Today marks day 8 of our trip to the Netherlands. Our day started off rather later than in past days, at 10 am we travelled to the Amsterdam market with Max for some shopping. This market is unlike any clothing or vintage market that I have ever seen in the United States before. Firstly, at many of the pop-up shops in order to purchase an item you must negotiate a price. This was extremely odd for me because at a few shops they would speak fluently and only in Dutch which prevented me for negotiating with them at all. At those shops I simply just gave up and returned the product. Another thing that I had yet to have experienced was a resell market of that size. The market which was held outside was massive. It took me the full two hours while we were there to walk through the whole venue just once. While I was walking through the market, I spent a lot of time thinking about where markets such as the one I was in fit on the business model of concept to customer. In places like these I assumed that most of these retailers were just ridding themselves of certain items that did not fit them or their lifestyle. I also thought of how they acted as main sources of products for the consumers of Amsterdam, in this case being your everyday citizen. This allowed me to recognize and learn more about the clothing concept to customer in Amsterdam.

Today we also finished up our day with the Alumni meet and greet after the clothing market. The alumni meeting helped me to learn a great deal about how Americans deal with working in the European market. Most of the University of Pittsburgh alumni explained that there was not a real issue or challenge working in the Dutch market. However, many of the Pitt alumni do work in American or English-speaking companies in the Netherlands which help to ease the transition from the United States to the Netherlands. However, one alumni described how he has had trouble dealing with Dutch companies because of the opinions that they have of themselves. He describes how many Dutch companies can be extremely stubborn at times with trusting others with their business which he believes is a big flaw for them. This was surprising for me to hear because I had always envisioned Dutch companies as being extremely free flowing and trusting when it comes to business because of how closely they work with other European nations. Ultimately the lunch with the Pitt alumni was extremely insightful and helped me to come away with a better understanding of the possibilities I have in the future as an aspiring Pitt alumni.