Amsterdam!!!

I didn’t really plan that much for my first trip to Amsterdam. The city was a connection for my flight to Accra, Ghana. I had about 3 days, and apart from making a reservation through AirBnB, I thought I’d just wing it, with the only key sights being the Anne Frank House, the Van Gogh Museum, the Rijksmuseum, and gazing at beautiful canals, houseboats, flowers, and sampling a little bit of the local “culture.”

Walking around Amsterdam without a map is the greatest!! What a fantastic walking city! I’m not really good with directions or following a map, so I love when I can just throw caution to the wind and check out a town. Since my AirBnB digs were conveniently close to a tram stop, and my AirBnB host had given me some rudimentary directions in getting to the city centre, and the weather was nice, I was set for a great walk around.

I stumbled into World Cup Madness surrounded by revellers in orange! It wasn’t hard to get swept up into the enthusiasm!

Amsterdam: bikes, bikes, bikes...canals, canals, canals...bridges, bridges, bridges...houseboats, houseboats, houseboats...flowers, flowers, flowers...a beautiful city!

The Van Gogh Museum. I had bought my timed ticket online, which was really helpful since it’s a very popular museum; and rightly so. I absolutely loved every bit of it! Van Gogh has always been a favourite of mine, but visiting this museum helped me learn so much more about his life. I held back a little and only bought three postcard prints.

Anne Frank House. Truly hard to describe the feeling of walking around inside...but the feeling I was left with was “hope.”

I know I’ll be back to Amsterdam and give it more time, with some exploration of other parts of the Netherlands. The little bit I was able to sample was fantastic: the people, the simple beauty, the ease of navigation, and the vices.