1,2,3 – BAM, we were in Amsterdam

Day 1: 1, 2, 3- BAM, we were in Amsterdam!

Well, more like one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight hours of a surprisingly unproblematic bus ride together with the biology profile class from the TMS later we arrived at our hostel at approximately 4 pm. (Okay, some students from the other class started playing extremely annoying loud songs on the bus ride, but to be honest we didn´t care much since most of us were sleeping anyway.) The weather was pretty bad when we arrived: It was raining so heavily that we kind of lost all motivation to get off the bus, however we did, grabbed our luggage and ran into the hostel as quickly as possible. Excited to see what our room would look like, we went up the stairs, opened the door with the help of a code given to us at the reception and then we were…well. I´d be lying if I said that we weren´t disappointed or somehow shocked or maybe both. The raison for that was the size of our room: We could barely fit ourselves and our luggage into it as all of us six girls had to sleep there together. (Yes, our class consists of only six girls, please don´t question that, thanks). After having installed all of our suitcases, unpacked the most necessary, we realized that our room didn´t look that bad after all-except the fact that we couldn´t open our window…In the end we just laughed and made jokes about how we couldn´t even walk the short path to the door without tripping over somebody´s suitcase or clothes. As all of us were now ready to discover Amsterdam, we went outside and took the ferry, which was almost next to our hostel, in order to get to the city centre. Luckily the rain had stopped and we could enjoy walking through Amsterdam and taking at least one hundred pictures of the beautiful view with all the little bridges and street lamps. At around seven pm, we went to a small restaurant called “Skek” and spent a good time eating and chatting there. Unfortunately, the rain started again, it was like haunting us throughout the whole trip. Nevertheless, it did not prevent us from visiting the red-light district where we listened to a short but great presentation about its history and other most important information by one of our classmates. Turns out the red-light district is located next a church, weird, right? During the presentation a man passing by even added some facts we didn´t mention. Just nice and polite or creepy? Considering that we later found him to be a costumer of one of the prostitutes working there, I´d take the second option. After our little visit, we could all agree that we felt sorry for the women there as most of them have no other choice and don´t enjoy their work, however seeing the red-light district in real life fascinated us. Finally back at the hostel, we were very exhausted and went straight to bed for a new exciting day would await us in the morning!

Felicia Huonker, Q2a

Day 2 – Nice or just wet and cold

“Hallo, hoe is het” means hello, how are you in Dutch. That was one of the many things we learned on our first day in Amsterdam. The day started with us getting up at 6:30 a.m. to be in time for our breakfast at 7:30 a.m. After we had eaten we went together to the Van Gogh Museum which was 40 minutes away from our hostel. As if that wasn’t enough, it also started to rain so that we arrived at the museum wet and frozen. The museum was really really nice and had a lot to offer, which is why we can definitely recommend it. After our stay at the Van Gogh Museum, we went to a small café to warm up and pass the time to the next museum, the Rijksmuseum. This museum was also very interesting. Around noon it finally stopped raining and we got free time, which is why Chiara and I discovered the city. To save us the long way back, we took a train, which took us directly to the center of the city. We spent a few hours there and shopped a bit. Later we went back to the hostel and bought the ingredients for our dinner in the supermarket next door, since Chiara, Lisa and I cooked for our class. At the end of the day we were all very tired and exhausted, so we just discovered the hostel a bit. There we accidentally saw a karaoke room, in which we let the evening end with many other residents of the hostel, until we were unfortunately kicked out around 10:00 p.m. because we were not of legal age. Then we went to our room and went to sleep. blog entry

 Lisa Taş, Q2a

Day 3: Another day another slay

Such is the mantra we kept chanting to keep your sanity at 7 am in the morning, at least. Why would we voluntarily get up at about 7 on a Wednesday morning? That`s a good question that`s probably already been answered, but breakfast was scheduled at exactly 7:30-8:00 and we`re not about to go hungry for the day or appear at breakfast looking as tired as we really were. No way.

Improvise. Overcome. Adapt.

Despite the incredibly short time frame, the buffet was delicious and surprisingly variable in selection, as always. Something about being offered gingerbread, hash browns, sprinkles for the notorious fairy bread and some random veggies just made you forget about the fact you`re sitting there, puffy-eyed at 7 am at a table you`d managed to snatch with the rest of the class.

Being partially unaware of the programme each morning due to my drowsiness had its perks, because I was pleasantly surprised with the fact we`d be heading to the Straat museum that day- and the Anne Frank museum.

Also more pleasant than I imagined was the walk there, as it turned out. It was a bit shorter than usual, hallelujah to my aching feet covered in blisters already. Another inconsistency with the other days were no rain droplets hitting my face as soon as I took a step outside; so while the sight of the city was beautiful as always, I could actually see some architecture through a less blurry lens.

