So the first day was spent on my field lab with my Understanding Great Structures class. It’s actually really boring, but my teacher is such a hoot. One day in one of my other classes he was trying to use a marker that was running out of ink and he said, “Looks like I have to use more force… and that’s why my wife and I are divorced- I didn’t use enough force!” It was a total joke, but it was so hilarious. Anyway, our port was in Antwerp, Belgium, but the field lab went to the Delta Works in Rotterdam, Netherlands. It was pretty cool, we saw structures that were built as barriers to prevent that part of the Netherlands from being submerged under water from storm surges.
After an 11-hour field program I got off that bus and went straight to dinner. Nom’d hard and then started getting ready for the night! It was a Sunday in Antwerp, but who cares! The bars will stay open if all the SAS kids are in them! Which was exactly what happened. I had a blast with my girls and met up with Val and Wes. I got back pretty late and had to wake up super early to pack, shower and meet my overland group at 8 a.m.
Then we were on our way to Amsterdam. The train we took was super nice. I slept the whole way and when we arrived in Amsterdam. We then were going to do a pub crawl, but it ended up being super creepy. The guy who was leading our pub crawl came on a bike, and had the alcohol in his backpack…so it was not legitimate at all. Actually, super creepy in fact, so we ended up just going to bars ourselves.
The next day we headed for the I Am Amsterdam sign. In the pictures I had seen, the sign had always looked so big, but in fact it was pretty small. It was just the fact of being there next to it that was surreal. I got up onto one letter, but there were so many people there that it was hard to get a real good photo. After that, we got bread, cheese, cheap champagne (that was good) and sat in a park that was right next to the Amsterdam letters. Then me and two others headed to the Anne Frank house that evening.
The Anne Frank house was amazing. The one weird thing was that they had Wi-Fi in the place. The house was the exact place that she and the other Jews hid in. We got to walk through all the rooms of the house. It was all bare because when Anne’s father wanted to make the museum, he wanted to leave the rooms empty because that how it was left when the Nazi’s invaded their house. They did not leave a single thing behind and he wanted to convey loneliness and sense of being abandon. The original diary along with other original pieces of other novels and papers Anne Frank wrote were also on display which was very neat. The house included those, videos, and even portions of the photos Anne glued to her wall to make it more her own. It was a very genuine place that moved me emotionally.
To end the night we did a boat cruise, which I fell asleep on. I basically paid 15 euros for a nap. Then we went out to more bars which was really fun. During that point of time we checked out the Red Light District. Our hostel was also in the heart of the Red Light District and a LBGT street so that was interesting. We walked through the Red Light District at night just to have the experience and see what it was like.Let me say, it was very interesting…