Elefantastic (10th September)

So we've been told that if you want to go to the Anne Frank museum in Amsterdam, you need to get there really early in the morning to avoid the long queues. We're not super keen on an early morning today -so instead we get there at around 11am and have to put up with the massive 10 minute wait it takes to get in. Shona was very keen to go here to find out about how the Frank family hid in the annex of the building for around 2 years until an unknown associate betrayed them. Mike was, frankly (excuse the pun) less keen to go, as neither of us have read the diary and he thinks that focusing too much on one person might lessen the perspective of the scale of the genocide. To be fair though, we will find out more about scale in the next country we visit and the museum does do an ok job of widening your eyes to the overriding catastrophe. Part of this is a interactive free2choose forum where you can express your opinions on other 'restrictions of freedom' that have come to light in recent years. Because none are as clear cut as "Should Hitler be allowed to kill someone because they are a Jew?", you have to think a little bit more about pushing the yes or no button. The screen then shows a pie chart of the opinion of the room as well as a comparison to all of the responses since the exhibit opened. We thought it was particularly interesting that the questions "should rappers be allowed to sing about beating up homosexuals" and "should strongly anti Muslim cartoons be allowed to be published" were both 3 to 1, but in opposite directions! We leave the museum with an appreciation of how hard it must have been to be a Jew during that time. We find a cafe with Wifi to clear a 7MB email that we couldn't download on our cruddy hotel connection and have some really yummy filled bagels. If any one's thinking of going into the cafe business -a sign saying "free wifi" is a great way to bring in some tourist dollars! Shona had heard about a small diamond exhibition that was just on the other side of town - so we made our way over there, stopping at the odd tourist shop to check out the local gimmicks. In Amsterdam that's either hash memorabilia or clogs... lots and lots of clogs! The exhibit is definitely small - but the guy in the shop is nice and shows us how they polish the diamonds and work them into the most desirable shapes. Asher may be interested to know that the brilliant cut is by far the most popular in USA, not the princess cut which is popular in NZ. As we walk home we stumble across one of the two Elephant Parade Shops that are set up in the city and get information on the parade, including a map of where all the different elephants are. Because we like elephants so much, we decide on our favourite, buy one and then set out to find him in the city. Turns out that he resides in the park with the majority of his family, so we have a look around them all and get a photo with the famous "I AMsterdam" sign. Dinner was a cool experience in fast food. There's an outlet called "Wok to walk" which has 4 or 5 stores around the city. Pretty easy to work out that they do take out Chinese food, but it's a really slick operation and is a really easy meal if you're in a hurry (think take out Gengy's). Once we've dined out on that we go home and Shona convinces Mike to watch some of the US open, De Potro vs Cilic - YAY for private rooms with TV's.