A friend emailed me over the weekend, offering consolation for recent harrowing events in my life. Then he told me the most bizarre story. He’s living in Amsterdam, so he prefaced it by saying: “No, I’ve not been to a coffee shop.”
(Unlike Chris Brown, above, who’s spent far too much time in Amsterdam’s famous coffee shops of late.”)
My friend continued: “I went to Noah’s Ark yesterday. It is one of the oddest experiences I’ve had. It’s a life-size ‘replica’ of Noah’s Ark. I’m still in a state of amazement about how surreal/ good/ shocking/ bad/ hilarious it was. I think I’m still processing it. I spent almost three hours there! It’s huge. It’s tacky too. Oh boy, is it tacky. And every now and then something live popped out, like a dog, peacock or a pony or rabbits or white doves.”
I was like wha?
So I Googled it, and it’s true, there’s a life-sized replica of Noah’s Ark in Amsterdam. My friend hasn’t been sticking things in his pipe and smoking them. Here’s a picture of it …
A Dutch carpenter called Johan Huibers has spent around $1.6 million building it after dreaming about a great flood sweeping Holland. He saw the dream as a signal to spread God’s message.
As gCaptain describes it in his “Crazy S#$@ Rich People Do” section: “Johan’s Ark, as it is being informally called, is built to the same biblical proportions as laid out in the book of Genesis but with some slight upgrades, including a Bible museum, plastic animals, and a live walk in bird cage to give visitors that “authentic feel”. The finished ship — which has just opened to the public on the Merwede River in the town of Dordrecht — is built 300 cubits long (about 450 feet), 50 cubits wide (70 feet or 21 meters), and 30 cubits high (45 feet).”
Wow, that’s out there. Even for Amsterdam. Yet I feel this strange yearning to explore it, preferably after a hash cookie. That would make it really trippy.
WHAT’S THE WEIRDEST TOURIST ATTRACTION YOU’VE EVER VISITED?
housegoeshome 
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