The start of our weekend adventure began on Thursday morning. Eager to ‘hit the road’ my roommate and I packed our bags to the maximum and headed toward the bus on our first sunny morning in Luxembourg.
Upon arriving to MUDEC, we discussed with other students our travel plans. This was an exciting feeling because it was the first, of many travel weekends. I think a lot of us in class that day felt the anticipation of getting out and heading to our destination.
I honestly didn’t know anything about Amsterdam before planning this trip. I know that there’s a song called Amsterdam, and I knew that Marijuana was legal there. That was really it though. I had no idea what else made this place as amazing as everyone made it seem.
After arriving around 7PM, my group and I had to really get ourselves together. Not knowing the train would actually take 2 more hours than expected, we had planned to tour the home of Anne Frank. Running out of the train station we had no idea what to do next. The first thing that I noticed about the city was that not only did it wreak of marijuana, but it had the same feel as another major city I was used to, New York City.
As we frantically tried to move through this unfamiliar city, we dodged bicycles and cars coming in all directions. Something that I also noticed was the fact that more people tend to ride their bikes in Amsterdam. This is a great way to stay green, but also a good way to almost knock over tourists such as myself.
Making it to the Anne Frank house a little after our scheduled time, we were admitted into the building. Covered with security monitors and brochures, we were advised to put our backpacks in front of us, to avoid any damages to the home.
This tour was a success and definitely worth our limited time in Amsterdam. I am glad I got to experience this. This experience reminded me of the monument reading that we did. It made me realize its significance to the city as a whole.
As we toured Amsterdam I grew more and more fascinated by the canals that separate the city. These are beautiful and really add to the city’s environment. This set up the city in a different way geographically because you can tell that they canals were once used as transportation. I really enjoyed them because they made the city more beautiful.
Geographically, the streets of Amsterdam are quite confusing. As I stated, it has the feel of New York City. Lots of cars, lots of people and lots of buildings. This type of environment made me think of class because it showed some of the cities history as well as culture.
Some first hand experiences that reminded me of the ideas we’ve discussed in class were that it really made me think of how different regions are different every where you go. This also is the same for cultures. I also thought about how this city shares a lot of the things that Luxembourg has. One similarity is how they conserve energy by riding their bikes around, like I mention in my photo response.
When dealing with different regions and cultures, I noticed that mostly when you change regions the language also changes. In Amsterdam I did notice that they spoke Dutch, but they also spoke more English than the people in Luxembourg do. I enjoyed this aspect.
While walking around Amsterdam I found that it had a wide variety of restaurants in the city. I observed the fact that they had a street just for Argentinean foods. This was really interesting to me, and made me wonder how diverse this city really is.
The different types of foods show that there are different kinds of people that live in that city. That is something that I noticed about this culture. There are many different types of people within this urban city. This was much different from what we have seen in Lux.
Although it is located closer to a body of water, I found that Amsterdam was a lot warmer in Amsterdam than in Luxembourg. This could deal with geographic location, but that was really surprising to me, especially because it is surrounded by canals that can create wind to make it a little chillier.
Overall, I had a great weekend and learned a great amount about Amsterdam. I now know it's not only known for its legalization of weed and prostitution, it has a much more about its culture and history than I thought. It was overall a successful trip!
