Double Dutch: the ICC and the Dutch Parliamemt

All I wanted to do here in The Hague was visit the International Criminal Court (ICC).  It was difficult to find yesterday because the Tourist Information Office wrongly sent me to the International Court of Justice in the Peace Palace, to the north.  We found out that the ICC was to the south in the suburb of Voorburg and it's off all the tourist maps.  Having finally worked out how to get there, we set off this morning.

Once we found the ICC, we learned we could not enter.  There were no hearings today and a guided tour was not possible.  If we'd come yesterday, we'd have been welcomed with open arms, and given the full tour.  But since we came today, we got nothing.  I was very disappointed.  We couldn't even have a quick glance at the empty courtroom where currently the sitting Deputy President of Kenya is on trial for crimes against humanity.

Later, we caught the bus to the Dutch Parliament and organised a tour.  All the English language tours for the day were finished, and it was only possible to have a tour in Dutch!  So, we paid 7.50 € each, and saw a few sights relating to Dutch history as well as the Dutch House of Representatives...in Dutch.  But the guide was quite good.  He briefed Jean and me in English as well as the two Chinese tourists and the German tourists.  We learned there is proportional representation in the Netherlands, not unlike some other European countries.  Like in the United States, Cabinet Ministers may be selected from outside the Parliament.  The Dutch Parliament is new, built only in 1992.  Considering they had the opportunity to build something with style, the Dutch Parliament building is disappointingly boring.

The International Criminal Court (ICC)

The ICC (tall white building at back) is on Maanweg in the suburb of Voorburg...off the tourist trail.

This boring looking building is the Dutch parliament.

Yes, we cannabis

The Bull Dog was the first coffee shop in Amsterdam to sell cannabis.

Scenes of Amsterdam

Our hotel is in the red light district.  This is the view from our window.

A sex worker stands in wait for a customer beneath our hotel room window.

Amsterdam Centraal station.

Many buildings in Amsterdam actually hang like this.

We visited the sex museum.

The House of Heads

A church in the red light district

Going Dutch

Jean devised a walking tour which we followed today.  We started on the Herengracht.  First, we went looking for West India House, the headquarters of the Dutch West India Company, but we couldn't find it.  Along Brouwersgracht, we saw old warehouses that have been turned into expensive apartments.  

Soon, we passed under the Noorderkerk, or North Church, where we found a lively market.  We kept walking, all the while the scenery staying very much the same.  In fact, you could easily get lost in Amsterdam. Everywhere you go, Elm trees line the canals, crude old bikes by the million are chained to railings along the canals and on the bridges, boats and barges sail along the canals contentedly, and it doesn't change wherever you go.  

All the while you really have to have your wits about you.  When crossing the street, it's easy enough to watch out for cars, and motor bikes' engines always herald their approach.  But push bikes blend into the periphery.  You don't hear them coming, and you could easily collide with one.  Along the Keizersgracht, a slow-moving horse and cart annoyed drivers behind, and then push bikes behind the drivers decided to use the footpath.  I nearly became a casualty.

At one point, we found ourselves again on the Prinsengracht, the site of the Anne Frank House.  I realised that Ann's hiding place was and is in the shadow of a tall church that offers views far and wide.  I could see what Ann missed out on, being cooped up at the end of summer.  Going for walks along the canals like we were doing, the sun glistening in the water.  She would have liked that.

Along the Herengracht, we saw wealthy people's houses, saw the Museum Willet-Holthuysen, decorated in the style of Louis XIV.  We finished up on the Amstel River.  Around here are plenty of barges and houseboats.  

On the river Amstel are many house boats and barges...

The Skinny Bridge is on the Amstel.

Amstel is also the name of a Dutch beer.

The market beneath the Noorderkerk

Tripping around Amsterdam

We've spent an excellent couple of days with our friends, Ann and Barry from Wales here in Amsterdam.  A short time ago, we saw them off at the airport.  But, meanwhile, Jean and I are here for another couple of days.

Yesterday morning, we visited the Anne Frank House on Prinsengracht.  Then we paid 22 € each to hop on and hop off the canal boats for 24 hours.  We sailed down the canals, getting off at one point to have lunch.  After an amount of walking round, during which Ann nearly got killed a few times by roaring-past bicycles, we found a sex museum, and went in for a look.  In Amsterdam, if it's not drugs, it's sex.  The sex museum contains many sordid images throughout, as well as ribald displays, sexy statues, a myriad of gadgets and souvenirs.  The images and displays etc depict not only the present but particularly centuries gone by.

After dark, we strolled through the red light district.  It was an eye opener.  Beneath the soft red glow of horizontal fluorescent light tubes, a red curtain covers a rectangular space the size of a doorway.  This usually means a sex worker is inside with a client.  Otherwise, a near naked young lady stands in the space for all passers by to see, standing in wait for patronage.  One near naked lady after the other.  The four of us continued through the red light district for some time.  Ann noticed that some of the young women were pretty.  Indeed, one stereotype of sex workers is that they are older, that sex is their only job, and they are somewhat worn.  To me, from the neck up, some of these young women looked strangely normal, as if by day they could be an office clerk, or a receptionist in a hotel.

