Kyle Hepp

December 15, 2010

While blogging about our unbelievable trip to Belgium, I realized, there’s quite a bit from that whole trip that we never posted about. With the cities we saw at the very end we never got around to it because as soon as we arrived back in Chile, we were ear deep in photographing weddings and obviously posting those took priority. So that brings us to Amsterdam, Holland. Better late than never, right?

The whole time we traveled through Europe, I set up an email auto-responder and kept it updated with whatever city we were in. So when my grandma sent me an email, my email immediately bounced back her saying that we were currently in Holland. She proceeded to respond and let me know that I am one quarter Dutch! I had no idea. I was always under the impression that my family was of pretty much only German descent. But once we got there and I saw all the blond freckly ladies biking around town with their giant thighs, everything clicked into place. These are my people!

We did quite the whirlwind trip to Amsterdam and I definitely want to go back to explore some more. Our measly 24 hours just wasn’t enough.

Seba and I knew the trip was starting out right when we got to our hotel, Citizen M. The chain says they are “boutique budget hotels,” and they lived up to that description. The rooms are TINY, but so freaking cool! Every time you go to the bathroom or take a shower, you basically get to blast off to outer space. What’s not to like? The door closes around that area, so you’re shut into a little circle.

The room comes with a remote control that you can set to your mood, basically changing the lighting of everything. We kept ours at a soothing, peaceful blue/purple the whole time we stayed there

Then the bed was built right into the walls. I loved that. When you’re traveling and you spend all day touristing around, you don’t need a big hotel space. I like large spaces if I’m going for a weekend in luxury, just to spend time with Seba. But if I had it my way, when I travel knowing that I’ll barely be in the room, I’d stay in a Citizen M style hotel every day. Too bad the chain isn’t larger. I hope it expands to South America. That’d be so nice in Chile where hotel options are either super expensive or super shit. There is no happy medium here.

Also, forgive my husband. He looks like a terrorist.

Amsterdam itself is pretty much exactly what you’ve imagined it to be and more. There are bike lanes and bikes everywhere.

The architecture looks so typically Dutch to me. I love it.

And of course, there are canals everywhere. It’s beautiful, really. That’s Anne Frank’s hiding house on the other side of the river there.

Even though we only had 24 hours, the one place at the top of my list to see was the Anne Frank house. My mom is obsessed with Anne Frank and I loved Anne Frank’s Diary growing up too, so this was a dream visit. Before we even went, just standing outside the house, I had chills. It’s crazy to think of the Frank family living in this very house while they were in hiding.

Unfortunately, most of the original furniture isn’t in the house anymore. Though from room to room, there are videos of the people involved in the whole story. Even without the furniture, it was pretty cool. I almost cried when I saw the original diary. Visiting Anne Frank’s house and walking through the Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany, were the two things that impacted me the most on our trip to Europe.

Throughout the city there were so many cool bicycles. I should mention that the Dutch women have the BEST style. I think they were the most fashionably dressed country on my list. Their clothing was very offbeat and people really seemed like they were all just doing their own thing and didn’t care much about what was currently trendy. I loved that. So it makes sense that they did cool decoration work on their bikes.

Look at this tiny little car that’s locked down with a bike chain, basically!

I have no idea what this elephant was doing here, but all the random is what I really enjoyed about Amsterdam!

We visited the flower market as well and took a few pictures for Seba’s mom. She’s a gardening freak. She would’ve thought she’d died and went to heaven with all these different seeds and bulbs to choose from.

The town I am from in Michigan has a HUGE Dutch population. Like 80% of the people I grew up with were Van Somethings. And a neighboring town has a big tulip festival everywhere. For some reason being in the flower market made me think of that. That same town also has a museum/amusement park sort of thing called Dutch Village where people dress up like the Dutch and you can watch them doing Duthc things like dancing and playing in windmills and making wooden shoes.

These last two photos are my favorites! In case you can’t read it, that says, “Since when does hot pink lipstick go out of style?” My answer to that would be, “Ummm. Never.”

And this next one I think I might get printed and hang next to the amazing Chanel Girls in Glasses artwork that Emily got me for my birthday last year. Seba will eventually learn to love the fashion world.

Oh, speaking of Seba, that man I call my husband, here’s a photo of him directly after I won the WORST WIFE OF THE CENTURY AWARD. I forgot his birthday. All day long he kept saying, “Hey, do you know what the date is,” and I continually responded, “No. Why?” At the train station leaving Amsterdam, we checked our emails at an internet cafe and he had a gazillion emails from Facebook. WORST WIFE OF THE CENTURY said, “Dude, since when do you have so many friends? What did you write on Facebook?” It was then he said, “It’s my birthday.”

I suck, I really do. Trust me, you don’t want to be married to me. Though I will say I love the man more than life itself. Forgetting a birthday is not representative of my feelings towards him