Today was very eventful as we explored Amsterdam. We began our morning with a scavenger hunt and explored many different parts of the city. There were a lot of fellow tourists but while walking around I learned a lot about Dutch culture. After completing the scavenger hunt, we had a quick lunch while sitting on a bench enjoying the views of the city.
One thing I noticed while exploring the city is that most areas are kept very clean. One thing I am curious about is why it is often hard to find trash cans. I feel like having more trash cans would make the city even cleaner and far less polluted. As we continued the scavenger hunt, we observed lots of beautiful architecture such as churches and long canals lined with homes. I noticed that some of the canal houses lean and I learned that this is because they were built on wooden piles. These wooden piles were used by builders to prevent the houses from sinking but over the years they have shifted causing the houses to tilt. There were also houses on the water in the canal which was incredible to see.
After lunch we headed to the House of Denim to learn about sustainability in denim manufacturing. This was a very informative experience as I learned that cotton takes lots of water and other resources to produce. To help make denim more sustainable practices such as recycled rocks to bleach jeans and lasers to imprint them are used. This was interesting to learn as these techniques helped reduce waste associated with making denim. They even demonstrated the laser cutter by printing out a group picture on a sheet of denim! After the House of Denim, we had a Surinamese dinner which was delicious and I learned that there are many Surinamese people that immigrated to the Netherlands.
