Audge

I decided, with my trip coming up, I better start doing my homework and learning some more about the places I'm going to. So this is the beginning a series of posts that will share what I'm learning. :)

First stop and first post is Amsterdam.

The capital city of the Netherlands, it holds the largest population in the entire country. It's origins go back the early 12th century to quaint fishermen who would fish off the mouth of the river Amstel. It soon became a settlement that was named "Aemstelredamme" or Amsterdam. :) 

Fast forward a bunch of centuries and lots of wars and government issues and kings and monarchs, and we come to World War I. They were neutral through the whole thing, but suffered the most of the Netherlands when food became scarce.

During World War II they were occupied by the Nazi Germans and more then 100,000 Jews were deported, including the famous Anne Frank. I'm going to save talking about her because I'll be visiting the Anne Frank house. :) Ask me how excited I am about that.

Ann Frank statue

Today Amsterdam is a diverse and richly cultured city that has many historical and beautiful places to visit. Here's just a few of the more interesting places, in my opinion.

1. The Vincent Van Gogh Museum, dedicated to the world famous artist, it has the world's largest collection of Van Gogh art.

2. The Rembrandt House: museum filled with the artist's beautiful artwork. What more can I say. Haha

3. The NEMO museum. It's a giant science museum that looks like a sinking ship. Umm...okay that's legit.

Okay, let's talk food now. Because....food is my love language. #proudofit

Stroopwafel

The most famous and popular pastry is the stroopwafel’, a Netherlands specialty cookie that is essentially two small thin crispy waffles sandwiched together with a sticky syrup in the middle. I've actually had one of these, courtesy of some friends visiting there, and they are absolutely delicious. 

Licorice is actually a VERY popular snack for the Dutch, though they call it "drop". And on one website I read that on average every person consumes more then 2 kilograms of licorice per year, making them the highest consumer of the candy in the world. Kind of random....but...ya know. 

Cheese. The Dutch love their cheese. They eat it with breakfast, lunch, AND dinner, consuming a whopping 21 kilograms per person a year. Semi hard and hard cheeses seem to be the most popular, including "gouda" and "edam". As a cheese lover, I say the more the merrier. 

There are tons of other dishes, but I think that will do for now, because my stomach is starting to nag at me. 

To finish off this little review, here are some well known movies that were filmed in Amsterdam.

1. Ocean's Twelve. YES....George Clooney. Matt Damon. Brad Pitt. 2004. YES. 
2. The Discovery of Heaven. Okay, I've never seen this movie, but it has Emma Thompson in it, so I figured it was semi-known. Probably more so in Europe. 
3. The Fault in Our Stars. Okay, you knew that was going to come. That movie alone made me want to go there.
4.The Diary of Anne Frank. For obvious reasons. I have actually seen this one, and thought it was very moving. 

As you can see.....Amsterdam is going to be quite the adventure. :)

#anamericanineurope