Today we woke up a bit earlier because we wanted an early start to get in line for the Anne Frank House. We got ready for the day, then we went and got breakfast at the café and talked with a guy who just graduated from UW and was traveling around Europe by himself for the summer. Once we had locked everything away, we headed out the door and walked in the direction that we hoped was towards the Anne Frank House. For the first time on this trip we actually made it someplace without too much of a problem. The Anne Frank House opens at 9:00 am, and we thought that getting there at 10:00 am would allow us to avoid the worst of the lines. When we got there however, the line was already approximately 5 blocks away and the attendants who were watching the lines warned us that it would be a five hour wait. Emerson had gone yesterday and said he waited only three hours, so we decided to stick it out for an hour and see how far we had made it then make a decision. Not ten minutes later we decided it would be nice to have our books, so I volunteered to stay in line while Hannah and Mira went back to the hostel and got our books. Meanwhile I had a conversation with an older man who was traveling with his wife, though she was not with him for the entirety of my time in the line. Hannah and Mira got lost on their way back to the Anne Frank house so it was about an hour before they made it back to me and by then we could see that the line was definitely not going to take five hours, so we decided to stick it out. About halfway through the line we were freezing from the rain and the wind, so Hannah and I went on an adventure to find coffee and something to eat for lunch. We found a Bagel and Bean shop and got a drink and bagel for Mira and ourselves then went back to meet Mira in line. By the time we had finished our drinks and bagels we were 30 minutes from the entrance. We played catch phrase on Hannah’s phone though and the time went by much faster that way.
The Anne Frank House was a well done little museum for the 8 people who went into hiding in the house during the holocaust. The house is layed out so that you walk through each room and learn a bit about each room and more about Anne Frank and her family. I thought it was a neat museum, but since I hadn’t ever read the Anne Frank Diaries or seen the movie, and I wasn’t really excited to see it to begin with, I’m not sure it was worth the three hours of waiting in the rain and wind. I don’t regret going, I just won’t go there again if I ever make a return to Amsterdam.
After the Anne Frank House we made our way back to the hostel, getting lunch along the way. Back at the hostel we all snuggled up in our beds for an hour before we bought discounted tickets at the hostel for a boat tour. We walked our way to the launching point for the boat tour and were pleased to see it was one of the tour boats that had a glass top so that you could see through, but if it started raining we would be under cover. The boat tour was very pleasant and I learned lots of new little facts about some of the places we had walked past on our foot tour of the city yesterday. The boat tour only lasted an hour, but by the time it was over we were ravenously hungry because we had forgotten to eat dinner before we went on the tour. We went back to the hostel café and ordered dinner and while we waited for our food we started a game of Jenga. Our food came half way through the game so we took a pause and ate our food so we didn’t end up with Fish, Chips, and Jenga. Once we had cleared our table again, Jenga resumed and a girl from Isreal joined us for two more games. In total I lost twice and the girl from Isreal lost once. After Jenga we went and walked around the area near our Hostel for a bit longer before turning in for the night.