Amsterdam

After a few days of wandering the streets of Amsterdam I can say I have a pretty good feel of the culture. The people LOVE their bikes, absolutely love them. I saw more bikes than cars, by a factor of 10 or 20. The city itself lacks any tall buildings and so there's no real sense of a "downtown" but that's what makes it so nice. All the buildings are similar, and seem to play in repeat as you walk from canal to canal which ring around the city for a few miles. The food was everywhere, but mainly influences from other places like "mexico", and "italy" but since when do nachos have peas and green beans?! Blasphemy. With no plan and no maps, we really winged this trip but ended seeing up a lot! On day one we set out to just walk around and get a feel for the place, we ended up stumbling upon the Anne Frank museum. Having read her diary when I was relatively young it was a surreal experience being in the place where she wrote/lived during her writing of the diary. The emotions hit me just as they had while reading the books but now her experience was solidified in the confines of her hideout as it had once been. The next day we ended up going to the Van Gogh museum as well as the Heineken Experience. Although both were very different, I nonetheless enjoyed them both equally. The museum was full of pieces I recognized and others I had never seen before but his artwork is amazing in person and reading about his life and evolution as a painter was more meaningful than any simple online image could do justice to. The Heineken Experience was a very touristy place but it offered me the chance to learn how bear is made and the various processes it goes through as well as how and when to consume your beer! (within 12 minutes or before the foam dies down otherwise you lose the taste!)

Being in Europe has begun to open my eyes to a whole new world. A world that has existed forever but I've hardly seen. Every day in my world I fail to see that which surrounds me. Studying abroad and visiting other cities/countries has made me realize just how diverse the world is, which is hard to fathom when you're stuck in America (which is surprisingly diverse itself). Above are a few pictures for you to enjoy! Back to reading and homework before Munich this weekend for OKTOBERFEST.