AMSTERDAMNATION

So it has been quite awhile since I have posted and haven't really updated much from October and November. October was jam packed with Amsterdam Dance Event, my UK excursions, and some concerts. Now November is here and I am sitting in my cousin's flat in Paris for Thanksgiving. 

To go a bit more in depth, the third weekend of October was my trip to London via the MegaBus, which brought me back to my experiences on the MegaBus in the states. My friend Zion and I took this leg of the trip together and it was quite scenic going through the French countryside, Belgium, and then the southern part of England. London was quite nice and I could definitely see myself there in the future. I can see how compared to many European cities, this is the most American style one that I had visited. 

When I was there I went to the Victoria & Albert Museum for a museum night party that was themed around 80s club culture in London. It was refreshing to hear some New Order playing throughout this amazing museum. But this song reared it's head again when I saw Above & Beyond with my friend Nav and his friends from back in Banglore, India. The gig was at Alexandra Palace which was one of the largest and nicest venues I have ever been to. They premiered a re-mix of New Order's Blue Monday and several other new tracks. Between the new music, the hypnotic light show, and the other 10,000 people that were in this state of trance, it was a concert of epic proportions. The funniest part about this trip was how my travel plans back to Amsterdam entailed all trains being canceled because of the big "St. Jude's" storm that went through the UK and then into Amsterdam. I essentially followed the storm home, but it made for an interesting and delayed travel experience. 

Once I returned from London, it was only two days until the UK part two. I took the easyJet to Edinburgh where my friend Sofia is studying abroad and stayed with her. While I was there, we went to Arthur's Seat, the Edinburgh Castle Museum, and also took a trip to Glasgow. It was also Halloween weekend which added an extra layer of fun. Glasgow and Edinburgh both offered very different tastes of Scotland. Glasgow was a much bigger city that felt quite urban while Edinburgh is more known as a beautiful city with rich, old architecture. I seriously enjoyed both, but Glasgow seemed to offer a bit more in the way of things to do. While there, I went to the Kelvingrove Museum, saw the University of Glasgow and it's amazing architecture, visited the Glasgow Modern Art Museum, and stumbled upon this quaint tearoom where Sofia and I had a classic English tea. 

In general, the UK was very scenic and it severely challenged the stereotypes of everybody there being seemingly stuck up and fake. I had only encountered nice people, including strangers, while I was there and never once felt awkward or out of place. Perhaps that is a tendency of places where everybody around you is speaking a language you do not understand, so the UK was a nice change of pace in that sense. 

I cannot believe it is already November. Still I think of the moment I first landed at Schipol International, I felt this huge rush of adrenaline and excitement run through my body as the plane hit the tarmac. Now having lived in Amsterdam and the Netherlands for three months, I am beginning to feel especially settled; this has become my home and that initial moment feels like so long ago.

But that is the part that taunts you about an exchange semester versus one year. By the time you really get into things in your new home, you are again uprooted and thrown back into the mad rush that is returning back to the States. I have planned my classes and am beginning to think about all that I must do next semester and it makes the ending of this exchange semester especially difficult to confront.

These thoughts and reflections have made me realize some things about being a millennial and a student in this day and age. My generation of students across the globe will be continuously transplanted and uprooted; we are a generation that wants to travel and see the world. But comparing this to my grandparents generation of traditionalism and being settled, it seems a bit scary to not always have roots in a place. I feel that I won't have that moment where I can say to my children, "Look this is where I did this a long time ago." Which leads me to my next ponder: where in the world do I want to live in the future? This exchange experience has opened my eyes to all the places I could study, live, and work. In a nutshell, the world has never felt so small before. 

Today has already been a very Holland day. A constant stream of rain, slight chill, and disgruntled looking tourists who did not anticipate such weather. But residents of the city are jaded to the rain and must continue their daily schedules via bicycle in this weather. As I was heading to pick up my Dutch Residence Permit today, I first passed a fellow cyclist who had a typical crate on the front of his bicycle. Inside he had his nearly 60 pound Chow who was one of the best looking dogs I have seen. But it was so comical to see, in the middle of rainy day in Holland, this man and his dog together cycling around Amsterdam. The dog looked so content despite being almost too big for the crate.

