Album of the Day: No Beer, No Dad – Blowout
Today was an interesting day. The day started early, with a train to Zaandijk Zaanse Schans at 9 am. There we went to see something the Netherlands is famous for, it’s beautiful windmills! Zaanse Schans is a beautiful little town littered with all sorts of old windmills, all of which were made between the 17th and 19th centuries. Windmills in the Netherlands were originally used to mill grain and were built along waterways to facilitate transport of that same grain they helped produce. Nowadays, windmills are essential energy infrastructure here in the Netherlands. They account for almost 20% of the energy produced for the entire country, most of which being offshore to allow for bigger sizes. Overall, it was incredible to see a massive piece of energy production history here in the Netherlands.
Aside from Zaanse Schans, we returned once again to Amsterdam Central. Here we went and visited the Anne Frank House. We spent the late afternoon learning about how the Second World War affected Amsterdam and its residents. The entire city had fallen under Nazi rule during the war, which led to the persecution of millions of its residents, mostly from Jewish and marginalized communities. Seeing the living space and the items left behind by the people who once inhabited the house left a lasting impression of the horrors of the war. We usually see the deaths produced by humanities many altercations as just statistics, but this exhibit at the Anne Frank House really put into perspective how these were real people and they all had beautiful lives prior to these horrid events. These mass killings didn’t also affect the marginalized, as the rest of the population also suffered through famine and death nearing the end of the war as supplies started to run out. Overall, visiting the Anne Frank House is an experience anyone visiting should do as it really helps put into perspective how horrible the history was.
Note: No pictures at the Anne Frank House since it’s a rule out of respect.