This morning, the four of us met in Ann and Barry's hotel, the Tulip Inn, for breakfast.  Afterwards, we hit the canals again, sailing to the Tulip Markets where Ann bought some tulip bulbs to take home. Soon, we walked to an area known as The Nine Streets, where there is a famous chocolaterie.  We each had a cake and coffee, and boarded the boats again.  Amsterdam is a bit like Venice only far less water.  We heard the canals are three metres deep: one metre of water, one metre of mud, and one metre of bicycles.  Fifty thousand bicycles are stolen in Amsterdam each year.  Throughout the Netherlands, the figure is three quarters of a million.

We had some lunch at the Cafe Heffer, retrieved Ann and Barry's luggage from their hotel, and accompanied them to the airport.

Jean, Ann and Barry in Amsterdam

There are many curious looking bikes in Amsterdam.

Barry inspects the bike, and advised this one has drum brakes..from around the time of the Second World War.

We went on boat trips....

...along the canals..

Bikes are everywhere.

We visited the sex museum.

On the way into the sex museum...

In the red light district..behind these curtains are sex workers.

In the window of a tobacco shop..

Ann and Jean

We say goodbye to Ann and Barry at Amsterdam Airport.

Secret Annexe: The Diary of Anne Frank

For several kilometres, an Amsterdam canal runs parallel with a street known as Prinsengracht.  At one point, an unassuming looking building peers down onto the canal as do all the other buildings.  Inside this very ordinary-looking building, a Jewish family hid from the Nazis for more than two years during the Second World War.  They were the Frank family, originally from Germany, but settled for some years in Holland to evade Nazi persecution.  Otto Frank, the father, had his business here.  He and his wife, Edith, had two daughters, the youngest being Anne, a girl who was given a diary as a 13th birthday present.  She began to write in it straight away.  Shortly afterwards, the family began their period of hiding in a part of the building not easily detectable from the outside.  The entrance to their hiding place was concealed by a movable cupboard.

I read 'The Diary of Anne Frank' many years ago.  I found it moving, as, no doubt, many millions of others have done.  Every day, hundreds queue outside to visit the 'secret annexe', in which a total of eight people lived (the four others were Jewish acquaintances), and where, on 4 August 1944, they were finally betrayed.  Anne and her sister perished in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp around April 1945.  Their mother died in Auschwitz.  Only Anne's father survived the war.  Otto Frank took a long time to read his dead daughter's diary.  Finally, he got it published, and 263 Prinsengracht became a museum in honour of Anne, her family, and all victims of the Holocaust.  Otto Frank insisted the rooms remain empty to represent the eternal void left behind by the millions of people who were deported and never returned.

When I read Anne's diary, I felt she conveyed so brilliantly the agony of her circumstances.  The words on her pages spirited me back to that time and into her hiding place.  I felt that the secret annexe was a stifling central core, where eight cooped up individuals got on each other's nerves, surrounded by a frightening and sinister world that threatened to invade and drag them away.  I could appreciate the day-to-day grind of the ongoing occupation.  I gained an inescapable sense of Anne's family's daily realities, the heavy burdens they carried, and the enormous pressures of a war that seemed never to end.

Anne's dream was to become not only a journalist, but a famous writer.  She was inspired by a Dutch Government Minister-in exile in London who called on the Dutch people to preserve any diaries or other documents that demonstrated conditions under German occupation, and which could go on record after the war.  Tragically, Anne would not live. But in death her dream would come true.

263 Prinsengracht, where Anne Frank and her family hid from the Nazis for more than two years

Anne's hiding place looks down on the canal and the buildings opposite.

Part of the queue that waits to see the Secret Annexe.

Anne Frank (1929-1945) wanted to become a famous writer.  Her dream was fulfilled, but she did not live to see it.

Anne Frank House stands as a reminder to the horrors of war, prejudice, and xenophobia.

Of the three doorways at back of photo, Anne sits in the space of the left-hand doorway, surrounded by her classmates.  Nine of them perished in the camps as she did.

Anne Frank captured the hearts of people the world over, who flock to visit her 'secret annexe'.

Amsterdam

We arrived in the Netherlands yesterday, the land of the windmill, clogs, tulips, and the push-bike, reaching Amsterdam at 5.  We're staying in the red light district at the Christopher Inn, next door to Nelly's Irish pub, which is one down from the strip club.

Amsterdam is a big joint.  Meant in the drug sense.  The place is humming with that smell...you know the one I mean.  On the way to our hostel, we realised the place is teaming with the worship of drugs and sex.  There are sex shops here, with a range of items to choose from.  There are coffee shops, where you don't necessarily get coffee.  And there are massage parlours, which apparently finish off with a happy ending.  Our hostel looks like a dive, although comfortable.  It, too, has that smell...you know the one I mean.  In our room, a spaced out-looking bare-breasted woman peers down on us from the wall.  In our bathroom, a light is fitted to the ceiling, but no light switch can be found.  It's as if they're saying 'hey man, so long as you've got weed to smoke, who cares about light switches?'

We caught up with our friends, Ann and Barry who flew over from Wales.  We had a few beers and then dinner.  While we were eating in the restaurant, Barry spotted a mouse running along the skirting board.

Holland is known for the windmill.

Amsterdam Central Station.

It's a land of many bikes.

A street in Amsterdam

An Amsterdam condomerie

Cannabis is celebrated here.