“Look for the Helpers” ~ Mr. Fred Rogers

Wednesday, October 9

Amsterdam

Sam:

When we woke up in the morning, Charlotte made us traditional Dutch pancakes called pannekoeken. They are somewhere between pancakes and crepes. We put Nutella and bananas in them. They were really yummy… Dad said they were almost as good as Oma makes.

We decided to go to a few museums for the day: the Holocaust museum and the Van Gogh museum. It was raining but that didn’t stop us!

We took the metro and the tram to get to the Holocaust museum first. After a few minutes looking for it, we finally saw it. There was a sign in the window saying that was closed because of Yom Kippur, which is a very important Jewish holiday.

Next, we went to the Van Gogh museum. On the tram, we found our French friends from last night right beside us! We arrived at the Van Gogh museum to find that all the spots inside of the museum were taken up for the rest of the day! Grr!

We decided to go and get some food because that was pretty much all we could do, and we ate at a place called The Burger Bar that had a Wizard of Oz theme.

After lunch, we went to a mall called Magna Plaza in a fancy old building. We browsed a few tourist shops and then headed home. It was a dreary, rainy day, and we were happy to dry off and eat a nice supper at our home base.

Thursday, October 10

Charlotte:

We had to wake up early because Grandma has to go home 😢and we needed to catch her train. We will miss her!

After we said goodbye at Amsterdam Central Station, we went to a place called Haarlem that was just 15 minutes away on the train. We went to a place called Corrie ten Boom house. I’ll tell you a little about it…

Corrie was a 50 year old lady that lived with her dad and her sister at the beginning of World War II. In her house, she kept over a hundred Jewish people safe from the Nazis. The Nazis are German led by an evil man named Hitler. Hitler decided that he wanted to kill all the Jewish people in the world. In Corrie ten Boom’s house they hid Jewish people until they could send them somewhere safer. Corrie was not Jewish. In Corrie’s room, there is a secret chamber in the wall where the Jewish people hid. Sam and I went into the secret space. It was very small. Some people his there for three days without food or water or a toilet. The people who stayed also had to be silent all day long. I don’t think I could have done that!

A tour guide told us lots of stories about Corrie’s kindness and the people who stayed with her.

I want feeling very well, so Mom took me outside a few minutes before the end of the tour.

When Sam and Dad came out of the house, we went to a bakery to get a snack. We also got some juice.

Once I was feeling better, we walked around the town. The streets were pretty with lots of cobblestones. There was a big games store that had lots of our favourite board games and many that we have never heard of. We couldn’t buy any because most of them were in Dutch and because they are too big for our suitcases.

We found a town square with a herring (stinky raw fish) truck. Daddy’s been wanting to try this Dutch treat. He bought some and ate it with pickles and onions on a bun. The rest of us gagged. It looked gross and smelled so bad!

All the busy traveling is making us all tired, so we took the train back home and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon and evening. Dad went out after dinner to a pub to watch the big soccer game. The Netherlands won!