First of all, the canals are quaint, adorable, and everywhere. You know what else is everywhere? Bikes. It is quite the biking town. The houses on the canals are adorable. There are cheese shops, pancake houses, and cute little souvenir shops with wooden shoes hanging from the ceiling. We found an awesome hole-in-the-wall pancake place in an old canal house called Pannenkoekenhuis. We walked up a steep narrow set of stairs to an upstairs room with about seven tables. The guy making the pancakes was right there in the room with us. They could only make two pancakes at a time because one, their griddle isn’t that big and two, the pancakes are huge. I order an apple and bacon pancake, which had strips of bacon cooked right into the pancake. The salty and sweet combo was divine. I’m so glad Cara found the restaurant looking on bunches of blogs of places to eat in Amsterdam. Blogs are so informational!
We experienced the Heineken Experience, which is the tour of the brewery. If you’ve ever been to the Hershey Chocolate Factory in Pennsylvania, it was like that only with beer. We experienced the whole beer making processing, partook in a tasting, and learned about the history. It was a lot of fun. After the tour, we went on a little canal ride at night to see all of the adorable canal houses from the canal perspective. So fun!
We also went to Anne Frank’s house when her family was in hiding. It was surreal to stand where she stood, and looked through the same sunroof she did.
I chose to opt out of the Red Light District tour. We walked through part of it one morning, and even at ten o’clock in the morning it gave me an upset stomach and a cold feeling all over my body. After talking with some people who went on the tour, I was even more heartbroken than ever. I heard things like, “I have so much more respect for these girls now. They actually choose to do this.” “The police are on their side if something goes to court.” “They have emergency buttons by their beds in case something bad happens.” “They do this so they can afford an education.” This is what people learn on their tour. The fact that the tours are even selling prostitution to the tourists makes me sick. All of the information given may very well be true, and the prostitutes may have a choice to chose that occupation, but does that mean they want to do it? Do they want to sell their bodies for even a portion of their lifetime? These women pay money to stand in a window for hours at a time so they can get fast money because this industry is encouraging buyers to come from all over the world to buy women’s bodies. It is repulsive and wrong, and I don’t care if Amsterdam tries to make it classy. It reopened my eyes to the disturbing world of the sex industry, and many people are blinded by the flashiness of red lights.
It’s a stark reality, but the truth is, it’s everywhere, not just Amsterdam. So despite to tragedy of the human condition, there are sights of God’s beauty everywhere. Amsterdam is a beautiful city filled with beautiful people. God’s creativity is so obvious in Europe, and sometimes I forget that He created the world for His children, so that we may experience glimpses of heaven on earth.
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