Red Lights.. Amsterdam

Ok so this was the first place I went to on Busabout where I decided not to stay in the hostel they recommended, cos it was too far out of the city. So I went with a Christian hostel in the middle of the Red Light District.. mmhmm. I caught the tram from the Busabout hostel into the city and then set out with my map to find my hostel. I knew it was in the Red Light District, but my mental picture of the Red Light District was all wrong! I thought it'd be more about open spaces, and that you'd sort of walk down the street and see prostitutes in windows from a bit more of a distance.. but here I was walking down this narrow alley packed with people and I saw a red light to my left and thought "oh that's funny, I must be there now" and then about half a metre from me was a woman in a window and aaaahh it scared me! Then there was a whole row of windows.. and my hostel was a few doors down, on the same street.

So the hostel was really good, and I met some really cool people, especially these three girls who work for Invisible Children, which I'd never heard of til then.. and it was interesting being a Christian hostel. They had a bible study each night and a 2am curfew (mostly cos it was in the red light district, which is dangerous at night..) And, I was talking to the staff, and turns out they avoid walking through the main part of the red light, and instead walk around it.. cos they're in Amsterdam for awhile, and want to fill their minds and the hostel with good things, and not see too much of that crap..

So what did I do here.. I went to Anne Frank House, which I'd been waiting for for years. It was so sad.. and Anne's room was tiny. At the end, after you come back out of the Secret Annexe, you see a video of Anne's father talking, and saying how he never really knew his daughter. And another of Anne's friend speaking, saying how if Anne had known her father had survived Auschwitz, maybe she would've had hope to keep living.. cos she died a few weeks before the camp was liberated. I also went to the Van Gogh museum and did a canal cruise.. yep that's all I think! Oh, did you know that the canal houses in Amsterdam are so high, and so narrow, because people were taxed on the width of their house, not the height? Yep.