Netherlands • Day Two

photo by Florence Bavinck

This place is cool. Today I got to hang out with Flo - a new friend who feels like an old friend. Flo and I have emailed on and off and she was in my track at CKU. She is super kind and chill and just a wonderful person to be around. Said a prayer of Thanksgiving for her today.

We met up at 10am and toured around most of the day. We toured Our Lord in the Attic, the Anne Frank House, and Rembrant's house. Being in the actual places in which these people lived was beyond words. Especially Anne Frank's house. Being in her space. Seeing her handwriting. Imagining the fear. Thinking of people who are still fearful today in so many parts of the world.

The thing I was most struck by was seeing her journal. Seeing the words. Knowing what an impact those words have had on the lives of so many people over the last 50 years. By telling her story. Telling her story as she was living it, day by day. Throughout the house they show video clips from a few people who knew the Frank family. The one that seemed most powerful to me was at the very end. Otto Frank, Anne's father, talks about reading her diary after learning of her death. How he was amazed at how deeply she thought & felt at such a young age (13), how deep were her words. It made me think about the thoughts we all keep inside. The ones that maybe we should share. Maybe they should be written. Maybe spoken out loud. The differences we could make by telling our story. The truth of our lives.

It was an experience I will never forget. I bought The Diary of Anne Frank at the gift shop there at the house. I plan to read it again.

Amsterdam is filled with shops. Lots of stuff I have not seen in the US. We shopped at HEMA (holy cow talk about cool designs - everything from kids clothes to dishes to make-up and office supplies) and H&M (shirts for Simon) and a bunch of cool little stores along the way. Found a great stamp store called de Posthumus winkel and picked up a nice oval stamp and some red chalk ink to add into my scrapbook-on-the-road (see more info below).

I also have my eye on these big breadboxes that are for sale at most of the little antique stores...need another suitcase to get one home. They are kind of expensive but would be oh-so-cool to use for storing supplies.

One of my goals for this Netherland's trip is to create a scrapbook-on-the-road. Something I can get working on while I am here. Simple concept. Collect stuff from places I visit and stick it in a mini-album (spiral book). Add a couple thoughts on the place or the day. Add photos when I get home. Flo saw me pull out my trusty glue stick at the table this morning to glue down some paper that was on our table at breakfast and she laughed so hard. It was pretty darn funny.

And if you are wondering why these photos have Flo's name by them, it is because I started off the day with a dead camera battery. Can you imagine? I pretty much just laughed and then headed to the nearest little store and picked up a disposable one for the day. I should be all charged up for tomorrow. Should be interesting to see how the disposable photos turn out...

So, yep, loving it here. Missing my boys big time, but truly savoring this experience.