Amsterdam

With one week left in the program, what did I do? I went to Amsterdam! Amsterdam has to be one of the coolest places I have ever been, particularly after living in Paris for a month and a half. I wouldn't say Amsterdam is better than Paris, but it is incredibly different. One of the first big differences I noticed was how clean the metro stations were in Amsterdam and that the majority were open air stations. Compared to the dark, dirty, underground stations of the Paris Metro, it was a welcome change. If you've ever been to Amsterdam, you'll understand my surprise about how many bikes there were! Of course, I knew cycling was big there, but I didn't anticipate seeing more bicycle traffic than car traffic.

We left Paris on Thursday at 11:30 pm, taking an overnight bus to the Netherlands so we would have more daytime in the city itself. Despite sleeping maybe 4 hours on the bus, we arrived in Amsterdam on Friday morning ready for an adventure. We bought metro passes for the weekend and navigated our way the Urban Loge Hotel where we were staying, taking in with eager eyes the beauty of the city around us. I quickly lost count of the rivers we crossed on our way from the metro station to our hotel, but it was only a hint of how much water actually defines the geography of Amsterdam.

Because we couldn't get into a room until 1:00, we freshened up and were able to check in before leaving our bags at the front desk and heading into the city. Our first meal in Amsterdam was at a place called the Pancake Bakery, and I have to admit, they were more like crepes than they were pancakes. But they were delicious nonetheless. I had a crepe with Nutella, naturally, and some of the best bacon I've ever had. Afterwards, we began our walk to the Van Gogh museum. On the way we passed the Anne Frank house, which unfortunately we didn't have time to visit this trip, as well as many cute boutiques, bars, and bridges. So many bridges.

The Van Gogh Museum was incredible. They had a temporary exhibit called Van Gogh Dreams, an immersive exhibit that makes you feel like you're in the mind of Van Gogh. Hundreds of glass flowers outside of a yellow house, a blackened room with mirrored walls and strobing red lights that cause you to feel mad... it's a very powerful experience that attempts to help the viewer understand what Van Gogh went through. The rest of the museum showcases the artist's work as well as the works that inspired Van Gogh, and other works inspired by his own. We saw the famous Sunflowers, learning their history and what they meant to Van Gogh, as well as his many many self portraits. After our expedition, we picked up some groceries before heading back to our hotel to shower and nap before dinner that night.

Sleeping a bit longer than intended, but not sorry since we had barely slept the night before, we headed to dinner around 7:00, finding a Mexican restaurant near the Red Light District. The food was amazing, as were the strawberry margaritas, and we convinced the bartender to turn on the USA vs France World Cup Game, which we watched with anxiety, cheering for our home country rather than the one we were currently residing in. After a wonderful dinner of tacos and fries-- the waiter asked if I wanted chips with my meal, and thinking he meant tortilla chips, I said yes, not realizing that they were the British version of chips-- French fries-- we wandered around downtown Amsterdam and into the Red Light District.

For those unfamiliar with Amsterdam, prostitution is legal there, and home to brothels galore. Women stood in windows, dressed in black lingerie and gull faces of makeup,waiting for someone to approach them for their services. Sex workers in Amsterdam have many rights and a lot of protection through the state, making their work legal and much safer than prostitution in the United States and other countries. There are signs on the windows that say "No pictures or video of sex workers", and we watched as a sex worker angrily banged on her window after a man walking by had taken her picture. One of the things I found the funniest was the groups of men giggling like school boys as they dared each other to go up and pay for a sex worker's services. It was a strange thing to think about, and incredibly foreign to us Americans, but interesting to see nonetheless. It was also incredibly amusing to walk by a window and see a sex worker standing and looking at her phone. Very 2019, if you ask me.

