Hi everyone!
Today was such a long, and fun, day! The group started their journey to The Netherlands, on Saturday at 7am. Our journey consisted of a 7 am bus ride to Pittsburgh International Airport, a two-hour flight to Boston, a layover in Boston, and finally the 6 1/2-hour flight straight to the Schiphol Amsterdam Airport. This was my first international flight, and it was super easy. We landed in Amsterdam around 6 am and spent some time at a restaurant while waiting for our tour guide, Raha, to pick us up.
To start the day off, the group took a train to the central station in central Amsterdam. When in the train station, we saw a double-decker metro system, which was something I had never seen before. Our guide had a scavenger hunt planned for us, hitting major destinations such as: The Anne Frank House, St. Nicholas Church, and many more spots around town. In our groups, we saw many picturesque canals, many local shops, and loads of sustainable practices at work here in the city. The sidewalks and roads were very clean and tidy. Amsterdam is proving to be very sustainable with large preventative fines for littering, constant street vacuuming, and sustainable packaging for many products. When shopping around the city, I either had to pay extra for a bag, or was handed a paper bag. Amsterdam seems to be very intentional with their waste and focuses on their environment. When stepping out of any major building, on a bridge, or even along the roads, there will be rows and rows of bicycles propped up. The number of bikes, and therefore less car usage, prevents there from being as much pollution as a car-focused city, and helps limit emissions.
Later, we checked into our hotel and finally got some much-needed sleep and took some much-needed showers. Our hotel is the spot to be, people from all around the world are staying at this location.
The group was back on the move and this time to dinner. Led by our guide, we took the metro to a very popular district in Amsterdam and ate at Coco’s Outback Restaurant. The menu consisted of your normal American items, with the addition of the group-favorite, the Kangaroo burger. For someone with allergies, the Netherlands are proving to be hard to navigate, food-wise, especially due to the language barrier and cultural food differences.
Overall, Today I learned how to navigate around the city of Amsterdam using the trains, metro, and bus systems. We saw many great, historic sites and experienced some very interesting things. I would call day 1 a success, especially considering most of us hadn’t slept in over 24 hours!
I look forward to day 2!
Goodnight!