Sorry I haven't posted in almost a week! The last couple days have been full and I haven't had time to post. Cell phone data plan didn't work in Amsterdam and the wi-fi at the hostel wouldn't work either, so I had no internet access.
Today I had a full-day workshop for the beginning of my Introductory Printmaking class. It will go most of the day tomorrow also, so I may take a few days to tell all of my Amsterdam tales. (I already love printmaking though. . . it's very hands-on, kind of messy, and has a lot of room for creativity. My class is all girls with a female professor, which is kind of fun too.) Anyway, it's 11:15 pm and it's not getting any earlier, so here's an itinerary of Amsterdam:
Saturday, March 29
4:00 am - Woke up and went to the Hamburg Hauptbahnhof (central station).
5:25 am - Found my train and got on in time (praise the Lord!) and was on my way!
7:30 am - Switched trains in Osnabrück, which is in central west Germany near the Netherlands border. It was a nice train ride: quiet and only half full most of the way, and there were lots of green fields and wind turbines (the new big kind with 3 blades, not the old-school windmills).
11:00 am - Arrived at Amsterdam Centraal station. It was the middle of a Saturday, and both inside and outside the station it was chaos! People, bicycles, cars, trams, and buses everywhere!
11:30 am - Found my hostel--without a map! (Another praise the Lord!) I couldn't get Maps to work on my phone, so I literally found it on a prayer and a memory of what I had looked at on Google Maps the day before. Thankfully they had free maps in the lobby. Dropped my stuff in the luggage room and went back to the central station (it was only a 5-minute walk, which was great).
12:30 pm - After fighting the pandemonium of the station and buying a ticket for the intercity train, I was en route to Haarlem, just west of Amsterdam.
1:00 pm - Arrived in Haarlem and set off to find Corrie ten Boom's house! I did this from memory also!
1:30 pm - Found the ten Boom house, but the English tour wasn't till 3, so I walked just around the corner to the Grote Markt (main town square). Saturday market was going on and there was lots of action!
1:45 pm - Went into St. Bavo's Cathedral on the other side of the square. St. Bavo's is a good-sized cathedral and houses the famous Christian Müller organ, which was built in the 1700s. Both Handel and Mozart (a 10-year-old Mozart!) played it in its early days. It is one of the biggest organs in Europe. So cool . . . wish I could have heard what it sounded like!
2:30 pm - Went back to the ten Boom house and did the tour. (More about the ten Boom family later, if you don't know the story.) Our tour guide was awesome! She was totally preaching the gospel and telling everybody about how true peace will only come to Jerusalem when Jesus returns. It was really neat. I also met a couple from the States who is living in Belgium currently. Their names were Mark and Moriah and they had two little girls. It was cool to talk to them for a bit, because they were Christians too.
5:00 pm - Stood outside the Beje and drew it in my sketchbook. A lady who was probably in her mid- sixties came up to me and started talking to me, and after we talked a while, we found out that we were both Christians. Her name was Ineke and she was born in the Dutch East Indies. After we had talked for a while, she invited me to have dinner with her. I said yes because I was glad to have someone to talk to, so she took me to the supermarket and then to a café! She bought me all this nice food! It was amazing. More on this later . . .
9:30 pm - Walked with Ineke back to the train station. She saw me off on the platform.
10:00 pm - Back in Amsterdam. Walked to the hostel. Town was still pretty busy.
10:30 pm - Went into my hostel room and found out that it was a co-ed room (don't worry, it ended up being fine). Met a guy in my room named Austin who is from Vancouver but currently living and working in London as a professional musician. We talked for a while. He gave me tips on things to do in Amsterdam.
11: 30 pm - Went to bed.
Sunday, March 30
8:30 am - Woke up.
9:30 am - Breakfast in hostel: bread and carrot sticks. (I brought them from home.)
10:00 am - Set off to walk to the Rijksmuseum, where all the famous old art is. It was a nice walk. Amsterdam is a very beautiful city to walk in.