After getting my residence permit, I headed to Waterlooplein to grab some gear for the Netherlands vs. Hungary football game tonight at Amsterdam Arena. With soaked jeans, I made my way to the market and found a very empty plein compared to most days. I suppose I now understand the criticisms of some Dutch students towards international students: the weather is not the reason one comes to Holland which was reflective in this empty market. Most stands had already left for the day, which is quite uncommon for a Friday. But I was still able to find a man selling orange Holland t-shirts and he gave me a deal of 12.50 euro instead of 15 euro. But when all your merchandise is already purposefully overpriced, it's not much of a deal at all. 

It's very easy to get consumed by your new life while abroad. It is now October and quite a bit has happened since my last post. The best way to make up for this lost time will be to dump a bunch of posts, photos, and thoughts on here now. Today I actually had one of my wisdom teeth extracted. I knew it was impacted before I came to Amsterdam, but it had not caused me any problems, thus I failed to think about it. But, needless to say, I had it removed and today begins the healing process. With just one removed, the recovery won't be as bad as having all of them out at once. But as I was getting my prescription of painkillers earlier, I finally stumbled the Albert Cuyp market which was really cool. 

The title of this means "my name is Zach and I live in Amsterdam," but pronouncing it would probably sound like an abomination of Dutch. I had my first Dutch language class yesterday at the "absolute beginner" level. Oh and you know that we watched Sesame Street where they sing the Dutch ABCs! The class was also quite the mixed bag of people who have all either decided to finally learn Dutch after living in Holland or was taking classes at UvA or VU. That is what made the obvious debauchery of the language that much funnier as all of us had completely different language backgrounds, yet were all failing equally as miserably. The majority of the class is spoken in Dutch, so it makes more of an incentive to learn. I also thought it was funny how most of us had no idea what she was saying, but she was the encouraging language mother who kept trying to help us understand. 

Today was a day full of errands. I did some grocery shopping at the Turkish market and Albert Heijn and also purchased my Dutch language textbook. It has been consistently rainy and windy which has really warmed my budding Dutch spirit. But Syracuse is no paradise either, so I think I will survive.

Then on Sunday I found myself in one of the greatest concert experiences at Amsterdam Arena. Roger Waters did The Wall and I don’t think I could have expected such a brilliant performance. This is a video I think I took near the end of Another Brick in the Wall.

Yesterday was a successful beach day trip to Zandvoort aan zee. It was a hazy day at the beach with some clouds rolling in and out until we got rained out near 4 p.m. Watching the storm move in off the coast was really cool and the storm cloud was quite distinct looking. I thought it was about to be War of the Worlds, with giant robot aliens coming out of the water to wreak havoc on the Netherlands. 

One train stop between the beach and Amsterdam has the largest IKEA store that I have ever seen. Apparently there is a full cafeteria inside with cheap food. Speaking of cheap food, that reminds me of how hungry I am right now. 

I got back from the beach with Zion and Alex and I had another first for the Dam, riding on the back of somebody's bicycle. Now the timing may not have been ideal with so much weight in my backpack, so it was hard to leverage myself. Eventually I decided to try straddle the seat instead of sitting on the side. Let me just that I can thankfully still have kids. Those metal bars were not very comfortable going over the brick and cobblestone streets. 

Zion's 21st birthday was at the crack of midnight so we went out to a bar. After a big party and pre-game in the courtyard of my dorm with other residents, we went to Leidseplein to the cheap student bar called the Geiter. We had a healthy dose of tequila shots to celebrate, even though turning 21 doesn't feel as cool in Amsterdam where you can drink anything you want by 18. 

Before Leidseplein, we went to Mulligan's Irish Pub near the River Amstel and I had a pint of Magners Irish Cider and snagged "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" from their free book collection. The live music made for a good atmosphere and the bartender told me, after I had asked for an IPA, about how over-saturated the market is with all the microbreweries popping up in the United States. IPA's he said are not very popular in Europe and especially the Netherlands. He did recommend searching for this one brewery here in Amsterdam that serves an IPA. 

