Amsterdam

Don't you love how with a bit of imagination you can actually read the foreign words eg. Schwein is pork (swine).
Admittedly I know Champignon is French for mushroom from prior travels, where I quickly learnt all the words for my favourite foods, such as cheese (Kase, fromage, queso etc)

The next day I hopped on the train to Amsterdam. What I remember most was that it was a long train ride, and must've taken most of the day. Long enough that I bit the bullet and ordered food on the train, as it was going to be a while before we got to Amsterdam.

In preparation for my visit, I had purchased and been reading The Diary of Anne Frank on iBooks on my iPhone. Now I don't want to spoil it for you, but it doesn't have a happy ending. Anyhow, I had managed to finish reading it before getting to Amsterdam.

Warp speed Mr. Teddy

Once I got there, I found my hostel relatively easily, dropped my gear off, and went exploring.

I found a cheese shop, so made some purchases there. I had no interest in the coffee shops or their products. I would love to say that I had the same level of interest in the other main attraction(s) of Amsterdam, but I'm only a human, and a male one at that, so walked through the famous Red Light district.

The following day I went to the Anne Frank Haus (house), the building where her and her family had been hiding. It was a weird experience in the sense the book had moved me, but the building/"museum" didn't do a lot for me, and it was only really the multimedia stuff at the end which elicited some feelings. However, considering I had felt similarly after visiting Auschwitz, which is a lot more confronting, I wasn't so hard on myself.

I'm not sure whether it was after this, (or the day before) but I did a walking tour with a company I have experienced walking with all over Europe - New Europe walking tours.

As usual I enjoyed it, and it was a great way to get a good overview of the city, historically and culturally.

One thing that I remember about Amsterdam was that if you had to go up stairs in a building, they were very steep, apparently something to do with how buildings there are built on soft and sandy ground.

I'd love to write more, but I only spent approximately a day each in Bern, Amsterdam, and Brussels, so there isn't that much more to tell...

Anyhow, I moved onto Brussels, =>