Snow On Amsterdam: Perspective

Oh, Amsterdam. You're the crazy kind of place you typically visit as a red-eyed student in college. However, we first met when I was 14, merely a freshman in high school. In the summer of 1994 I was formally introduced to city staples like Amstel light and the red light {district}. We stayed on a house boat, I learned to drive stick in a parking lot and we posed for pictures in giant, wooden clogs. 

While the entire experience was etched into my mind, my most vivid and powerful memory took place far away from the wild sites in the city. As soon as I set foot in the apartment in which Anne Frank hid for over two years, my life and perspective was changed forever. I was so moved that I went on to write my college entrance essay about visiting her hiding place. If you've never learned about Anne Frank or haven't read her diary, I promise you'll be touched. And on this snowy day in New York, I look out my window wondering how many times she must have watched snow fall over canals, hoping to play in it, once again.

Perspective.

via pia jane bijkerk