Regardless, we entered the building after finding the entrance at last and got a little more comfortable and such. What was not that surprising to find out considering our previous visits was the fact we couldn`t carry any backpacks with us. „Security reasons“ again, yet handbags were allowed. Again. I still haven`t really bothered to find the exact explanation to that rule, but if you`re interested in visiting the worthwhile Van Gogh museum, the Reichsmuseum or any other museum in Amsterdam for that matter, I strongly recommend not being that backpack person and carrying a smaller variant with you to store your valuables in. That`s not to say they didn`t have any lockers, but if you prefer to keep yours on you like I do, then that`s that.

As for the museum itself, bringing my jacket this time was one of the better ideas I had as we spent hours wandering an impressive, but also cold warehouse full of prints and partially sculptures of unimaginable dimensions. This was a breath of fresh air compared to some of the art inside the Reichsmuseum as the street art displayed was obviously less bound to rules- and thus got the artists going ham with their mediums to convey their criticism on society, strong emotions, culture, and parodies of art in itself. While most museums may have the reputation of being boring and static, the ones we visited that day were quite the opposite and very interactive. In fact, I spent most of my time in this one room featuring a suspicious wall with hand marks popping up every now and then.

Pressing one would create a sound and an animated effect. Pressing multiple would create an art piece in itself. A very trippy one. Needless to say, I got a bit too hooked on that experience and only really stopped when it was time to go back using the ferry (free of charge, yippie) to return to the central point where we said our temporary goodbyes and went our separate ways to explore the city some more in our free time. The city of „more weed in the air than pollution“ to be honest.

We found a cute retro shop where we checked out some albums, old games and consoles before eventually regrouping at the Anne Frank museum which was located at the very house her family hid and was eventually discovered in. We spent some time finding out that fact listening to a presentation one of us had prepared whilst the sky had decided this would be a great opportunity to keep pouring icicles onto us in a hailstorm I won`t forget so easily.

Drenched in the wrath of Wednesday`s moody weather, we headed inside and quickly discovered how tiny the house we moved through with our audio guides was and how compromised the living spaces and utilities were. Terrible conditions to reflect on, especially considering how there were two households living in constant fear of being discovered or sold out for such a long time until they actually were.

We separated once again after the experience, ate some food and hung around the hostel for a while. As tiny as the room we stayed in was, the interior design definitely made up for it by offering us some rooms we could stay in instead. The day only came to an end after two of us decided on another nightly walk in case we didn`t have enough time on the following day, which really gave us the opportunity to appreciate the cityscape at night. 10/10, would absolutely recommend it even if it`s just for a day.

I seriously didn`t expect to write this much, but I think that just goes to show just how eventful a day in Amsterdam can be. Thanks for reading!

Lisa Lackmann, Q2a

 

Day 4 Libraries, lucid moments and late night dancing

Hey guys, what’s up? As promised, here’s a short report of what happened on the fourth day of our class trip. You were all very excited to know more about it, so I won’t be beating around the bush and dive right into it!

So, after the previous days with a full program packed with museums and exhibitions of all kinds, we finally got to spend a more relaxing one on our fourth day.

Sadly, I myself didn’t get to join the others visiting the library as I was sick and not feeling very well. Still, they presented each other their incredibly beautiful and heartfelt text we wrote throughout the last couple of days. Then, they had free time to spend in the city until they needed to return to our hostel for dinner. Although I couldn’t accompany them going shopping directly, my friends carried me with them for some time through their phone ;). This evening, we ourselves cooked again, in our hostel’s kitchen. I’m telling you, this kitchen’s never empty because today, we even tried to be early so that we could prepare our food without so many other people around. Turns out there were even more people than normally… We waited for ages just to get our hands on a pot! We could finally start to cook and eventually were able to come to a quite good result, I’d say. We had pasta again and it was really delicious. Cheers, as our new British friend used to say!

After eating, we sat in our room together and talked for quite a while. About random and superficial things but also about touching and deep topics. I think it’s no exaggeration to state that we really grew closer a lot during this class trip. I guess especially our late night conversations contributed to that. I suppose all of you have already made a similar experience. It seems that on class trips we actually get to know each other on a whole different level, doesn’t it?

Luckily, I was already feeling a lot better than this morning, so four of us decided to spend our last evening of the class trip outside. We strayed through the city and then stayed by one of the canals. The city lights looked so beautiful in the darkness and we put up music to dance to. You could say we really “felt the vibe” and dancing, we created moments for eternity whose memories we’ll carry with us for a long time. It seemed like that kind of moment where you feel infinite and can’t forget them.

We’re already returning home tomorrow but I think I experienced and learned so much here in Amsterdam that I’ll think of this trip as one of the most important events in my school life. Many of us would like to come again one day to enjoy this incredible city together one more time. I’m definitely looking forward to it! That’s it for today you guys, I hope y’all enjoyed my little blog! Thank you Amsterdam and see you next time!

Clara Ebel, Q2a