The past twenty-four hours have been hectic, to say the least. After starting my Saturday morning at 5:00 AM ET and traveling through PIT, BOS, and AMS (Schiphol Airport), I arrived with the Plus3 group in Amsterdam at roughly 6:00 AM on Sunday morning local time. Thus began my lesson in jet lag. Back in Pittsburgh, it was midnight when we landed–but in Amsterdam, our day had just begun. After leaving our luggage at our hotel, our guide Brian helped us navigate Amsterdam’s metro system to make our way to Centraal Station, the heart of Amsterdam. Up until I emerged from the underground landing, I had not really processed that I was in a new country; during the short train ride and transfer to the metro system, we passed through the city’s central business district, filled with skyscrapers with familiar names on them: PWC, IBM, and Palo Alto. However, stepping out in front of the grand 19th-century Centraal Station onto the streets packed with people, bicycles, cars, and trams, it hit me that I really was in Amsterdam.

Obviously, I knew there would be canals in Amsterdam, but I didn’t realize how extensive and thoroughly integrated they would be. Endless lines of handsomely adorned row-houses stretched along mixed-use roads full mostly of bikers and pedestrians–with the occasional European Peugeot or Opel hatchback trundling through–flanked the network of canals. They were spanned by handsome bridges, and used by all sorts of boats–many of them sightseeing tours. What was most novel, however, was just how pedestrian-friendly the area was. I don’t think I have experienced an area as conducive to walking that wasn’t a closed-off theme park. There were all sorts of alleys that cars were restricted from entering, raised walkways, dedicated bike lanes, and other traffic control devices that made walking not just practical, but extremely enjoyable. This, coupled with the extremely easy-to-use metro system (much more intuitive than Pittsburgh’s regional transit, even with a language barrier and lack of sleep), helped define much of my first day in Amsterdam.

After completing a scavenger hunt in central Amsterdam that took us to destinations such as the Koninklijk Paleis, Homomonument, and Rode Hoed–I went with a group of my peers to Keukenhof, around 30 minutes away in Lisse. Keukenhof, also known as the Garden of Europe, is one of the largest flower gardens in the world and is home to extremely large displays of tulips (among other flowers) every Spring. Although we came on the very last day the park was open for the season, and we were too late to see many of the flowers in bloom, it was still an extremely wonderful experience. I thought it was amazing to see the diversity of languages present within the park–Dutch was expected, but French, Italian, Spanish, German, English (UK), and Russian were a pleasant surprise; Amsterdam truly is a world city. The flower arrangements themselves were stunning; the image below is just one tiny sliver of what was on display as we walked through the garden.

I am already seeing a great deal of sustainability innovations in the Netherlands. For example, our hotel room has a breaker that requires your keycard to use any of the lights–this way, you are forced to turn off all lights when you take your keycard to leave the room. We also came across public recycling infrastructure that deposits sorted recyclables in storage tanks underneath the sidewalk for the city to collect. At dinner, all our beverages were served in thick glass bottles that were collected at the end to be reused along with paper straws. It is extremely late as I am writing this, and I am absolutely exhausted from my first day, but I am extremely excited to continue to explore the city and learn more about sustainability here! Welterusten.