Amsterdam was good. Just good. But I was homesick for Paris! Even though we only went for 2 nights, we got a great feel for the city. It's really small so we walked everywhere. By the end of the weekend we had covered the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh museum, a walking tour, the Anne Frank House, and successfully found the letters I AMSTERDAM. Yes, it's true. Amsterdam has huge lifesize letters spelling IAMSTERDAM that move all over the city for people try to track down and climb all over! Waffles, muffins, pancakes, baked-goods galore. That's all they eat there, and it's wonderful! We went to the best pancake house, called Pancake! and let me tell you. It was fab.
I think would have liked it better had I not seen the Red-Light District. During a walking tour, the guide tried to explain to us how prostitution is working in Amsterdam, and how all prostitutes are self-employed and allowed to turn down any man they want. I don't think there is any justification at all for prostitution. There is no reason in the would a woman should have to sell herself, and especially if she's self-employed, there must be something wrong. We walked through at night, and the street was lined with floor-to-ceiling windows illuminated with black lights so everything the girls wore glowed (and they didn't wear much). To their credit though, I was surprised at their cleanliness. They didn't look dirty as I perhaps unfairly imagined.The area is under constant surveillance and no photographs are allowed. As if that makes it any better. The women are like animals, standing in these window-boxes on display. The worst was when the curtains of the window were closed. We were told that the youngest is 18 (age limit) and the oldest is 82 with a 2 week waiting list! I mean, whatever floats your boat....The city just felt dirty after that. I thought I knew what to expect but, I am in fact, surprised at how upsetting it seemed. Don't get me wrong though - its a beautiful city and the waffles are reason enough to go there. There are pictures online. You can look, but I'm not posting them.
The Anne Frank house was not at all what I expected. I thought it would be a small room on display but it was a warehouse preserved exactly how it was left during the war, with quotes from her diary all over the walls. Her diary was on display. It was like a scrapbook of her life! She always intended on writing a book after the war about her time in hiding called "The Annex," so knowing that, her diary as a novel has even more meaning. After we walked through the the hidden rooms, the exhibit continues into testimony from Otto Frank. Deeply profound, he expressed that although he maintained a close relationship with his daughter, he found that reading her diary proved he didn't really know her at all. His conclusion? "A parent never truly knows their child. No matter how close," he said. I wonder if this is true. Part of me hopes its not, part of me thinks that to an extent, thats inevitable. But not just between parent and child, but between anyone. Do we every really know someone? Know what someone might be capable of?
On that dark note, I'm going to watch a French movie with Layla!
Ciao ciao
Very profound. Maybe on the very deepest level this is true. Having said that, it's possible that no one even truly knows his/herself. There can be layers of feelings and reactions that one's conscious is not in touch with. How many times do you hear, "I don't know where that came from," or "I didn't realize I felt this way." Something to think about but don't spend too much time.
ReplyDelete