in our apartment, as well as some much-needed Diet Coke.

By 10AM we were off to see the Amstelkring Museum (a small Catholic church hidden in the upper floors of a merchant's house in the 1600's when Catholicism was outlawed and Calvinism was all the rage), Nieuwe Kerk (new church c.1500), Dam Square (the location of the original dam on the Amstel River in the 1300's, giving the town it's name - "Amstel-dam"), and the Amsterdam History Museum. That was before lunch.

Then we had a picnic lunch in a lovely courtyard called the Begijnhof and then strolled on to a cute boathouse museum (Amsterdam's canals have many boathouses where people still live today), the Rijksmuseum (that we missed yesterday), and finally the Anne Frank house.

We had gotten tickets online for the house and this proved very wise, as the line for entry was long. We arrived at our appointed time and went right in. The house (or "secret annex") was meaningful to see. But the real meaning lay in Anne's story, her diary, and the horror of the holocaust, itself. It was presented well and was very moving. I was one of those people who somehow made it to adulthood without really knowing the story of Anne Frank. I read her diary as a 20-something and (believe it or not) didn't know before hand how it ended. I was crushed. As a parent of my own 13-year-old Anneliese today, I still can't think about it without choking up.

We came back to our apartment and made a pasta dinner and rested our tired feet for a while, then it was time to leave the children behind and for the parents to spend a little time together. After all, it was our 17th anniversary. And what better way to spend it than in Amsterdam's famous red-light district, window-shopping for prostitutes?

It's just one of those things you have to see when in Amsterdam, and we thought it would be an unforgettably wicked twist to do it on our anniversary. It was interesting. But we were careful to follow the same rules we tell Joshua when he shops; "look, but don't touch".

Tomorrow is our last full day here and we are looking forward to a dryer, warmer, and slower day - and a decent night's sleep....