After almost a full day of travel, we finally arrived bright and early at the Amsterdam airport this morning! I was so excited, and even in the airport I began to notice differences from the United States. I immediately was drawn to sustainability, especially in the small details. For example, when we went to go get our morning Starbucks to help wake us up after the long flight, I thought it was amazing that they did not have any plastic cups, and even cold drinks were served in paper cups, which were collected in a bin to be composted.

We then met our tour guide for the trip, Raja! She was so nice and showed us how to use all of the public transportation systems during our stay. We rode a train and the metro, and there are also buses. The train and the metro were both very clean, efficient, and I noticed that a lot of people were using them on our way in and out of Amsterdam. There were so many people (and bikes) on the metro, we couldn’t even find a seat at one point! This was exciting to see, because it shows how little reliance there is on cars in The Netherlands when compared to the United States. On our walking tour of Amsterdam, I noticed that there were many many more bikes than cars, and that we could barely walk a block without stopping at a bike lane for someone riding along. I thought about how awesome it would be if more places in the United States were so bike friendly. I saw many people had bikes parked outside restaurants, and I thought it added to the charm of the city. With weather like we had today, high 60s and sunny, the bike ride there and back would be so beautiful. I took many pictures of the bikes and the views of the canals along the way, it was so pretty.

The rest of our walking tour of Amsterdam was so much fun. We started out at the central train station, and walked around to destinations like the St. Nicholas Basilica Church, and the Amsterdam National Monument. Since this is my first time in Europe, I thought it was so interesting to get to see pieces of European history in real life. After the tour, we split off and got lunch at a little diner in the city. One interesting difference in dining that I noticed, and Raja mentioned, were that there was no tipping on the bill, but the tax was much higher than in the United States. I liked the lack of tip because this made splitting the bill much easier when we went to pay. We then went back to the hotel, on the metro again (getting more familiar with it), and got ready for dinner.

For dinner, we got off at the Waterlooplein stop, and ate in a square that was vibrant and filled with bars and restaurants. They were playing soccer on the TVs, which was fun to see because I love soccer, but back home soccer is not a large professional sport and usually is not played on public TVs. After we ate dinner, I walked around a little more exploring and taking more pictures of the canal at sunset. I passed a large music performance, playing the song “Freedom” and streets were blocked off so people could parade and listen to celebrate Liberation Day. I love that the sun sets about an hour later here than at home, so we can soak up the extra daylight. After watching the sun set, I headed back to the hotel and got ready to rest for tomorrow’s activities. I can’t wait to do more exploring!