11:00 am - Got to the Rijksmuseum. It was a scene! Compared to the museum in Berlin on a Sunday afternoon, there were SO MANY people there! Did basically the whole museum. Saw model ships, Dutch weapons, Delft china ware, and a whole boatload of artwork including "The Night Watch" by Rembrandt and three Vermeers: "The Milkmaid," "The Love Letter," and "Woman in Blue Reading a Letter." It was all very cool, but my brain and my eyes (not to mention my legs) were exhausted by the end.
3:00 pm - Finally stumbled out of the museum and found a nice bench in the museum garden to eat lunch on. Bread which Ineke had bought me the night before, and more carrot sticks. When you're a student traveling, you eat on a budget.
3:30 pm - Did a watercolor.
4:00 pm - Wandered around for a while longer, sketching and taking pictures at random. Finally got back to the hostel around 7.
7:30 pm - Ventured out of the hostel in search of pizza. Found a spot in a little skinny street just across from the hostel. Handmade whole pizza from an Italian father & son. It was awesome! I ate almost the whole thing.
8:30 pm - Walked around for a while longer, but I didn't want to wander into the wrong part of town (aka the red-light district), especially since it was dark out. So I just stuck to the areas where there were other pedestrians, and used my map.
10:00 pm - Back to hostel.
Monday, March 31
7:00 am - Woke up early, prompted by information from Austin two nights before about the crowds at the Anne Frank House.
8:30 am - Set off for Anne Frank House, which thankfully was just a couple of blocks away. There was already a long line outside.
9:15 am - Got inside the museum (thankfully the line moved quick!) and started the walk-through. It was actually pretty intense--very powerful. Normally I don't get choked up when I visit places like this, but a couple of times here I did. It's amazing how a girl so young could have such skill with words and such insight to be able to write what she did . . .
11:00 am - Finished the tour and went out to draw some more.
12:00 pm - Bought some more bread at a bakery, plus apples and a banana at the grocery store. Lunch.
1:00 pm - Walked around and drew some more. Explored shops, streets, and even a flea market.
3:00 pm - Got this crazy idea to walk to the station where my bus was supposed to leave the next day, because on the map I could tell it was kind of a long way. It turned out to be a REALLY long way, especially when the weather was so warm. 75 degrees F now feels hot to me after Hamburg!
6:00 pm - Finally got back to city center near my hostel. Feet very tired. Went to grocery store and bought package of pre-made Dutch pancakes for 99 cents. Dinner was pancakes, a banana, and pretzel sticks. It tasted great after that long walk!
7:00 pm - Stayed on the bench where I was sitting and read my Bible, then drew some more. Was there till 8:00. Yay for Daylight Savings!!!
8:30 pm - Back at hostel. Got my stuff packed up for the following morning. New roommate came in: a guy from Argentina named Gonzalo. We spoke Spanish to each other for a while, which was excelente! I haven't gotten to practice in a while. Then four more people came in who were from the UK. They and Gonzalo all decided to go out for a late dinner. They invited me to come along, but I declined because I had already eaten and I was getting up early.
11:00 pm - Sleep.
Tuesday, April 1
5:00 am - Got up and gathered my stuff (trying not to wake up everyone in the room!).
6:15 am - Checked out and walked to central station. At Gonzalo's advice, I bought a tram ticket and took the metro to the bus station rather than doing the hour-long walk in the dark. I think his advice was good--it sounded like something Dad would have told me. "Save yourself the trouble! Pay the money--it's only 3 euros!"
7:00 am - On the bus for Hamburg.
10:30 am - Passport check at German border.
2:00 pm - Back in Hamburg!
3:00 pm - Back at Georgi-Haus!
8:00 pm - Ended the day by going to City Light women's Bible study. It was a really nice way to end the day.
So . . . sorry to leave you hanging, but the story about Ineke (and the photos) will have to wait till tomorrow! I'm about to drop dead . . . zzzz . . .
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