Europe Day 35: 0 Miles

Amsterdam, Netherlands

My last full day in Europe was packed from start to finish. Amsterdam has a variety of things to do and see and I tried my best to get in as many things as possible. It’s my last chance to experience a new city before getting back into the NYC routine that I am so used to.

I started my day by trying to get tickets to visit the Anne Frank House. 80% of the tickets go on sale 2 months in advance and sell out quickly. The only way to get day of tickets is to go onto the website at 9:00 AM and wait in a virtual ticket queue. I logged on and was number 367 in the queue. I didn’t think I’d get tickets, but after 15 minutes of waiting I was logged into a portal which allowed me to purchase a ticket for 4:15. I had already purchased a ticket to watch the 3 on 3 World Cup Basketball that is taking place in Amsterdam today. My ticket for basketball was for session 2 which went from noon until 3. I then decided to purchase an 11:00 AM ticket for the Moco museum because it is right next to where the basketball was taking place. With all my tickets purchased my day was planned from the moment I left the apartment at 10:30 until 5:30 PM.

My first stop of the day was the Moco museum which featured a Banksy exhibit along with exhibits from Daniel Arsham and Yayoi Kusama. It was such a nice departure from all the art museums I’ve been to in Europe. I’m familiar with Banksy’s work, but haven’t seen it all in one place before. The museum did a good job of building a narrative to guide you around all his pieces. The other artists had some interesting work that was more of an immersive experience with pieces taking up entire rooms with the viewer standing in the middle of it all.

After the Moco museum I had about 45 minutes to kill before the 2nd session of the basketball tournament started. I grabbed a sandwich and headed to the practice courts to watch what was going on. 3 on 3 basketball is set to become the newest Olympic sport and will be represented in Tokyo in 2020. There wasn’t much excitement for the sport in Amsterdam though. I walked into a nearly empty venue, filled mostly with media and players watching from the stands while they waited to play. I found the games to be exciting even though I didn’t have a rooting interest, except for maybe the Puerto Rican team. The United States does have a team playing in the tournament, but they weren’t playing during the session I was at. 3 on 3 is very different from regular basketball. It’s played on a half court with a 12 second shot clock and the ball does not have to be checked after a score. This means things are very fast paced. Games are played to 21 points or whoever has the most points before the 10 minute game clock runs out. Although there weren’t any future NBA players to watch, I did have a great time watching the 5 games in the session

Once the basketball was over, I had enough time for a quick snack before I needed to get to the Anne Frank House. I decided on a Belgian waffle with ice cream because I’ve been craving a waffle since I left Brussels. The waffle did not live up to what I’d become accustomed to in Brussels, but the ice cream was good. I have serious plans of purchasing a waffle maker and perfecting a liege waffle recipe when I get home.

My next stop was the Anne Frank House. The diary of Anne Frank is one of those ubiquitous books that everyone is familiar with, making a walk through the house where the diary was written a bit surreal. I was surprised at how big the secret annex is where 8 people hid for over 2 years. It was amazing to see the original bookcase which hid the entrance to the annex still in place. The hiding area has been preserved and still includes marks where Anne Frank and her sister marked their height on the wall and all the pop culture magazine clippings that Anne Frank pasted to the walls like any typical teenager would have done at the time. I would definitely recommend a visit to the Anne Frank House to anyone planning a trip to Amsterdam but suggest booking 2 months in advance if possible, so you don’t have to deal with the day of ticket queue.

After leaving the Anne Frank House I decided to head into the downtown area of Amsterdam to end my time in Europe with a few beers and some food. I ended up at the De Prael brewery which had a great selection of typical European beers along with some American style beers as well. After a couple of beers and an appetizer of nachos I decided to take the long walk back to the Airbnb. I stopped halfway to grab something quick for dinner and was back at the apartment around 9:30.

Tomorrow is purely a travel day, so this will be the last official blog post for this trip. I know when I finished the TransAm trip I ended my last daily post with plans of a wrap up post to follow. I am not going to make promise on that this time around, because I failed miserably at following through last time. I have already written some thoughts down on a concluding post for this trip, so if I do post something additional it will come in the next days or weeks. Thank you to those of you who have followed along from the beginning of my trip through Europe. I appreciate the support and feedback and hope you have enjoyed the blog.