When most people hear the word, “layover,” it is normally followed by a sigh and look of disgust. Then you hear that you have a 10 hour layover and the followed actions are amplified by about 2837x. But, if that layover is in Amsterdam, it’s pretty amazing!
I’m about to board my last flight to Luxembourg and I’m exhausted, trying not to fall asleep so I can get on a normal sleep schedule early on and not feel the jet lag (but I am definitely feeling it now, so ignore any mistakes or random stories that seem out of order in this post! Also, I'm not forgetting a ton but to keep my posts somewhat short I'm leaving out a few details here and there until I get good at this whole blogging thing). Rewind to about 18 hours ago, I was trying my hardest to fall asleep on my flight across the Atlantic. I slept a maximum of an hour and a half. We got to the Schiphol Airport and got our boarding passes then figured out where our gate was. Then a group of us (Katie, Raegan, Alicia, Dave, Drew, Hayden, and I) went through customs and made our way to the train. We were confused at first, but quickly got the hang of it. We made it to Amsterdam in no time (about 15 minutes, it was rather impressive)!
We got off the train from the airport and then hopped on another one to end up at Amsterdam Centraal. Holy bikes! There was a whole parking garage full of them as soon as you get off the platform and out of the station! They are literally everywhere, piled up on each other all over the place, and locked to themselves. When you think about it, it is kind of amazing that that many people are riding their bikes rather than driving a car and a lot of people use public transportation, too! (It made me really happy that Amsterdam was so sustainable and we saw tons of wind turbines, too!)
We walked (what felt like) all over the place but really it was probably only 1/8 of the city, if that. It made me want to visit again though, because we didn’t get to see any of the museums (like van Gogh and the Anne Frank house). Also, it would be so pretty to see it in the spring with all of the tulips and it would be warm to walk by the canals, which are amazing (but who knows when I’ll go again, as long as I do because I loved it). It was really fun today and now I have a sense of the city to have my bearings when I come back by knowing some landmarks.
I think, their Christmas decorations were still up. It made it look really pretty, since it was partly cloudy and a little chilly because of the water.
We did really good with the train system. But, we had our first problem as well! We were almost fined 40 Euros for sitting in 1st class by mistake. Luckily, the guy was nice and a little easily distracted.
An interesting thing about Amsterdam is that they don’t really have their own “cuisine,” unless you count pancakes, cheese, or herring. But, they most definitely have their own definitive culture that is very loose, outgoing, and fun.
Well I’m finally off to Luxembourg to meet my host family, see where I will be living for the next 4 months, and most importantly sleep (IN A BED)!
Spreek je later,
Kirsten
P.S. I will be blogging soon to tell you all about my first experiences in Luxembourg!
P.S.S. The picture quality will get better, we were just in a bit of a rush today!
I’m about to board my last flight to Luxembourg and I’m exhausted, trying not to fall asleep so I can get on a normal sleep schedule early on and not feel the jet lag (but I am definitely feeling it now, so ignore any mistakes or random stories that seem out of order in this post! Also, I'm not forgetting a ton but to keep my posts somewhat short I'm leaving out a few details here and there until I get good at this whole blogging thing). Rewind to about 18 hours ago, I was trying my hardest to fall asleep on my flight across the Atlantic. I slept a maximum of an hour and a half. We got to the Schiphol Airport and got our boarding passes then figured out where our gate was. Then a group of us (Katie, Raegan, Alicia, Dave, Drew, Hayden, and I) went through customs and made our way to the train. We were confused at first, but quickly got the hang of it. We made it to Amsterdam in no time (about 15 minutes, it was rather impressive)!
We got off the train from the airport and then hopped on another one to end up at Amsterdam Centraal. Holy bikes! There was a whole parking garage full of them as soon as you get off the platform and out of the station! They are literally everywhere, piled up on each other all over the place, and locked to themselves. When you think about it, it is kind of amazing that that many people are riding their bikes rather than driving a car and a lot of people use public transportation, too! (It made me really happy that Amsterdam was so sustainable and we saw tons of wind turbines, too!)
We walked (what felt like) all over the place but really it was probably only 1/8 of the city, if that. It made me want to visit again though, because we didn’t get to see any of the museums (like van Gogh and the Anne Frank house). Also, it would be so pretty to see it in the spring with all of the tulips and it would be warm to walk by the canals, which are amazing (but who knows when I’ll go again, as long as I do because I loved it). It was really fun today and now I have a sense of the city to have my bearings when I come back by knowing some landmarks.
I think, their Christmas decorations were still up. It made it look really pretty, since it was partly cloudy and a little chilly because of the water.
We did really good with the train system. But, we had our first problem as well! We were almost fined 40 Euros for sitting in 1st class by mistake. Luckily, the guy was nice and a little easily distracted.
An interesting thing about Amsterdam is that they don’t really have their own “cuisine,” unless you count pancakes, cheese, or herring. But, they most definitely have their own definitive culture that is very loose, outgoing, and fun.
Well I’m finally off to Luxembourg to meet my host family, see where I will be living for the next 4 months, and most importantly sleep (IN A BED)!
Spreek je later,
Kirsten
P.S. I will be blogging soon to tell you all about my first experiences in Luxembourg!
P.S.S. The picture quality will get better, we were just in a bit of a rush today!