Amsterdam

Two weekends ago I took a weekend trip to Amsterdam. We arrived on Thursday night; our hostel was in the center of town, on a street lined with coffeeshops.. Unfortunately we didn't realize that unlike Madrid, this city doesn't stay up all night; everything was pretty much closed by 2am.
Friday morning we walked around mostly, saw Dam Square and Nieuwe Kerk. Although it is a small city, we got lost often; I had a moment of hilarious realization that Amsterdam is a city of concentric circles. When we thought we were walking in a straight line, we would end up where we started. effing confusing.
That afternoon we saw Wester Kerk, and went through the Anne Frank house. It was not much, but it was cool to see and remember the book.
We went out that night to some club/bar, which was fun, but nothing too crazy.
In the morning we got pancakes, which were awesome.. It was the only Dutch food we ate I think; the city has mostly international food. We went to the Van Gogh Museum; I really liked it but there was not much to see and it was pretty expensive. Later we went on a canal cruise, but we were all so tired most of us pretty much napped through the whole thing.. That night we walked through the red light district. Prostitutes stand in big windows with red lights above them all down the street; it was pretty gross and sad so we left that area quickly. Otherwise, we had a pretty chill evening at a few coffeeshops, and the next morning we went bike riding.
Amsterdam is an awesome city to bike through, and absolutely adorable.. The canals and colors are gorgeous, and the houses are all narrow because rent is paid by width. We passed by Bloemenmarket, the flower market, and ran into their winter holiday parade. They have a slightly different version of Christmas, that includes a Sinterklaas that has black slaves as elves, although I think they give a slightly more pc account to their kids.. However, in the parade, there were tons of Dutch people as the elves, in blackface! It made me uncomfortable in general, and although I know that it is not intended to be racist, I can't help but wonder how they don't see anything wrong with that. Race relations in Europe are just a little weird; there seems to be an overall insensitivity.. It might not be as bad as I think; I don't know how many hate crimes are committed or how much outward racism occurs, but as a minority coming from America, I think I am just hypersensitive to it.
We left Amsterdam that afternoon; it was a nice trip because we didn't feel pressured to see tons of sights, it was mostly just a city to experience..
Also, during the trip, my camera broke : ( : ( : (
This time I actually didn't do anything! It just stopped working. ugh.