We walked along a canal and in due time, I noticed a church-steeple I had recognized from the last time I was in Amsterdam. Keeping my eye on it, trying to remember the significance, Bruce and I giggled, held hands and walked along the cobblestone sidewalks and peered into windows. It wasn't too many blocks before I was starting to remember the steeple's significance. "Where are we going anyway?" Bruce shouted from behind me about four paces. "There!" I pointed. "If I'm remembering correctly, it's near the Anne Frank House!"

A few blocks later, my eye caught the sign with an arrow pointing down the block; "The Anne Frank House" it said in large black letters. "The last time I was here, there was a line going around the block at least once and so I didn't get to go in!" I said. In a few minutes, we were standing in front of the museum with Bruce and I stopping for a breath of air. "Shall we?" I said and Bruce said "Yup!" immediately and followed me in.

It's somewhat eerie in the Anne Frank House museum. For with so few people inside, you can't help but feel compeled to whisper with your hands behind your back, peering into glass displays of miniature models of the house where the furniture was and the hidden rooms. You follow the signs around from room to room, up one or two flights of stairs and into more rooms. On the walls, exerpts from her diary are displayed in Dutch, English, French and a couple Asiatic languages. If you're not familiar with the story, it's a little hard to understand the significance of each room. However, the windows are mostly covered with an opaque covering and the entire place is lit up with modern track-lighting.

One arrow pointed us to an opening in the wall that has a piece of plexiglass on the floor. It's hard to explain but beneath the plexiglass is a stairwell that goes through it making it a strange optical illusion as you turn and take the first step. Up that flight is yet another room and you soon realize that the stairwell you've just climbed was originally hidden and it leads to the Frank's family quarters. A simple living space with an old stove against one wall with more pictures and placards of Anne Frank's writings. In the next room, we found where Anne slept and shared with another man, Fritz Pfeffer. I cried and Bruce followed quietly when the entire magnitude of Anne Frank's life and times hit us. We were in her room -- on the top level. She had decorated the walls with all of these old Hollywood photos to "make the room more cheery". I grabbed Bruce's arm and we sort of stood there, feeling the loneliness and the quietness of it all.

The church bells across the street chimed the hour and we walked into what would be the restroom; A small water-closet with the original fixtures, a vanity or sink-basin and a tiny window with a closer view of the church steeple's details.

It was pretty awesome...and pretty sad at the same time.

After paying tribute to Anne and her family, we left and went off on a foot tour. It was wonderful. Bruce and I gawked like silly-Americans and giggled and held hands... (in public.) No body noticed...nobody cared.