Woke up bright and early this morning – 4am – to prepare for our trip to Amsterdam. Today has been quite the whirlwind, arriving to Centraal Amsterdam at 10am, visiting the Anne Frank House and walking through the canal streets before hopping back on the train at 1:30pm. We arrived in Brussels just after 3pm. It is truly amazing how fast these high speed trains are.
Anne Frank House was a great historic sight. Strangely it is bigger than I imagined after the years of teaching about it, but without any furniture, so I could imagine how cramped and full of sorrow the space would be with 8.
On the Amsterdam to Brussels leg of our trip we scored first class seats complete with lunch, beer, wine, and more leg room. oh, and wi-fi! I got to chat with Mom for a bit thanks to google voice texting and we enjoyed the views of the country through our window.
Upon arriving to Brussels, we strolled down the streets in search of the Cocoa and Chocolate museum. This tiny place was awesome and we learned neat information, snacked on chocolate, and saw a demonstration by the shop’s choclatier.
Just beyond the museum sits Grand-Place de Bruxelles, a large square lined with more chocolate shops and artists with the most amazing architecture. The stunning flower carpet exhibition also takes place here in August: http://www.flowercarpet.be/
We walked further through town to a few other sites and stopped for a rest in front of the Palace at it’s garden. Our last stop of the evening was at The Hotel for drinks and a view. It was a nice, relaxing way to end the go go go day.
Our train ride home was short and we pretty much crashed as soon as we got through the door.