This has been the first week of classes and I have begun experiencing the academic culture of the Netherlands. University of Amsterdam embraces the intellectual spirit through the ridiculous amount of research that their professors and faculty engage in. My schedule is quite convenient for an exchange student, as I don't have any Friday classes, so an extra day to travel or go out! The semester is broken up into two blocks, where I'm taking 3 classes in the first block and 2 in the second. 

Most classes meet twice a week, with the first meeting being a lecture and the second a tutorial, where you work on problems and/or have discussions. I am not used to three and four hour class periods though. Even with breaks in the middle, this is still something I am getting used to. 

The Dutch students have a very different mindset about their university though. Since the cost of education is near nothing for Dutch students, they are going to university for far less than even students on financial aid in the states (the upside of a socialist capitalist nation). With the lack of a large economic investment, it can be easy for them to take this world class institution for granted. I was shocked as I overheard many students talk and have full conversations right over the professors lecture. This may happen occasionally in the states, but that was something I also was not used to and the professor did not seem to mind as much as I would have thought. 

In other news, I have booked my tickets to Paris in November and will be finalizing my trips to Scotland and Berlin. This is why I came to Europe in the first place, to be able to travel around for far cheaper than traveling in the U.S. 

So as I was recording a video to show the world my new dorm room, a convenient gust of wind blew my door shut and automatically locked me out. On the weekends there is no access to a master key since the caretaker is off of work and the housing corporation is closed. My resident assistant was just like, "that sucks." Until tomorrow, I am at my family friend's house here in the city, with no access to anything I own, and I have been treated like a king. Anthony and David are awesome and have the coolest dog and cat.

Moreover, last night Anthony and I went into the heart of the city to go out and I was supposed to meet up with Allan and Zion. I didn't end up finding them and actually ended up losing Anthony. So what did I do? I actually just went into the nearest club and busted some serious moves. It was pretty awesome, even though I had nothing but 1.85 euro. Going out here seems to be a lot more active than any other city I've seen before. There is a bunch of bumping house and electronic music coming from nearly every club and people are super active even past 5 a.m. Compared to Boston where everything closes at 2 a.m., I think the Europeans are better at going out.

So I have been in Amsterdam for a little over 24 hours now and it has been an amazing set of first experiences. After settling into my two person flat on Prins Hendrikkade, I walked around the city with my friend Allan from Brandeis and his hall-mate Sarah from Germany. We walked all around the city and ran errands, but mainly we just wanted to see the people and environment before our orientation. Later last night our friend Zion from Brandeis got into Amsterdam and we went out to celebrate his arrival.

Today I went to the grocery store and am still trying to find a solid form of phone service, so I can call locally. Grocery stores here require you to bag your own groceries and you have to ask for a bag, they aren't just given to you. That was a mini form of culture shock that I had while buying some groceries earlier. 

Here's a list of first impressions thus far:

1. Cyclists run the roads here. I actually witnessed a person who stepped out into the bike lane and a cycler hit him. They will not stop so you have to watch out for bikes just as you would for cars, which is really not that hard. You just have to realize that people on bikes are all over and on the move. I can't wait to get a bike!

2. Even though everybody speaks English, the preferred language is Dutch. Most places I have gone to, the cashier or bartender tends to immediately use Dutch. This is good though, as I really want to learn Dutch and be able to speak it. 

3. Public eye contact is not as taboo as city like New York. I feel like my presence is noticed and pedestrians will look at and observe one another. Then again, maybe they are looking at me because I'm a foreigner.

4. Amsterdam is so incredibly diverse that I can never really tell where anybody is from. So many different languages can be heard around the streets, but very rarely do you hear English. 

5. Cars in general are smaller, like most of Europe but there are a mix of larger BMW and Mercedes sedans and I have even seen some Chevys driving around too. It's really nice to be able to see French and Italian cars too like Alfa Romeo and Peugeot. They are really cool in terms of styling and I like seeing them around.