Day Three - Anne Frank, lunch with Mum

I started off the morning at the Anne Frank House annefrank.org.

Of course I have read her book, but being in the house was so much more heartbreaking. The rooms seemed bigger than I had imagined, actually, but I didn't remember reading about the blackout shades. There was absolutely no sunlight. There were words around the house that Anne had written about how she would go up to the attic every morning to get a glimpse of the sun. At the end of the visit, there was a video of her father explaining how he and Anne were very close and that he thought that he really knew her well. After she died and he read her words, though, he realized that he never really did know her, even stated that no parent really ever knows their children. She was an incredible little girl, extremely talented and had such hope that the world would someday be fair and just and free of prejudice. I wish that her dreams would have come true.

Met up with the gang for lunch with Maddie's mom, or "Mum" - amazing lady, we never ran out of things to say. She thought I looked like a local (must have been the weird hair and the green scarf).

The day was colder and windy today. We did some more shopping, then ducked into a "brown" bar - dark, lots of charm, over a hundred years old and got to know the bartenders. We did lots more walking, going back through the Red Light district in search of a must-see sex show, but, according to my tour book "not for the faint of heart." I didn't think I was faint of heart, but one glimpse and I knew it was not for our crowd. Starving, we found an amazing Thai restaurant, Bird http://www.thai-bird.nl/index_uk.html and had one more party to finish off the day before taking one wild (f'n h) taxi ride back to the hotel.