So after breakfast, we paced ourselves so that we had time to take in the view of the Amsterdam canals and also to avoid the extremely long line that we previous saw the day before when the line was almost 300 meters long.
View of one of the canals in the streets behind our hostel.
Another view of one of the many canals in Amsterdam on the way to Anne Frank's House.
See the beautiful cold morning walking with the character of Amsterdam shining though.
We arrived at Anne Frank's House, payed our ticket and proceeded through the what was once the original entrance of the factory that Anne Frank, her family and another family hid in for two years. We got to see the original rooms, video interviews of the people who were involved with Anne Frank. Stories of being best friends, how they had help the families or Anne. But it was the rooms of the hidden house that strike me the most. You see, I had read Anne Frank's book, and I had an image of what the house was, and it was remarkable how close the image and the reality were. However, the one thing that I didn't imagine was the sadness. It really was powerful and sad once we came to the parts were they shown what happened once they got caught, sent of the camps, and the terrible death of Anne Frank.
The entrance to the Anne Frank's House Museum.
Then came her original diaries. The handwriting of this teenage girl who had to grow up quickly due to all the awful reality around her. It is hard to think that it was not that long ago that all of the is had happened. It got me thinking about the cultures again, but this time the dark side of them. In Anne Frank's time, she had to deal with the fact that the majority of the culture, a powerful Nazi culture, that she was living wanted to segregate, and eventually ended her, her all because of the fact of who she was, someone of a certain faith, the Jewish faith. She couldn't even be a child and play due this, all in the name to survive from the persecution that they would face if caught.
All the things in which, in a much less severe form, is still encountered in some cultures around the world.
The Homomonument.
Once we were done with with the tour, we took a little to walk toward the Westerkerk, which was next do the House, and visited another reminder of Anne Frank's past. The Homomonument, a monument that commemorates the prosecution of the gays and lesbians, especially those by the Nazis, and was also the spot were the Nazis sent of the Jewish, Gay and Lesbians off the camps. Here is a memorial, a reminder of the one who suffered because of how the were and that the majority of the culture rejected them.
Moving onto a positive route! I departed from my friends and went on my way back to hostel to meet with my good old teacher friend that I hadn't seen in years.
Few minutes after arriving to the hotel, she had arrived and we both greet each other with a hug and kiss on the cheek. Then we proceeded to a local cafe and had lunch. Over lunch, we started to talk about the good old days, people we knew off, and gossip. But then we started how were going our new "homes". It was interesting talk, because both stated even though we're both "home", it doesn't feel like "home". Since we've both have lived and moulded overseas, we were different from our "home" culture's population. But the people from our "home" culture expect us to act and think the same as them, but we can't. Suddenly, a term in my head popped up that I had remember learnt from when trying to put a name on this type of a situation.
The Hidden Immigrant. Simple means a person who looks and is from that culture or country, but is actually from a different cultural background or has lived overseas most, or all, of their life and has to adapt to the new culture/country of which they were born in, but no knows or see that they are different. Thus they are in a way an immigrant, but hidden due to due the fact that are from there originally.
This would be an interesting concept or idea to play and form with jewellery, to bring out these idea into a piece. But how?
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