The two museum tickets Kaycee and I booked in advance was to the Anne Frank House and the Van Gogh Museum. It is crucial to book these beforehand if you want to guarantee a ticket in. The Van Gogh was really popular and I saw a few people who could not enter due to the full capacity. The Van Gogh museum was actually really interesting and all of his famous art paintings were fun to look at in person. Although his famous starry night painting is in New York, USA (who would have thought). Something I did learn about Van Gogh that was disturbing was that he suffered from mental illness and often had hallucinations and severe anxiety. Because of this he had an incident where he cut his own left ear off with a razor. No one knows exactly what Van Gogh suffered from but he eventually admitted himself into an institution for the mentally ill and focused on painting.
The Anne Frank House was probably my favorite museum I visited. It was extremely interesting learning about the holocaust through her perspective and being able to walk through the ACTUAL house she hid in was unreal to me. This was the first museum where I genuinely read every excerpt. Every exhibition was interesting and it was sad seeing what her and her family had to go through. What really impacted me was that only her father survived out of her whole family. Anne and her sister were sent to a concentration camp where they were later killed. Her father was able to share her stories through the journals she took which was touching. On a brighter note, between museums Kaycee and I spotted an iceskating rink. We had some time to kill and it looked so fun since both of us had not skated in a while. I am really happy we decided to ice skate. The ice was very ridged but ice skating was easier than I remember for some reason. There were many families and groups of friends skating and there was a special section where younger boys were playing a hockey game.
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This was my favorite activity we did in Amsterdam. We learned all about the history of how Heineken came to be and how their logos and bottle shape changed over the years. Heineken is a very popular beer in Hawaii so I was interested to learn about the history. They took us through the process of how the beer is made and the ingredients that are crucial to making Heineken unique (Water, Barley, Hops, and Heineken "A" yeast. We were also able to see the large machines that cook down the concoction. The steps to making the beer is masking, lautering, boiling, cooling, fermenting, lagering, filtering, and finally bottling. The Heineken Factory had AMAZING virtual videos and effects in each room we went into. In one room we all stood on our own square then suddenly the walls around us displayed the virtual effect that made us feel we were the bottle of Heineken going through its processes. Afterwards, we were also able to customize our own bottle of Heineken with our names. I ordered 3 as gifts and the packaging was so cute; they even topped the bottle off with a small green Santa hat. In the middle of our tour we were given a glass of Heineken to try and it was delicious. We all cheered "Proost" which means cheers in dutch. Towards the end of our tour we had two tokens to spend on 2 more glasses of Heineken at the bar. There was also a draft beer pouring competition that Kaycee and I both entered once. It was fun to learn that the correct way to pour a glass of beer is to let the tap run until the foam is out, tilt the glass slightly and fill it to the top, then you swipe the top of the white foam with a tool. If you poured it correctly, the white foam should only be around an inch with the rest of the beer at the bottom. I sadly did not win but I did receive a bottle opener for participating. I would highly recommend going through this tour, it was so fun!
I mainly wanted to stroll through the red light district because of how much I hear about it when someone talks about popular places to see in Amsterdam. I was able to see the Moulin Rouge building and quickly stroll down the street. There were many people on both sides of the water and it was not that sketchy. I felt pretty safe walking the streets in Amsterdam even at night and the nightlife was very lively and fun. I would say it is a must to experience once while in Amsterdam if you are comfortable with it.
For the back end of our trip to Paris, we planned to stay in Amsterdam for 2 days. It was just enough time to do everything we wanted to do in the city. This was our most spontaneous trip as we strolled through the streets with no real plan and decided to watch the new black panther at this vintage movie theatre, Ice skate at a rink nearby the Van Gogh museum, and book a tour to the Heineken Brewery Factory when I learned that Heineken originated in Holland (Amsterdam). Although Amsterdam is not really known for its food, I would highly recommend trying their Stroopwafles which is a freshly made flattened waffle with a dab of caramel slapped onto the center. It is SO addicting, especially when it is fresh. One of my soccer coaches also recommends trying Febo which are croquets in little mini ovens and it is deep fried meat and potato filling with mustard. Strolling the city, I noticed it was very unique in terms of special drugs and explicit content and it was fun to experience. Every street had cute shops to look in and there were many cafes to try and coffeeshops. We strolled through de negen straatjes (the nine streets) and the Saturday market.
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