Last day

Today we visited a victims assistance unit here in Amsterdam who provides support for victims after crisis. They told us how they provide legal and emotional help free of charge. We then moved to a correctional facility that is half prison, half mental hospital. It was a little eery being in there, but was highly educational!

We head home tomorrow and a part of me is sad to be leaving this awesome place, but another part of me is going to be happy to be home and see my friends and family. All in all, this trip has been amazing. I am so lucky to have been able to experience this awesome trip to Europe and have learned so much. I am motivated to do more traveling in these upcoming years and see/learn, new societies.

I will be leaving Amsterdam tomorrow at 10AM, arriving back in LA around 12PM on Thursday afternoon. So long from Amsterdam! I hope to come back soon.

-Kavi

Anne Frank Tour

Tonight I got to experience one of those tours that really left me speechless. I had done previous research in school about the Holocaust, so this tour really meant something to me. We arrived about 5 minutes before the tour started. Ordering tickets online was the best idea because we got to bypass the line.

Short summary of who Anne Frank was:

Anne was one of the millions of victims of the persecution of the Jews during World War II. She lived in Germany when, in 1933, Hitler came to power and installed an anti-jewish regime there. For their own safety, the Jewish Frank family fled to the Netherlands. However, in May 1940, the German army occupied the Netherlands and repressive measures against jews followed there as well. The Frank family hoped to escape these by going into hiding.

Anne Frank kept a diary the entire time she lived in hiding. She mostly wrote about her personal thoughts and feelings, the isolation, and the constant fear of being discovered.

Anne and her family were all captured and sent to concentration camps. Her father, Otto, was the only one who made it out alive.

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* I wanted to take a bunch of pictures but realized when I had got there that no cameras where allowed to be used. I learned of that after I had snapped a couple of photos, which are listed below.*

The tour started with some backstory to the location of her house, then we moved to the entrance and front door to Anne's fathers office. Otto Frank ran 2 companies. The first was Opekta, a jelling agent used to make jam. The second was Pectacon. Pectacon was a company that produced seasonings for meat. The family hid upstairs in a secret annex without the warehousemen knowing about them. There was an original typewriter that was used in the office still up there with some other letters and such.

Next, we moved to a small room with a moveable bookcase. This was the bookcase that hid a door that led to a secret annex where Anne and her family stayed in hiding. The bookcase looked very old and well preserved. You had to duck to enter as the opening wasn't too big. Once inside, we climbed a steep flight of steps leading up to Otto, Edith, and Margot Frank's room. This room also doubled as the living room. Anne and Fritz shared a room next door. Her room looked just like it did in 1945, with original wallpaper and picture cutouts glued to the wall. The eerie part was seeing her height marks tallied on her wall, still perfectly preserved.

Next, we toured their bathroom. It was very small with the same porcelain toilet that they used. They had to be very quiet when using the restroom because flowing water from upstairs would have tipped off the warehousemen. The floors creaked and were warping, creating a very unsettling feeling and sound. We then were led to the room that housed all of Anne's original diaries. This was probably the coolest part of the whole tour was to see the original work on paper. Her father, Otto, had the diaries published.

All in all, the tour was very much worth it. It exceeded my expectations in every way.

12:45AM now. Time to start making some phone calls to the fam....I think about calling when I wake up but then realize its usually 2AM back home. Tomorrow, we are visiting a police headquarters. Should be pretty cool!

Goodnight!

-Kavi

(View from outside Anne's house)

(The sign outside the front door)

(The moveable bookshelf revealing the secret annex)

(An outside look at the house)

(Stairs leading up to the Annex)

(A photo showing that the Franks had moved out, said they left with no warning)

Sightseeing bright and early

I gotta say....these 5:30 AM wakeup calls are really starting to get me. If you guys know me, I love my sleep. I find myself dragging throughout the day but, hey, I'm in Amsterdam so I guess I should stop complaining. Our group got sent to a city about an hour away from Amsterdam today to see some artwork at a museum. The museums works consisted of a lot of Rembrandt paintings, which were pretty cool. We stayed there for about an hour and then walked around the Hague. The city was pretty nice as we saw a lot of the governmental side of things. Next, we went to a small town called Delft. What I really liked about Delft was that it reminded a lot of what I thought Amsterdam WOULD look like. I imagined the small, compact city rather than the widely spread out city. I got some pretty good shots of Delft that you can check out below. Tonight, we are heading to the Anne Frank museum around 7:45 PM. Hopefully the line won't be too outrageously long, like it usually is.

I think I'm gonna take a nap and catch up on some sleep but I will update Anne Frank pics late tonight when I get back. Hope everyone is doing well! I am starting to miss simple pleasures of home but am enjoying my time here. Update to come soon.

-Kav

Paris: Updated

Hi all! So Paris was everything I could have ever imagined it to be and a bit more....we started off with a 3 1/2 hour train ride that took us into northern Paris. The train ride wasn't too scenic. A lot of green, open land. Not too many buildings. We arrived around noon and I quickly hailed a cab and only needed to say two words. Eiffel. Tower. Within 10 minutes, I was standing in front of one of the coolest monstrosities I have ever seen!

I then hopped on a double decker bus tour that took me around the city to show me the key sights. All in all the tour takes 2 1/2 hours to complete and stops at the Eiffel Tower, Champ de Mars, the Louvre, Notre Dame, Museum d' Orsay, the Paris Opera house, Champs Elysees-Etoile, the Grand Palais, and the Trocadero. The tour allows you to hop off and hop on whenever you please, with busses coming every 10 minutes. I rode the tour twice to get the full effect.

By 6:30, I was exhausted. I met up with the rest of my group who had went to the Palace of Versailles for the day, took a few more pics in front of the Eiffel Tower and decided to call it a day.

Back in Amsterdam now waiting on some pizza. It has been cold, wet, and rainy all day today. I wanted to head out and do something fun tonight but am pretty drained. I will leave you with some pictures from today. Tomorrow, we are starting our "curriculum" for this trip, so we are going to be visiting some police stations and prisons. Also, tomorrow night we are visiting the Anne Frank house. Should be pretty interesting!

Good night from across the pond.

-Kavi