Amsterdam Days 3&4: Van Gogh, Anne Frank, and the Red Light District

Sunday morning Claire and Christine went to church (it was Easter Sunday), while Ramon, Alex, and I decided to sleep in a little bit later. After we woke up, we headed to the Van Gogh museum.

I really liked the Van Gogh museum because I really like Van Gogh. Along with his works, they also had a lot of works by other artists that influenced him. One of these artists was Paul Gaugin, another French Impressionist painter who had a traveling exhibit in the basement of the museum. These artists were particularly of interest to me because I did an intensive unit on French Impressionism (l'Impressionisme) in my AP French class in high school. My favorite painting in the museum was a portrait that Gaugin painted of Van Gogh. I thought it was humorous. The background of it is that Gaugin painted Van Gogh painting the sunflowers, but the painting shows Van Gogh literally painting on some sunflowers. Apparently Gaugin was making a statement about the fact that other artists of the time believed that Van Gogh could not paint from memory, and since he was painting sunflowers in the winter, he must not have been creating a painting of sunflowers, but literally painting them. (I hope that made sense...)

After the museum, we wandered around the canals for a bit because it wasn't raining. (This weekend was particularly rainy and cold, which is why we spent a great deal of time in our hotel instead of sitting outside in a square or exploring). We then went back to the hotel room to get ready for the second of our pub crawls, this time through the Red Light District. We tried to convince the other girls to come, but they wanted to stay in, so Ramon, Alex, and I headed down to Dam Square for the beginning of the crawl.

We caught the pub crawl and managed to follow it to the first two pubs, however, we missed it when it left for the third pub. We decided to walk around for a little while trying to find it, before deciding to just explore the Red Light District ourselves. The Amsterdam Red Light District is a crazy place because prostitution, as well as marijuana, are legal (In order to get the full effect of the area, I recommend searching 'Red Light District Amsterdam' on Google Images). Therefore, the Red Light District was full of sex shops, sex shows, drug shops, and prostitutes. It is called the Red Light District because of, well, the red lights. Most of the shops have red neon lights in their storefronts depicting the names of their shops or services that they offer. The prostitutes aren't what you would expect, however. Instead of wandering the streets and soliciting themselves, they are all behind glass doors with red lights above them, which illuminate the girls. They stand in lingerie and try to get men to come into their room for their services. When a room is taken, a curtain is used to cover the glass door so that you cannot see what is going on inside. The sketchier the alleyway, the more risque the prostitutes. Needless to say, it was quite an interesting experience.

Monday morning we woke ourselves up early in order to catch the free tour that was being offered. Unfortunately, however, when we arrived they told us that the tour was full. This was really disappointing, but we decided to do some exploring ourselves instead. We brought Claire and Christine to the Red Light District (drastically different during the day, but still prostitutes in the windows). After wandering around there for awhile, Claire and Christine wanted to go to another art museum, but the boys and I wanted to continue to wander. We walked around the canals, got lunch (Wok to Walk, of course), and then headed back to the hotel room to eat, pack, and relax. The girls came back after awhile as well, and we ended up playing some cards in the room.

Monday night we had reservations to tour the Anne Frank house. I think that this was by far the most interesting thing that I did while in Amsterdam. Although many people don't realize it, Anne Frank was in Amsterdam while she hid out with her family. They now have the house on display as a memorium to Anne and her family, along with the many others, who died during the Holocaust. It was really interesting to see the rooms that the families stayed in, the back passageway to get to the attic, and the way that it felt. There were quotes from her diary on the walls, translated from Dutch into English. They also tried to make the atmosphere simliar to that of what it was like for the families, for example, they covered the windows with thick, black curtains so that it felt gloomy and dark. It is hard to describe what the house was like, but it really moved me and was eye-opening to see it in real life. I think it is an important piece of history, and I plan to re-read Anne Frank's diary this summer when I return home.

After the Anne Frank House, we got poffertjes (again) at the Pancake Corner (again) before heading back to the hotel room to sleep for a few hours and finish packing. At 3:30am we had to catch a taxi to the airport. We were back in London by 7:15am, just in time to be given a hard time at customs/immigration and only be able to take a 30-minute power-nap before class. Hoorah, hoorah.

Overall, it was a successful and fun weekend. I highly recommend Amsterdam, especially if you are looking for good night life. Woo!