Amsterdam

I have been home in the United States for almost two full days now, but I want to separate my last blogs into two final posts: my end of the semester trip to Amsterdam, and then my final thoughts and reflections on the five months I spent in Sevilla, Spain. Upon finishing my last exam in Sevilla on June 17, I left almost immediately for a two and a half day final european vacation to Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Of course, I had an incredible and crazy last night in Sevilla, but I will save that story for my final blog post. Needless to say, I was exhausted the morning we left for Amsterdam. I slept the entire plane ride which was about 3 hours, and I am pretty sure I fell asleep before we even took off. It definitely wasn't enough though because when we finally arrived to Amsterdam, I still felt totally beat and exhausted. Justin and I had a little bit of a hard time getting to the city and finding our hostel because we were both extremely tired and weren't really in the best of shape to be navigating an entirely foreign country. After getting on the wrong train, taking a cab to the wrong location, and a 30 minute walk to the real hostel, we finally got there and were able to sit down. Unfortunately, the girl we had planned to go with was on a different flight and didn't have any information on the hostel, so we had to communicate with her by pay-phone and internet in order to meet up and make a plan. The first hostel we stayed at was on the perimeter of the city, about a 15 minute bus ride into the center of town. Basically all day Saturday was spent looking around for our friend Becky and waiting around in the hostel and the Centraal Station to meet up. When we finally got connected, we went directly to a restaurant to get food. We had pizza, which was actually a pretty common restaurant option around Amsterdam. Unfortunately it started raining pretty hard around 10 at night so we decided to just go back to the hostel and explore the city the next two days.

When I say I went to Amsterdam for my last european destination, a lot of people would associate that kind of trip with nothing other than the Red Light district and the free flowing source of drugs all throughout the coffeeshops and the streets. I would be lying if I said that image isn't true, but in my mind there is a lot more to Amsterdam than just those two aspects of the city. I really loved the layout of the city, it was like something I had never seen before. It is constructed like a semi-circle around a body of water, and within the city there are hundreds of different canals that run throughout the streets. What's even more awesome are the antique bikes that people lock up next to the bars of the bridges. Amsterdam is really a cool city to see because of the buildings, bikes, and boats that run all right next to each other on the streets and in the canals. Amsterdam is also always bustling with people. Whenever I was in the street, I felt like I was surrounded by pedestrians and bikers all the time. It really made the city that much more lively, despite the dreary and cold weather. Another interesting and historical part of the city is the Anne Frank Huis. Becky, Justin and I were pretty set on seeing the Anne Frank Huis from the beginning, so we decided to go on Monday morning, our last full day in Europe. Walking through the house and seeing the actual bookshelf that hid the Frank family annex was really an unbelievable thing. To think that a family of 6 hid up there for two years avoiding the Nazi's was unreal and imagining the youngest daughter (Anne) writing a diary about the whole war was so interesting. It's really a sad story that the Frank family was so close to avoiding exile to the concentration camps in Auschwitz but were discovered in their annex only a few months before the war was over. I've never read the Anne Frank diary, but the house still had a very powerful effect on me and I am really glad I walked through it.

I really can't write this blog though without mentioning the drugs and the Red Light district that characterize a large part of Amsterdam. Of course, the hard core drugs of the world are illegal in Amsterdam, but it is pretty widely known for being a city that has legalized the sale of marijuana in public coffeeshops and designated locations. You can find the coffeeshops pretty easily throughout the city and they are very clearly labeled. To each his own opinion, but if you ask me it is actually a pretty strange concept. The fact that a drug, that has such severe consequences in a large part of the world, is entirely available and cheap in a city is something that I guess really distinguishes Amsterdam from any other place in the world. Of course, some people consider this a positive, and others consider it a negative but the point is, it's a part of the city. There is no way around it, and you really can't deny it. The exact same goes for the Red Light district. Becky, Justin and I actually stumbled upon it accidently the first night just walking around the city and everyone was walking through it as if it was entirely normal. I'm sure the Red Light district is generally filled with only foreigners... with who knows what interests (mainly curiosity I would think, but hey there are always other incentives)... but for 3 Americans to witness something like that was definitely an experience I will never forget. I definitely could have lived my life happily without ever seeing it, but then again it is a new and different culture, and somehow the tradition of prostitutes filling the streets with red lights outside their doors has remained in Amsterdam throughout all these years. I guess you could say my eyes were opened to an entirely new and different city and culture, but it is always important to remember that there is so much more to a place than what first meets the eye.

All in all, I am very happy I got the chance to see Amsterdam. I'm not sure I would ever return, but it is a place that someone my age should definitely see if the opportunity presents itself. Becky, Justin and I had a great time together in the city, especially our second two days in our hostel called Durty Nelly's located directly in the city center. Saying goodbye to Becky as our last MCP student goodbye was pretty hard, especially because she has become such a good friend, along with a lot of other kids from Cornell and Penn. I will undoubtedly be visiting both schools if I get the chance and can afford it. The friends I made in my program made a huge difference in my overall experience studying abroad, and continuing a friendship with them is extremely important to me.

I'm going to give myself about a week to full adjust to the American culture and concept of "being home". I then plan on writing a summary of my last week in Sevilla and a few reflections on the overall trip and experience. It should make for a pretty long and interesting blog, or at least I hope so. I hope I have kept you all relatively interested in my travels these past five months. There is nothing I like more than being able to share my story, so I hope I have done a good job in accurately conveying my experience.

Until next time,

Michael