Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Return to Amsterdam

Return to Amsterdam

We have been to Amsterdam almost a decade ago
when my eldest daughter was very young.


^^^ Then

Amsterdam is the last stop of our European tour
after having been to Berlin and Prague.



This would be my son’s first time in the city
so we promised to take him to places
we have been  in the past-



…and also see new places
that we did not have a chance to visit previously.



We took a fancy limousine from the airport
to the Doubletree Hotel by Hilton.



It is a beautiful, brand new hotel
and just like any other Hilton Hotels,
it is fabulously designed.


It  had panoramic windows
that gave us a great view of the city,



The best thing in this hotel is the
Apple Desk Pad the serves
as a personal computer with super fast
internet connection and a TV.




The weather was fair 
on our first day in Amsterdam,
but it rained hard on the second day until we
left for home on the fifth day.


It rained day in and day out
that it only not dampen the streets of Amsterdam
but also our spirits to go around and explore the city.


To avoid getting from getting soaked
on a chilly autumn weather.
we depended of packaged canal tours…







…and bus tours as we would still be able
go around despite  the bad weather…



Nothing much has changed in Amsterdam
after almost 10 years.







It was the same old 
but beautiful and modern city-




We visited the beautiful Artis Zoo
 and the signage changed from colorful 
almost ten years ago...


^^^ Then

... to formal and conventional 
at present.


^^^ Now

We posed for photos on places
we have been to a decade ago…


^^ ^Then

The City Square did not have
any major changes after a decade.


^^^Now

We traveled as far as Delft







...to Rotterdam and the Hague
and they still look the same…



The Madurodam looked the same
but the miniatures became more interactive.

^^^Then

^^^ Now

We added destinations in our itinerary
that we have not visited in the past…




One of the main reasons why we returned to
Amsterdam was to visit the Anne Frank Museum.

The museum left us choking on our emotions
and haunted us for years…



No photos are allowed inside the museum.
We took one with me carrying my daughter
(then a toddler) at the museum entrance…


^^^Then

She  pointed out  what she thought
was  a wrongly spelled Dutch word:
” Ann Frank Huis” 



Now on her teens-
she knows and understands much better.
It was a Dutch word- not an English term.


^^^ Now

I posed with my young son this time
and he did the same thing-

...he pointed out the wrong spelling-



‘That’s  alright’, we reckoned.
Just like his sister,  he’ll know better 
on our return to Amsterdam 
in another decade or so.




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