After a much-needed night of sleep, we started our second day in Amsterdam at 8:45 by catching the train to Amsterdam Central which brought us into the heart of the city. After arriving we waited for our scheduled boat tour time and then embarked on the tour through the Amsterdam canals.
During the boat tour, I learned a lot more about all the architecture in the city. One of the most interesting facts I took away from the boat tour is that taxes on housing in Amsterdam are directly related to how wide the property is as well as how many windows it has. This means that the wider the property the more rich the resident. Another fact we learned about the architecture during the boat tour was that instead of house numbers, people in Amsterdam used to use stones above their houses with images that depicted something significant, that way their house could be identified through the stone that hung above it. On top of learning cool facts about the architecture, we also got to see all the different styles and forms of housing, one of the most prominent being the houseboats that line the canals. Houseboats are an innovative solution to the housing crisis going on in Amsterdam, and now that I got to see them up close on the tour, they are extremely nice and luxurious.
After the boat tour and a quick lunch break, we came back together to take a walking tour of Amsterdam and visit a chocolate store. First, the walking tour was extremely insightful and offered lots of information about what goes on behind the scenes in the city of Amsterdam, specifically related to their sustainability practices. One of the first things we learned was that because there are so many bikes that fall into the Amsterdam canals, there is a designated boat to bo and scoop the bikes out of the canals. This scooping over the years has caused the group around some of the bridges in Amsterdam to be less stable meaning many areas in the canals are susceptible to collapse. Because of this, we learned the city is installing a steel support system to help maintain the bridges and make sure they are safe for the people in the city. After learning about the installation of the support systems, we then talked about much of the history surrounding World War II in Amsterdam. The biggest or most interesting thing I took away from all the information we got was that the large section of Amsterdam that was the Jewish neighborhoods during the time of WW II has since been demolished and replaced with brand new modern architecture. This is because Amsterdam is ashamed of the role it played in WW II and wanted to clear out a section of its city that related to their contribution to the killing of so many Jewish people.
After returning from the walking tour, we all entered a chocolate shop where we got to taste many different kinds of ethically sourced chocolate. The coolest part about the chocolate we got to taste was that it was all sourced from places that don’t grow the cacao in a monoculture like commercial brands, and also produce the chocolate naturally and with fewer ingredients. This practice is more natural and sustainable and also produces much more rich and flavorful chocolate in my opinion. My favorite chocolate of the day was dark chocolate produced in Madagascar which is some of the best chocolate I have ever had and I’m usually not a huge fan of dark chocolate.
After these two main activities, we got the rest of the day to relax, eat food, and explore the city!
Overall, day 2 in Amsterdam was very eventful and I learned so much information about the city. There is so much rich history as well as interesting facts that relate back to sustainability and business in general. I can’t wait to learn more tomorrow!
