Adventure in the Venice of the north..

Before leaving for Amsterdam, I honestly didn’t know anything about the city. I knew that there’s a song called Amsterdam, and I knew that Marijuana was legal there. That was really it though. I had no idea what else made this place the amazing place that everyone made it out to be.
After arriving to Amsterdam around 7PM, my group and I had to really get ourselves together. Not knowing the train would actually take 2 more hours than expected, we had planned to tour the home of Anne Frank. Running out of the train station we had no idea what to do next. The first thing that I noticed about the city was that not only did it wreak of marijuana, but it had the same feel as another major city I was used to, New York City.
As we frantically tried to move through this unfamiliar city, we dodged bicycles and cars coming in all directions. Something that I also noticed was the fact that more people tend to ride their bikes in Amsterdam. This is a great way to stay green, but also a good way to almost knock over tourists such as myself. It is also a much cheaper way to go about the city than having a car and paying for gas. Seeing people riding bikes made me realize how much they try to cut back on certain things. As we have learned in class, every region and every culture is different. This is definitely something different than you would see in the US because Americans tend to use bikes as a physical activity. While many Europeans, especially the people of Amsterdam, use it for transportation.
Making it to the Anne Frank house a little after our scheduled time, my group was admitted into the building. The home looked just like the other buildings on the same street, we were unsure about which house was the right one at first. Covered with security monitors and brochures in all types of languages, we were advised to put our backpacks in front of us, to avoid any damages to the home. They also asked us to not take pictures, and if we did, there would be a security man to remove us from the museum. This shows how much they want to preserve this monument and keep it as real as they can. This reminded me of our reading on monuments because they are symbolic figures used to depict the events realness. This monument is not only a historic piece of land; it is also a reality for the people to go in it. I think that it was smart for the city of Amsterdam to keep this monumental home because it holds so much history that will constantly remind its visitors of the dangers and hate that came from the Holocaust.
The more time we spend touring Amsterdam the more fascinated I became by the canals that separate the city. These are beautiful and really add to the city’s environment. This set up the city in a different way geographically because you can tell that they canals were once used as transportation. I really enjoyed them because they made the city more beautiful.
These canals were mainly used for pleasure while I was there. People drinking, and relaxing with friends is what I mainly saw from the civilians. These canals are also used for tourism, as well as the rest of the city’s perks.
Since this city is generated a lot by its tourists, I am sure that they have seen their fair share of diverse people come to visit. Something that I have observed since being in Europe is that we look and act 100% American. I am not really surprised by this, but the more places we travel, the more of an impression I get. We really don’t look like we blend in the environment that we are in. It’s a weird feeling, but people’s reactions to our “accents” are always enjoyable. This shows that every culture is different. It relates to our class discussion on how different borders can change a lot about the culture you are in.
When dealing with different regions and cultures, I noticed that mostly when you change regions the language also changes. In Amsterdam I did notice that they spoke Dutch, but they also spoke more English than the people in Luxembourg do. I enjoyed this aspect.
Some first hand experiences that reminded me of the ideas we’ve discussed in class were that it really made me think of how different regions are different every where you go. This also is the same for cultures. This made me think about how this city shares a lot of the things that Luxembourg has. One similarity is how they conserve energy by riding their bikes around, like I mention in my photo response.
Geographically, the streets of Amsterdam are quite confusing. As I stated, it has the feel of New York City. Lots of cars, lots of people and lots of buildings. This type of environment made me think of class because it showed some of the cities history as well as architecture.
While walking around Amsterdam I found that it had a wide variety of restaurants in the city. I observed the fact that they had a street just for Argentinean foods. This was really interesting to me, and made me wonder how diverse this city really is.
The different types of foods show that there are different kinds of people that live in that city. That is something that I noticed about this culture. There are many different types of people within this urban city. This was much different from what we have seen in Lux. After Mondays reading about why people tend to live in more urban areas, this became more clear to me.
Although it is located closer to a body of water, I found that Amsterdam was a lot warmer in Amsterdam than in Luxembourg. This could deal with geographic location, but that was really surprising to me, especially because it is surrounded by canals that can create wind to make it a little chillier.
Overall, I had a great weekend and learned a great amount about Amsterdam. So now I know its not only known for its legalization of weed and prostitution, it has a lot more about its culture and history. It was overall a successful trip!