Day Six, like Day Five, began with some confusion about what time we should be waking up. I woke up at 8:00 AM after getting a restful seven hours of sleep (it’s not my strict rule of eight hours, but I take anything that I can get here) expecting to leave at 9:00 AM, but was informed that we were leaving 30 minutes later than scheduled. Not a perfect start to the day, but it thankfully did not foreshadow how the rest of the day would go. After a short metro trip to Station Zuid, we took the M52 metro line for the first time to Amsterdam Centraal, where we then visited the Our Lord in the Attic Museum. A group of us then went to the Rijksmuseum, and I was able to spend about four hours taking in the exhibits and displays. I also received word that my lost Hydro Flask had been located at the alumni networking event from the previous day, so I hopped on a tram to go grab it. Right after that, we toured the house that Anne Frank hid with her family in during the German occupation of Amsterdam. Most of us then went back to the hotel to pack and get ready to leave for Rotterdam tomorrow.

While I could ramble for pages about all the fascinating history that I discovered and had the opportunity to explore across all three museums, I’ll focus on one major factor of Dutch culture that suddenly became very clear to me after visiting the Our Lord in the Attic Museum. Before we arrived at the Our Lord in the Attic Museum, I was under the assumption that the tour would be mostly attacking the historical religious climate that Catholics were facing with the Protestent-ization of the Netherlands, and maybe some more general information about Catholicism. However, what I actually walked away with is a lesson that many people around the world should listen to today. Tolerance, or being tolerant of people different then yourself, is a message that has repeated many times throughout this trip. However, this tour was the moment where this aspect of Dutch culture finally clicked for me. As much as the Our Lord in the Attic Museum is a interesting piece of history that has been preserved, it goes beyond that on a human level. Despite the Protestant government officially disallowing the practice of other faiths, it was an open secret that Catholics, Jews, and Muslims still lived among the people. What this really showed me was that the Dutch concept of tolerance has been long-rooted in the culture here, and it is an idea that people across the world should understand better.

Another cultural comparison that I would like to make between the United States and the Netherlands from a historic perspective is firstly: how long the history of the Netherlands truly is, but also secondly: how bloody it has been for the people of the Netherlands. In the history of the United States, the only time that any country has been truly close to conquering the mainland was the British in 1812, when they took control of Washington DC and burned it to the ground. Since then, no enemy army has even come close to setting foot anywhere on the Mainland United States, and all of our wars have been fought in far-away continents. However, even since the 1600s, the Dutch have fought the British a number of times, had a fierce war against the Spanish, have been conquered by the French, have been conquered by the Germans (almost* twice), and has been muddled in smaller European conflicts throughout its history. This sort of constant fighting shapes a culture in a unique way, which is not seen in the US.

Overall, I am really pleased with my time in Amsterdam and everything that we’ve been able to do, and I’m excited to see what else Rotterdam has to offer. Goodbye and dankje Amsterdam!