Amsterdam

I spent our second free weekend visiting my friend Oktober in Amsterdam.

Friday night Oktober picked me up from the train station. We dropped off my bags at her place, and went out for an evening of drinks and good conversation. Although we hadn’t seen each other in years, it felt like our friendship picked up right where it left off.

When the bars started to close, we decided to walk around the city, and Oktober took me through the infamous Red Light District. In all honesty, it was much tamer than I had expected. Sure, there were scantily clad women in windows and plenty of adult stores, but somehow I had envisioned more. The atmosphere of the place felt no different from any other late night city street full of bars and young people. If anything, the guys there paid less attention to two fully clothed girls walking down the street because they had nearly naked women to look at instead. And those women came in all shapes and sizes; some were absolutely beautiful, others not so much. I found it highly entertaining that as a man exited a building, the entire street cheered for him, as if he had just achieved some great accomplishment. If nothing else, our stroll through Amsterdam’s Red Light District was entertaining.

Saturday morning I enjoyed a luxury that I have been deprived of for most of this trip – I slept in! When I did wake up, I washed all of my laundry and snuggled with Oktober’s kitties; such mundane activities felt almost therapeutic.

In the early afternoon, Oktober had a writing workshop to attend, so I set out on my own to the Anne Frank House. The line was long, but the exhibit was worth the wait. Walking through the place where Anne Frank and her family hid for so many years, seeing pieces of her original diary, and watching recorded interviews with people who had known her was quite a moving experience.

Interestingly, the house was turned into a museum because the Frank family wanted their story to help future generations make the world a more tolerant place. So, the last room of the exhibit included several short videos of discrimination issues that the world is facing today. An optional poll after each video clip allowed people to express their opinions on such issues. I only stayed for a few of the videos, but questions such as, “Should Italian public schools be allowed to hang the crucifix in classrooms despite the fact that parents have protested against it?”, “Should Muslim girls be allowed to wear their religious head coverings in schools?”, and “Should neo-Nazi symbols, including certain color shoe laces, be banned?” I felt myself getting upset when, after each question, the answer I considered “more tolerant,” was consistently the minority answer. Despite an interest in the videos, I felt like I needed to go.

After reserving my seat on a train to Basel and grabbing a bite to eat, I met up with Oktober for a bit of shopping. When it started to rain, we headed back to her place, ordered sushi for delivery, and spent the rest of the evening discussing life, love, and music.

Overall, the weekend was fantastic. I am extremely glad that I got to catch up with Oktober, and Amsterdam may be creeping its way onto the short list of cities I would live in.