John's World: Amster...dam, Part III...The End!

Sunday, May 3, 2015

Amster...dam, Part III...The End!

Looking back at that Europe trip, it seemed as if Amsterdam was the place we spent the most time in, and even then, it wasn't enough. I'm hoping to go back to Europe in the summer of 2016 and when I do, I'm definitely going to spend much more time there...

After leaving Volendam, we headed back into the city of Amsterdam for one last visit. The plan was to visit the Anne Frank House, one of Amsterdam's most popular attractions, and have some free time to explore the city a little on our own, but there was one last unplanned stop at another site for which this country below sea level is famous for...windmills.

There it was, right alongside of the road back to Amsterdam, one last bastion of old Dutch life. Without even investigating it any further, I would imagine that the Dutch use much more modern forms of energy harnessing, and so this surely is a relic of times gone by. Cool!

After a few snapshots by the old mill, we headed back into the city of Amsterdam for one last time. The line at the Anne Frank line was enormous...at least a two-hour wait to get in. We were all given the option to either wait, or get three-plus hours of free time. Since I am one of the very few people who never read The Diary of Anne Frank, I wasn't too keen on waiting that long, so I opted for the free time. Besides, if I hadn't, that would have pretty much been it for Amsterdam, and I so wanted to explore!

My fellow chaperone and music teacher Audrey and I then embarked our own, long exploration of the city...and we had a blast! We ate at a rooftop restaurant with beautiful views of the city, we walked around, interacting with several Dutch people, all of whom were very nice, and we shopped. I even got a cool new sweater out of the deal! It was a wonderful way to end our first leg of the trip.

All in all, visiting Amsterdam was a great experience! The next morning we were off to Paris, but I have definitely put this place on a future travel to-do list...there's so much more to experience! Here are some final pictures from Amsterdam. I hope you've enjoyed all that I've shared about the place and perhaps dream of visiting there yourself. Check out my past posts on Amsterdam below the photos and stay tuned for Paris...