After a very long but very fun flight that consisted of watching movies and playing airplane poker, we had arrived in lovely Amsterdam at a local time of 5:30AM; however, back home it was about 12 or 1AM. Once we arrived in the airport, I immediately took notice of the amount of clog statues and the sense around the fashion that is usually worn in the Netherlands. Compared to the United States, the Dutch tend to dress up a little more for their daily lifestyle, in which our group stood out with our airplane outfits that consisted of only sweatpants and sweatshirts.

We started our actual tour of Amsterdam immediately after meeting our tour guide, Raha, and our tour was a scavenger hunt that was based off of the book and movie, “The Fault in Our Stars”. This scavenger hunt took us all around a portion of Amsterdam, leading us to a church and all around the main portion of Amsterdam, and was a great team-bonding experience as well as a way to help us get acclimated to the climate of Amsterdam. After this scavenger hunt, a group of us went to go eat at a local restaurant to wind down before our dinner at 7:00. However, before that, we all had to get checked into our hotel and take quick naps to refresh ourselves after our long day.

While on our way to dinner, we had taken the metro and seen some of the sights that the Netherlands has to offer! For dinner, we also had to get dressed up in business casual attire which is the norm here in the Netherlands which was somewhat of a culture shock since we were eating some of the same meals that we could obtain in the United States. Overall, my favorite part of the day was the scavenger hunt because I got to see a lot of what Amsterdam has to offer, and I can visit those sites further while the trip goes on.