Alright, day three. After a pretty decent night of sleep, I am ready to go (I was out like a light at 10). Hopefully the kids are ready too, and that they got some sleep under their belts. It’s bright and sunny this morning, and the high is expected to get up to 14…and there’s no snow!

Wow, what a busy but exciting day. I’m sitting on a bench outside the Anne Frank House freezing my butt on the cold marble as I write this. I’m waiting for everyone to exit the building; we’re supposed to be done by 8:30, but it seems as though they will be a bit longer.

So our day started early, but not too early. Everyone got some rest and were very ready to go in the morning. The hotel had a nice buffet for breakfast with all kinds of meats, bread, cheeses, eggs, yogurt, etc. We were all on the bus by 9:00 so we could start the day’s adventure.

Our first agenda item was going to be a guided bus tour of the city. For this we were joined by local guide Gerwin, who did a fantastic job taking us around the city. He also tried to help us out with our Dutch, which has some interesting pronunciations.

We made our way outside the city and stopped at a local farm that made cheese, particularly gouda cheese. We got to see the process for making cheese, and even got to sample some. This farm also makes clogs, and is one of the few places that still manufactures them in the country. Of course on the way out there was a gift shop, and many of the kids bought clogs, souvenirs and even cheese!

Clogs at the cheese farm, March 2014.

After the bus tour, we took in a beautiful boat tour of the canals. It was an awesome way to see the city, especially all the little places you wouldn’t see when walking. Again it made me appreciate how magnificent this city is…I’d love to come back some day!

Boat tour, March 2014

The boat dropped us off right at Waterloo Square (or Waterloo Plein) again, and everyone was given quite a bit of free time to shop and look around a bit. The kids left in their groups, so I got to spend some time with Jo-Anne. We had a bit of a mission, which was to find a Starbucks we had seen on the bus tour earlier that morning. After a bit of walking, we found it near Rembrandt Square (Rembrandt Plein). Jo-Anne got to have her tea fix, while I ate a sandwich and used their free wifi.

Our journey then took us around the square, past the sculptures of Rembrandt’s Night Watch. We grabbed some Hagen-Dazs ice cream, and continued our exploration of the area. We found a little shopping district a short ways away, which was packed with people…quite a claustrophobic experience. After that we slowly made our way back to the Waterloo Plein to rendezvous with the everyone and Felicity.

Amsterdam, March 2014.

There was another epic march to go to our dinner place, which was an Asian resturant called “Wagamama.” It is very interesting trying to take 48 people through a busy city that is full of traffic and bikes. The bikes are actually an intriguing part of Amsterdam culture. I guess because of the lack of space, the expense of a car and gas, tons of people ride bikes. It’s also an environmental thing. There are set bike lanes everywhere, and you have to really watch out for them (I almost got hit today). Apparently Amsterdam has the highest bike theft rate in the world, which is probably the reason why most people ride those “old school” bikes.

Anyway, so dinner a Wagamama was good. We had four menu items to choose from, so I took the chicken fried rice. The portion was huge, so there was no way I could possibly finish all of it, even after walking for a good part of the day. It really filled me up! I did have room for the ice cream desert though 😉

From Wagamama we had a 1.5k jaunt to our final stop of the day, which was Anne Frank House. This visit was certainly going to make things a bit more sombre and really put a personal touch on the horrors of the Holocaust. I haven’t read her diary, but as a history teacher I am familiar with her story, but it was very eye-opening. It is quite something to see the area where 8 people lived in hiding for two years and how they could not move around during the day. I think I’ll have to get around to reading the book at some point in the future.

We are now back at the hotel, ready to call it a day soon. Tomorrow we leave Amsterdam for Belgium, stopping at Bergen-op-Zoom Canadian War Cemetery on our way to Ypres and then our hotel. I think that this first cemetery visit will be very emotional for many of them. In Ypres we will take in the Menin Gate ceremony at 8:00. It won’t be a lot of walking, but it will be a very long day.

So on that note, I should get rolling. Until then…