Amsterdam & Anne
Last weekend we had a great and memorable time in Amsterdam. As I told Agi, one of the best parts about visiting an important place is that whenever you hear it spoken of again, it's not just a big fuzzy blur (except--in the case of Amsterdam--for those who ate some space cake). It was a beautiful city with scenic canals, gorgeous buildings and bikes wizzing by everywhere.
A highlight was meeting up with our friends Orshi and Antonio (she's Hungarian & he's Portuguese) and cruising the city with them on Sunday. They're a great couple and we get along well with them. Their ninth month old son Miguel is quite a looker.
Perhaps the best part of the trip to Amsterdam for me was reading the Diary of Anne Frank concurrently with our visit. I believe I read this book in high school but going through it now was an amazing, moving experience. In fact, I think visiting a place in person and reading a book related to it is one of the richest experiences you can have in life. I really feel like I got to know Anne as a person and her death as a fifteen year old was simply tragic and barbaric. But her voice truly does live on, as does the very well done Anne Frank museum where you can tour the "Secret Annex" where her family hid out for two years without every being able to leave during that time! Overall, reading this book was the most direct and concentrated look I've had into a real human soul that I can recall. That kept coming back to me: she was real, her experiences were real.
I'll add in some pictures here soon.
