There's a kindergarten and a church in the Red Light District?

Amsterdam. A place where anything goes. We did an overnight bus ride and arrived in the city at about 6 AM but there was no sleeping because our walking tour started at 8 right after breakfast (I'm sure you getting the idea by now that we slept very little over these 10 days). Our tour guide took us through several... interesting (to say the least) places beginning of course with the Red Light District. There were some prostitutes sitting in windows even at 8 AM. We went on another tour later in the evening and it was ridiculous. There is an elite street (the hot women) and a cheap street (the not so hot women). While the girls are waiting for a guy to tap on their window they are just casually reading a book or talking on their phones as if they aren't standing half naked in a glass window. It really was the craziest thing I have ever seen. And yes down the street from one of the sex shops was a kindergarten..I'm not sure why but apparently that's how accepted prostitution is in Amsterdam. The church though does have a purpose. Back in the day men who used to be tempted to stop by a sex shop after work would stop by the church and pay to go to confession because they felt so bad about sinning and cheating on their wives. This was the churches way of making money and it seemed to work because it was a beautiful church.

Doing a complete 360..we went to see Anne Frank's house. First of all the line was out the door and around the corner. We waited for about an hour but it completely worth it. Again, learning about Anne Frank from a text book and being in her bedroom where her actual magazine clips are still on the walls and her and her sister's measuring wall where they measured how tall they were growing is still intact are two completely different experiences. The annex was up an extremely high and skinny staircase and the windows are still blacked out. I hate to admit that I have never read the whole book "The Diary of Anne Frank" but have been inspired to do so after going to visit the annex where the hid. There was a horribly sad video clip that played at the end of the tour through the house about Anne's friend. Her friend saw her one day from across the fence in a concentration camp but was unable to get to her. Occasionally her friend would throw her food.  She said they only got to see each other once because Anne died shortly after this. Her friend made it out safely though.

The coffee shops in Amsterdam do not serve real coffee..but they are a lot of fun. What they do here is not legal (even though I thought it was in Amsterdam) but the police view them as "coffee shops" and ignore what goes on inside them.

We were in Amsterdam for two full days so the second day we went to the Heineken Museum to see how beer is made. It was a very hands on museum and I even learned how to draft the perfect beer!

Food in Amsterdam was pretty good. They have this place called Wok to Walk which is like a Stir Crazy but to go. There is a lot of American fast food too. We went to this place where the have pancakes which Amsterdam is known food and they were soo good. I got a salty pancake with eggs and mushrooms. It was like a breakfast burrito. I've been craving some good breakfast food since Italy doesn't do big breakfasts at all.

Amsterdam was a beautiful town with lots of canals and a tonnnn of bikes. The bikers are insane and will literally run you over if you happen to get into the bike lane (which I would strongly advise steering clear of).