This past weekend I traveled to Amsterdam in Holland. The one piece of advice I would tell anyone studying abroad in Europe is to visit Amsterdam. The whole city is a culture shock and the pulse there is beating quickly. When walking on the street, one will hear many different languages at any given time. The streets are crowded with lively tourists exploring along the rivers that cut through the city and between the modern buildings that seem to be slanting in a little.

Having packed our backpacks the night before, the five of us practically sprinted to the Marburg train station after our last class on Thursday. After an hour train ride to Frankfurt then a four hour train ride to Amsterdam, our crew arrived in the city by midnight. Being ecstatic about finally arriving, we wandered around the city for hours convinced we can just check into our cabins at 10 in the morning and be ok. This lasted until about 3 a.m. then it started raining…

Luckily we found a hostel and were able to bargain the price down from about 40 Euros to 20 Euros. After some sleep, we bought tram and bus passes for the weekend and made our way about 30 minutes out of the city to the cabin area. Our cabin had two bunk beds and one single bed. The beds did not have sheets so I slept in my jacket. The bathhouse located in the middle of the village had a few showers that cost a euro for six minutes of barely warm water that turns ice cold after about a minute. But the cabin was perfect for us.

After dropping our backpacks off we escaped into the city and explored for a bit then went to the Van Gogh Museum. If you really enjoy art the museum is pretty cool but crowded. On Saturday, we went to the Botanical Garden. The garden seemed magical. There was a beautiful caf� with high white brick ceilings and abstract paintings along the walls. There were outside gardens and four large greenhouse all connected by bridges. Each greenhouse had a different theme including African jungle, Asian jungle and desert.

            That night we decided to walk along the Red Light District. This was a huge culture shock for me. The part of the Red Light District where someone could purchase a prostitute is a pretty grimy area. The river going through this area has very shallow, dirty water that smells. The women who are working are place in a small room with a glass door. They are normally in underwear (sometimes topless) and either sit and wait for someone to walk up or will actively wink and tap on the glass trying to get a customer. It is incredibly different from the United States. It’s raw and not hidden. The part that hit me the hardest emotionally is how the Red Light District is a tourist attraction. Majority of the people there were not there to have sex but to just stare at these women in their cages like animals at a zoo. It was uncanny.

Amsterdam was a wake up call about the na�ve feeling of safety I have. Marburg is a VERY safe city and I feel extremely comfortable here. But Amsterdam definitely possesses a different vibe. I held my bag closer to me and never let my guard down. My friend was almost pick pocketed during our trip. We the caught a man with his hand in her bag and luckily he did not take anything but the experience snapped us back to reality.

My favorite museum we went to was the Eye Film Institute Museum (https://www.eyefilm.nl/en). The museum is very small but it showed about five different types of films and a collection of pictures. The films are not traditional films but each made a statement about the world. The museum also has a caf�/ bar with high ceilings and windows that over looks a river. (Warning: the drinks are expensive but good and the museum only accepts credit cards, no cash.)

After this trip I have been thinking about whether Amsterdam is just an incredibly honest city or an exceptionally superficial city. Everything about the city is focused on pleasure: sex, drugs, food, art, beauty… it is all there completely available. But I do not know if this is exposing the truth of human beings and accepting how the species is or just letting people become obese on superficial happiness.

Location: Amsterdam, Holland