We made it! After a very long journey through Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and the Atlantic Ocean, we arrived in The Netherlands today. Despite being drained of energy, Amsterdam is already entirely encapsulating. From the architecture to the angry bicycle riders, the city is truly amazing to walk around in.

After landing at Schiphol airport, we made our way to the hostel. The hostel we are staying at is in a giant, beautiful park. A cool thing about this park is that there are large quantities of dogs going on walks without leashes. After checking in we walked around the neighborhood and grabbed a quick lunch. Not too soon after I took a tremendously needed nap.

To finish off our first day, the CIEE program took us out to a nice steak dinner. Tomorrow we will get a lot of time to explore the city, but I think Overall, the day was a bit of a blur, but I can’t be more excited to spend the next two weeks here.