European Chronicles - Day 3

A little cooler today: partly cloudy and 50 with some light rain in the morning. We still managed to head out around 9am for breakfast. This time at an authentic Dutch Pancake house. From there, it was a short walk over to the Anne Frank Museum.


The wait wasn't too terrible, less than an hour in line to get inside. We were there for a good 90 mins or so. They won't let you take any pictures, but we did pick up some souvenirs: "The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank" and "L'histoire d'Anne Frank" (Brandon wanted the French version).

It's hard to convey the experience of touching the fake bookcase which concealed the door for their sanctuary (which Anne called the "Secret Annex"), walking up the long and steep staircase, into the small rooms where they stayed while the Nazis overran Holland (Anne decorated hers with images cut out from magazines and glued to the walls)... to view actual yellow stars they were required to sew onto their clothes and signs stating "Juden Verboten" (NO JEWS)... to see their relocation papers, and to know that in the end, only the Father survived.

I hope that Brandon can take away something more from this as well. Anything to help foster tolerance instead of segregation, or fear, or hate. We as a species are too prone to repeating such things.

Later in the day, we had lunch near Dam Square (that's Tracy and Brandon in front of the Royal Palace) and walked over to our canal cruise. It was pretty cool -- lasted about an hour, and the guide pointed out several things along the way.

The entire top of the boat is glass covered, so you can take plenty of photos...

Again, only a sampling of them are posted here. Tomorrow, we'll visit the Rijksmuseum, do some more shopping, and take some more video -- it's supposed to be nice and sunny!

For now...


"Goede Nacht van Holland!" (Good Night from Holland!)