We finished off the night in a bar we stumbled upon named Louis' Bar, making friends with the bartender and with Louis himself. We met a lovely British couple who told us about their kids and took a genuine interest in our travels and studies in Paris. We all found that everyone in Amsterdam as incredibly nice. One of the more interesting things we discovered was that the phonetics of Dutch are very similar to those in American English, so when we heard someone speaking Dutch, it sounded very much like an American speaking gibberish, because the accents are so similar. English is the second language in Amsterdam as well, so everyone we met spoke English, and while some had thick Dutch accents (sometimes sounding Scottish), others sounded almost American. It was a strange yet homey thing to find.

The next morning we woke up a bit later, though who could blame us after the day we'd had, and made our way back into town for lunch. We ate at a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant Hannah found on TripAdvisor called Mister Meatball. I'm not normally a meatball fan, but I was amazed by how good the sandwich I ordered was. It had pickles and sauce and lettuce and three pieces of bread with slices of meatball. I'm still drooling thinking about it.

After lunch we took a ferry across the water to the A'DAM tower, where we bought tickets to both go up to the lookout and for Hannah and I to go on the Over The Edge swing. We went into the tower and up to the first floor where the line for the overlook began. As you waited in line, you had your picture taken against a green screen that would make it look like you were sitting on a wall in the middle of the sky above Amsterdam. Then we were ushered to the elevator that would take us up to the top, whose glass ceiling showed a light show powerful enough to warn people with epilepsy against going up. When we got to the top we discovered what was more like a beach resort than the rooftop of a sky scrapper in Amsterdam. A bar with a DJ booth made up one area, picnic tables and lights strung above the area making for the perfect photo opportunity. A massive red horse stood in another area in front of the A'DAM sign, more photo opportunities, the las part of the roof housing the Over The Edge Swing itself. I've always been the kind of person to love thrills but who was incredibly nervous when waiting in line to get on. As nervous as I was to go on the swing, palms sweating and heart pounding, I loved it once I was up, getting to see Amsterdam from a view like no other.

After the swing we took advantage of all of the picture backdrops, sipping wine and feeling like the luckiest girls in the world before heading back into town for our time slot in the Heineken Experience. I'm not the biggest Heineken fan, I prefer darker beers like Guinness, or IPAs, but I have to admit it was unlike anything I've ever experienced before. Not only did they show us the factory rooms where the beer was brewed a hundred years ago, but they sent us through interactive experiences where we "were the beer" as it was bottled and sent off for shipping. We learned about how Heineken is made, its history,and even saw the horses that have the honor of pulling Heineken carts. But what was the most unexpected was the parts of the Experience that were like being in a nightclub. Rooms that showed Heineken's influence in the Olympics, night clubs, and Amsterdam in general boasted mirrored walls, strobing lights, and pounding base that reminded you of a European nightclub. At the end of the Experience, we were ushered to a bar where you could not only order two free Heinekens, but practice pouring it yourself, following the 5 steps that heineken bartenders use. I failed miserably, but hey, free beer is free beer. We had out picture taken by a Polaroid photographer who walked around the bar and enjoyed each other's company before returning to the hotel to shower and nap before heading out again for dinner and our last night on the town.

Dinner was subpar, but we took advantage of our last night, walking through the Red Light District again before buying churros to finish the night off, retuning to our hotel, exhausted. The next morning we got up early and packed up before going on our canal tour. We learned a lot about Amsterdam and it's history, how it was founded by two men washing up on the shores of the city, becoming an actual city by taxing boats as they passed by. We learned about the Golden Bend, the rich district of Amsterdam whose houses were homes to the richest the city had to offer, as well as what different buildings were and the purposes they served.

We finished off out time in Amsterdam by eating at an Italian restaurant (I had some amazing penne), before catching our metro to the statin where our bus would take us back to Paris for our last week in the IES program.

I feel so fortunate to have the opportunity to travel like I have during this trip. As someone who had never previously been out of the country, I've learned so much about different countries, cultures, food, people, and most importantly about myself. I have been so incredibly happy and felt so fulfilled over these past two months, and everyday I'm grateful to be where I am.