Day 13 (June 17th): Amsterdam

Woke up and hung out in the hotel bed for awhile. Finally motivated around 10:00 AM. It was raining outside and we decided to pack our stuff up since we didn't want to go back to the hotel later on. We went down and asked the concierge for a good breakfast place near the Anne Frank House. He said the best one in the city was right there called the Pancake House. We took the tram north and walked a little bit to the Pancake house. Luckily the rain had stopped while we were walking but started again once we got inside the restaurant. We ordered pancakes (which were like big crepes) and an order of Proffjes. These things were great. They were round pieces of dough that are light and fluffy on the inside and buttery and sugary on the outside. For the pancakes they had this special molasses to put on it. The molasses was in a small open vat with a spatula in it on every table. The molasses was good but very strong tasting. When breakfast ended the rain pretty much stopped and we walked up the street to the Anne Frank House which was less than 5 minutes away. We waited on line for about 20 minutes and started talking to a guy in front of us who worked at the New Belgium (Fat Tire) Brewery in Colorado. He was with the company for a certain amount of time and they sent him to Amsterdam. We finally made it in and it took about an hour or so to see everything. It is a very moving experience when you think about the living conditions she and her family endured. Fact: Anne Frank died in a concentration camp one month before the camp was liberated. Around the corner from the Anne Frank House was an outside photography exhibit of animals. Very cool stuff. Afterwards we picked up some drinks and made a pit stop at the Blackstar bar. We finished up and started to walk down to the Van Gogh. Since we were getting a little tight on time we decided to grab a cab. The Van Gogh museum has some wonderful pieces. We moved somewhat quickly thru the museum because we needed to make our 6:34 PM train back to Dusseldorf. After the museum we grabbed a tram and took it up to the Central station area. Since we had a little time to kill we walked around the side streets and stopped for some Chinese food at a place call Wok and Walk. Good stuff. Grabbed a piece of chocolate cake afterwards and went to the train. We hung out on the platform in the sun until they opened the train doors. We had reserved seats and they happened to be the same exact seats we had coming to Amsterdam. Funny enough we saw the same father/son right across from us who was on the train going to Amsterdam. They were Canadian staying in Bonn. The train ride was pleasant and we got back to the train station in Dusseldorf around 8:45 PM and walked back to the apartment. We were too tired to go out so we had some snacks in the room and went to bed. Great weekend.