Amsterdam

This morning I awoke at 3:30 am, so I caught up on emails and blogging.  We all met in the lobby at 9:30 am to check out.  We left our bags at the hotel so we didn't have to carry them around all day while sightseeing, and we set out to the Anne Frank House.  They did not open until 12:00, but we queued in the line at 11:30 and made it in at 12:20 pm.  It's good that we didn't wait longer to queue, as the line stretched around the block by noon.  I was very excited to visit the Anne Frank House, as I just finished reading her diary before we set out on this adventure.  It was very well done and did not disappoint.

After lunch we booked a canal boat tour of the city, which gave great views of the beautiful architecture of Amsterdam.  At the conclusion of the boat tour, the race was on to get back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and then back to Centraal Station to catch our first overnight train.  By this point it was raining, so we were all soaked by the time we made it back to the station.  Everyone quickly picked up some dinner to bring onto the train and we were off to the boarding platform.  When the train arrived, we had very little time to find the cars we were staying in and get all of us on bo ard before the train left.  However, we all somehow made it and we were off to Berlin.