We arrived at the Schiphol Airport at around 8am local time, but it was 2am Eastern Standard Time, so the majority of our group was jet lagged; this, of course, included myself. This exhaustion definitely caused me to be less attentive and in awe of the new environment I had just thrown myself into, but in this sleepy state, I did still manage to notice one glaringly obvious thing. Although the airport itself did not look all that different from a typical American airport in terms of the layout and types of food options (I mean, one of the first things I saw was the all too familiar Starbucks logo), I noticed that our group definitely stood out from the crowds of people that filled the airport. Anyone could have easily pointed us out as we were the cluster of 25 confused Americans blocking the walkway for everyone else. While feeling out of place is not exactly a foreign concept to me, it was a strange experience to feel like an outsider right off the bat.
As the daylight blinded me at what should have been 2am, I found myself on a bus from Schiphol to our hostel in Amsterdam called “Generator,” which we learned was previously a university lecture hall that was converted to a hostel. At first, the views outside of my bus window looked oddly familiar. The highways and greenery did not seem all that different from the ones you would see in suburban Maryland, where I’m from. However, as we neared our hostel, I saw a major change of scenery. There were more bikes than cars parked along the streets. I had heard that bikes were a common mode of transportation here, but this was far beyond my expectations. I realized that this was just one channel of a Dutch value; an emphasis on sustainability.
After we arrived at our hostel, we met up with our lovely guides, who taught us some basic Dutch words and phrases. Although we could definitely get by using English as they speak it here, it was important that we get a tiny piece of Dutch culture through an attempt at learning their language. I found that pronouncing the words was rather difficult as I had to use different parts of my mouth to do this than I was used to when speaking English.
Our guides then took us on a neighborhood walking tour through Oosterpark and various main streets in Amsterdam. Again, we couldn’t have made it more obvious that we were visitors with our large group size and many of us stopping to take pictures like the stereotypical tourist. Still, this was supposed to be part of our experience and it was nice to explore this perspective of being a visitor in an unfamiliar country as a change of pace to our lives back home. On this walk, our guides pointed out that recycling is another big thing here. Not only is disposing of goods in a recyclable fashion important, but also manufacturing of goods, such as containers and water bottles, with recycled material is also highly emphasized and quite common.
Although most of the Amsterdam I took in today was in a jet lagged state, I enjoyed being able to compare the environment here to that back home. I also was able to really appreciate the picturesque nature of this rather quaint city.