My Visit to Amsterdam

Earlier in the summer, I had the opportunity to visit Amsterdam on a Business trip. I was able to see one of the beautiful and well-preserved cities in Europe: its downtown, incredible network of canals, transportation system, world-famous museums, and coffee houses. It was an enriching experience! Amsterdam is home to my favorite artist Vincent Van Gogh and writer Anne Frank. Some of the top attractions in the city are Vincent Van Gogh and Anne Frank House museums (with two-hour-long-waiting-lines). I amsterdam, the motto of the city that reflects its artistic past and present. The city takes its pride as one of the great tourist destinations and eco-friendly business parks in Europe. It is also a very diverse and tolerant city.

I only had one weekend to visit the city. On Friday evening, we (My colleagues and I) took the train to the central station, a historical train station built in the 17th century. As we came out of the station, I was amazed to see the sprawling downtown area reminding us of its renaissance and modern Dutch architecture; old church on the left, Victoria Hotel on the right, central canal, tram line, bike paths, and the main road. The downtown looked beautiful in the reddish and bluish colors of the twilight. There were bikes and bikes everywhere! Locals use bikes as their main mode of transportation. I saw thousands of bikes parked in a parking lot and wondered how the owners locate their bikes! We went around the downtown looking at the ring of canals filled with boathouses and dotted with unusually narrow houses. As the lights started to glow, the city atmosphere looked even more beautiful!

The next morning we visited the museum square, where there are many big and small museums. We visited the Rijksmuseum or state museum, one of the largest and interesting art museums in the world. It has an extensive selection of art ranging from the middle ages to modern times. It displays masterpieces by famous artists like Vermeer(Milkmaid), Steen(The Merry Family), Rembrandt(Portrait of a couple), Van Gogh(Self-portrait) and many more. The fascinating part of the museum is its research library established in 1885, preserving over 450,000 volumes. The self-guided audio tour of the museum was very convenient and informative. I highly recommended it!

Writer in front of the Rijksmuseum

Adorned Boathouses

Gunthor Von Hagen's Body Worlds

The Happiness Project - Walk 20 minutes everyday!

Behind the Van Gogh Museum

I dream of painting, and then I paint my dream.

Tired but uplifted, we went to see Gunther von Hagens' Body Worlds exhibition, which uses the plastination process to preserve and showcase human bodies. At first, I was hesitant to see the exhibition thinking that it may be unpleasant to see the human veins and limbs, but I was happy that I went. Viewing preserved human bodies, limbs, and veins was an exhilarating and eye-opening experience, called project happiness, it tells the story of human bodies about the concept of happiness. It displays human specimens from head to toe along with explanatory captions- a new way to study anatomy! Charred lungs of the smokers were an eye-opening experience. I hope that these exhibits encourage many smokers to quit!

Sunday was an important day as we were going to visit the Anne Frank House in the evening. First, we went for a boat cruise that circles through the various canals in the city, showing important parts of the town; most importantly, some of the luxurious boathouses, adorned with colorful flowers and plants! It was a good hour-long excursion. We got off at Anne Frank House, and as expected, there was a long queue, since we bought tickets online, we just had to wait for our time. It was heart-warming to see the house where Anne Frank spent her young life in the hiding, writing about the secret annex in a journal, dreaming of becoming a famous writer, but only to end up in a concentration camp. She wanted to be free, and why not, everybody should be free. The house displays her original diary and other memorabilia of the Frank family. Most striking to me was a book that lists the names of innocent Jewish people killed by Nazis in the concentration camps. The attic looked exactly as it was described in her diary, showing the original bookcase used to hide the access. Even though I read her diary more than twenty years ago, it was still fresh in my mind. I never dreamed of visiting her house in my lifetime, so it was like a dream to me, but only to be awakened by the nightmare of atrocious crimes committed by the Nazi regime.

It started to drizzle when we left, and we were lucky that it didn't rain the whole day - usually, Amsterdam is very windy and rainy. If it is not windy, then it is raining. We hopped onto the tram, and we didn't have to buy a ticket since we had the day pass; if you are visiting Amsterdam, it is worth buying a day pass or weekend pass that allows unlimited travel in the tram, bus, and train.