We set out to the Van Gogh museum after brunch. We noticed how long the lines were for the museum the day before (spanned the length of the block) so we came prepared this time with prepaid tickets and skipped the entire line, it was great. I truly dislike waiting in lines. The museum was kind of crowded inside but I enjoyed the audio tour and learning about Van Gogh and his artist friends. Since the Rijks Museum allowed photography I figured the Van Gogh Museum did as well. It didn’t. I was made aware of this after I took my second photo. So all I got from the Van Gogh Museum are 2 photos.

After the museum we took a minute to lay out on the grass field outside the museum in between the sun and the trees. The weather was so very lovely outside and there were so many other people picnicking,  reading, [JP: smoking weed] and laying out in the grass that it was irresistible.We laid out in the grass  until we became hungry for a snack. [JP:  unrelated] So we wandered around looking for a cheese shop, which there are tons of in Amsterdam. Who knew? We bought some cheese, caper berries, olives, and crackers and enjoyed this snack in a park nearby.

The Anne Frank House wasn’t too far from where we were and we wanted to see it the day before but once again, the line was very long, about 2 blocks long if not more. We decided if the line was any more reasonable when we got there then we’d wait and see it. Fortunately for us, the line was only about half a block long so we waited in it for about 40 minutes. This was certainly not a waste of time though. The Anne Frank house, which also didn’t allow photography, was a great experience and was very well put together. Surprisingly neither one of us read the full diary of Anne Frank. I remember starting it at some point but never finishing it. Walking through the house, listening and watching all the videos, and reading the excerpts on the walls from her diary were all very touching. We walked through the secret annex where the 8 individuals remained in hiding for 2 years. Of all of them , Anne’s father, Otto, was the only survivor.Being there, walking through those rooms, and imagining Anne, her sister, and another young boy growing up in silence and in hiding was almost surreal.It made me think of my childhood and of all the carefree time we got to spend outdoors and all the other times it was taken for granted. We really had it great. After walking through the house they had a bookstore where you could buy the book in many different languages. We got the full book in English and a shorter version with more photos in Ukrainian.  They didn’t have a full length version in  Ukrainian.

We continued roaming the streets of Amsterdam after the Anne Frank house, enjoying the beautiful views and stumbled upon an outdoor concert on the water. The musicians were on a boat. It was so peaceful and nice to see. There were these really long tables set up on the streets on either side of the canal which were full of people having dinner and I’m assuming enjoying the concert. We sat around and listened to the concert for a bit.

We just weren’t that hungry for dinner so we chose a tapas place. We enjoyed our dinner and once again chose to forgo dessert. We enjoyed 2 other dishes that are not pictured because we dug in and ate them before remembering to take a photo. The two dishes were a fresh salad and an octopus salad. Both were very yummy.