Day 14 - Amsterdam, Netherlands (July 14th)

Holland America has the slickest new cruise terminal right in the heart of Rotterdam, with shops, cafés and a tourist information center. As we had no plane to catch or bus to meet, we were the last called to disembark so we relaxed in our cabin till 9:30AM. We wheeled our luggage to the end of the pier where we hopped the subway into Rotterdam Centraal and grabbed two tickets to Amsterdam. Trains leave every 15 minutes so we were on our way to Amsterdam by 10:35AM and into Amsterdam Centraal (< pic left) in little over an hour. The first thing I noticed about Amsterdam was that it was multicultural and the only country we had visited where every race was covered. Janet turned to me and said, "Finally some black people!" Even though our hotel, the Renaissance Amsterdam was just 3 blocks away, we had to wrestle through hordes of pedestrians along narrow sidewalks to get there. Being that it was only noon, we were a little worried about checking in so early but thankfully it wasn't a problem. Not on the scale of our Copenhagen Marriott hotel room, the Renaissance was still attractive and more importantly in a great location.

We only had one night in Amsterdam and the only mandatory sight on our list was the Anne Frank House (pic below right). Anne Frank was a young Jewish teenager who was forced into hiding from the Nazis with her family in an annex of rooms here above her father's office during WWII. We were warned that there would be a lineup but it moved quickly and we were climbing the staircase within 15 minutes. What struck me most about the house was how closely the movie I had seen as a child replicated it. It was eerie, moving and incredibly hot. I don't know how Anne and her family could have handled it for 25 months.

To relieve us from the depression that had set in, we stopped at one of the sidewalk bars for a break (pic below left). Any corner of Amsterdam is the center of activity. We sat for an hour in our sidewalk seat and witnessed drama after drama. There are no stop signs and frantically pedaled bicycles with helmet-less children in tow compete with the heavy traffic of automobiles and motorbikes that speed by. Coffeeshops are everywhere for those who want to smoke pot. I was curious about participating but I had visions of myself in a paranoid state getting swallowed up by an Amsterdam Canal so I declined the option. Prostitution is legal and Janet was in absolute shock when she caught her first glimpse of sex being sold behind the windows of Oude Voorburgwal. The women were far from bashful and when I made Janet walk ahead of me, one after the other tried to coax me into their rooms for a chat. The less unattractive prostitutes would sit further back in their glass enclosed rooms under dim lighting whereas the younger more attractive women would open the door and shake their assets in bright daylight. Who would we bump into but our former tablemates, Alan and Pearl! Clearly, the Red Light District was at the top of their agenda too! The irony of it all is that we saw more tourists with guidebooks and maps than we saw men out looking for a quick roll.

Making our way down to one of the sidewalk cafes for dinner, I had a near death experience. I wanted to look at a menu across a narrow street. I looked both ways before crossing but as soon as I stepped off the curb, a cyclist whisked around the corner at full throttle and literally missed me by an inch. No one in the crowded vicinity even batted an eye and I'm sure that if I'd taken one more step I would have been a casualty. How does this city continue to function I wondered? There is no order. After a casual dinner alongside a lively canal, we returned to the hotel at midnight. No more 2AMs as we had a wakeup call scheduled for 6:30. Tomorrow, we were going home and it was going to be a long day.