greetings from amsterdam!

so, if you haven't heard, we are safe and doing great. london was fun, except we did a lot of sleeping due to the supreme jet laggy-ness. now we are in amsterdam, which is BEAUTIFUL. canals, coffee, art, history. oh yeah, and a lot of sketchy stuff we've been able to avoid for the most part. i guess every big city has its downside, right?


the people here are so calm, everything is so quiet and pretty clean, and biking is the thing to do. there are bikers everywhere, and little cars that put even smart cars to shame. randy calls them 'genius cars.'



we visited the anne frank house today, which was pretty remarkable. it's unfurnished, by the order/request of anne's father, otto (the only survivor of the 8 people who di in the house), but i kind of wished they had put wooden boxes or something to show where the furniture would have been, just to get an even better idea of how cramped it was for them. there were lots of pictures, of course, but i kept overhearing people say how big the rooms seemed...since i guess most of us imagined the two families living in a closet or something.
it was a really powerful experience. when i was standing on the street by the canal outside the house, it just struck me how determined the nazis had to be to search out every house so thoroughly....there are SO many skinny little houses, and each of them has about 5 floors.




we also filmed a little 'video message' after the tour was over, near the museum gift shop. we sent it to some friends- if you got it, please forward it on, as i got weary of typing in everyone's emails that i could remember-
i felt bad for acting silly in it, since it was at the anne frank museum, but i also wanted all our friends to know we are having a good time out here. i would post it on here, but i'm not that tech-savvy.

we're here staying with my friend rachael until next thursday, then we're heading over to cologne, germany! :)