Seize the Day: from Switzerland to Spain: What did the fish say when it swam into the wall? .....(Amster)dam!

Over the past few years I have had a decent number of conversations with family and friends about growing up in Miami and how the culture can affect a child's moral development. Miami is known as being the most vain city in America, and with that comes a lot of emphasis on appearance, social status, and money. Personally, I feel like I was given a very solid and morally sound upbringing (thanks parents and broskis!), but obviously, certain places have stronger cultural influences that, without a strong and ethical upbringing, are dangerous. However, this past weekend I visited Amsterdam and realized how my upbringing would have been altered had I been raised there and how the vices of one city can so strongly contrast those of another. Amsterdam is a city laden with drugs--you cannot walk through any street without the strong scent of marijuana following you everywhere. Prostitution is also extremely prominent to the point where you can walk down a street and see a woman standing in a window, waiting for a customer, even first thing in the morning. There are many beautiful and ostentatious churches in the city center; however, the history of these churches was more of a business than a true spiritual place of worship. This was extremely disheartening and an extreme example of how the catholic church used indulgences to create guilt and instill fear among the people for their sins, but gaining money in exchange for their forgiveness. And since this forgiveness was so easy to obtain through works, not faith, the cycle of sin continued. Needless to say, I was a bit uncomfortable with some of these aspects of the city, but also encouraged and appreciative about my own beliefs and values.

Still, independent of this licentious culture, the trip was incredible and the city itself was spectacular. In fact, I may have just gone on this rant to conclude that Miami--regardless of whatever arguments anyone has--is the best city ever.

We arrived! Me, Aaron, Mark, Greg, and David

I left for Amsterdam with 4 friends on Saturday afternoon. The layout of the city--a city built around canals--is beautiful to walk around and appreciate. There are gorgeous, picturesque views at every bridge (of which there are 1,300) and every single building is designed in Georgian architecture.At night the canals and the lining buildings light up to an unmatchable view.

Disclaimer: yes, I am like a foot shorter of everyone else in all the pictures. The heights of our group may have been slightly skewed against me...

Amsterdam in the moonlight

In Dam Square: Me, David, Aaron, and Greg

Amsterdam lit up at night

One of my favorite ways to explore a city is to walk around it, and that's what we did most of the time: wander. The first night we arrived (Saturday), we found our way to the city center and to out hostel and then basically just meandered around town. We never once took public transit (except a train from the airport) and always found our ways to parks, canals, supermarkets, etc. The canal system is wonderful because it is like a natural grid-system that one can use to navigate the city. Plus, I was raised to know that boats are much prettier than cars, hence, canals > streets. Due to narrow cobblestone streets, cars are actually very rare in the city. The main mode of travel, in addition to boats, is actually bikes. And the cyclists are fearless! They actually make a game out of getting as close to the unexpecting pedestrians as they can and not ringing their bells so that they can scare you as you are walking. There are so many bikes in the city that the city has to regularly trudge them out of the canals--bikes are locked to rails lining canals and are thus frequently blown into the water by the wind or thrown in by a drunken passerby.

Amsterdam canals lined with boats

Mark, Aaron, David and Greg

coolest bikes ever. I want one.

The next morning we made it towards Oosterpark where we had gotten tickets to go to an all day music festival (ROOTS). The festival basically consisted of five stages set up throughout the park, each with a different style of music, that had different acts performing all day. For us, that meant getting some food and picnicing at the park with some wonderful live music in the background. In fact, picnicing in parks in front of a live band has been a defining feature of my Europe experience, and I love it. Around midday we left Ooster Park and decided to take a break from the festival and visit Amsterdam's Artis Zoo, which apparently is the 2nd greatest attraction in Amsterdam. To be honest, I have been so spoiled with wildlife and animals my whole life that going to a zoo isn't extremely impressive to me. For instance, seeing a peacock is just reminiscent of walking down side streets at home, not an exotic experience. However, the Artis zoo was extremely well organized and the decorative layout was really nice. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Also, zoos are possibly my favorite place to take fun pictures, as is documented below.

Me and my new friend

Mark, Greg, Aaron and David with the Artis goats!

While we were at the zoo we went to the children's section (per my request, of course) and went to the petting zoo. The first animal to greet us was a goat, who immediately took a chomp out of the map that Aaron was holding in his hand...we now have a map with a bite taken out of the corner. Crazy goat.

Greg, David, Mark, Aaron, and me at the Artis zoo waterfall.

let's climb the t-rex! Ahhh!!

What is that hippo doing?

After the zoo we went back to the park to do what we do best: picnic and listen to free music.

Picnicing in the park: David, