Holland



The watch shop that was owned
by the Ten Boom family.  Their home
is upstairs and adjacent.


It's been a while since I posted.  A lot of that has been that for whatever reason, I've been frustrated with several things at work lately.  I try not to get into that online.  It's just not beneficial.

This weekend, we went to Amsterdam for the first time.  On Saturday, we drove to Haarlam, Holland to visit the Corrie Ten Boom Museum.  Amazing experience.  It's the only museum I've ever been to that allows visitors to touch and photograph pretty much anything.  Isaac and I crawled into the hiding place where six Jews and Dutch Resistence workers hid during a Nazi raid.

That afternoon, we went the the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.  Emily enjoyed that.  I've already seen a lot of his major works, but this museum has the largest collections of his works in the world. 

This morning, we visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.  Another amazing experience.  I was surprised at the size of their hiding place.  They had more room than I had always assumed based on reading the dairy and play in junior high.  The building is completely unfurnished, per Otto Frank (Anne's Father), but many of the photos that are in the museum really bring their story to life. 

After that, I walked my wife and kids through on of the Red Light Districts in Amsterdam.  (Not a destination you might expect from a minister).  It was appropriately dull for 10 am on a Sunday morning.  It's just one of those things we wanted to say we had done.  Emily also wanted to stop for coffee at one of Amsterdam's "coffee bars."  I had to explain that any coffee house in Amsterdam with Bob Marley pictures on the window probably doesn't make money from coffee beans.