Day 4

We both woke up around noon today. And we will not apologize for sleeping in our honeymoon! I had a dream about eating a pancake stuffed with chocolate with ice cream on top... and little did I know that my dream was about to come true (sort of).

We caught the # 10 TRAM westbound to the Jordaan neighborhood looking for the "Anne Frankhuis". The morning weather started out pretty bad with gusting winds and blowing rain. We got off the TRAM started across the canals toward the house where Anne Frank and her family lived in hiding toward the end of WWII. Before we made it to the house/museum, a whiff of pancakes sucked us in to a place called De Oude Wester.

We decided to get crazy and order some traditional Dutch foods.
Bitterballen was one of the things we picked. It contains a meatball sized mixture of beef, beef broth, flour and butter for thickening, parsley, salt and pepper and then is deep fried . They were extremely hot and also one of the greatest things we've ever eaten. If I started a fast food place in the US called Bitterballer's we would be instant millionaires, probably.......... but back to the pancakes- they actually HAD chocolate pancakes with ice cream and chocolate syrup on top, but I thought it sounded too rich and sweet so I went for the strawberry pancakes with strawberries and strawberry ice cream on top. Amy also got split pea soup (aka erwtensoep) with the Vegeterische Schotel (creative way of saying vegetarian dish). The soup was really thick and more like a chili texture which we both thought tasted better than the reg version. As for my pancakes, they were ok. I guess pancakes with cold ice cream didn't make much sense to begin with anyway. Waffels are a different story.

After eating a lunch and saying hello to another cat, we headed toward the Anne Frank house. On the way there we walked passed the Westerkerk Church:


Just down the street we saw the line for the Anne Frankhuis. We waited for a bit before they let us in and found that you can't use cameras inside. As you make your way around the house there are video clips and passages of her diary painted on the wall. We walked through each of the rooms which don't include furniture since it was removed by the Nazi soldiers after the family was captured. Only a few items were recovered from the living area, including the actual diary. The hidden staircase behind the bookshelf was especially steep.

Frank House is the one right of the pointed house.

Amy and I were suprised to learn that Anne Frank's father survived the Holocaust and there was a clip of him talking about the main thing he took away from reading her recovered diary for the first time was about how he saw a side of her he had never seen before and that he thinks most people can't know what's actually going on in their children's minds.

Amy thought this guy looked awesome and so did I. She took his picture. Pretty sure he didn't mind.

We wandered the streets in Jordaan after that and getting lost for a while, which I will take the blame for this one time. Amsterdam is a great city to get lost in and getting lost here is easy. When every street in the city runs parallel in a "U" shape, it gets hard to realize what direction you're headed. Plus each of the maps we have suck, especially the TRAM map because it doesn't label stops or street names. That's ok though, we figure that it won't be the last time we get lost on this trip. Love will conquer all and this Expedition will never stop!!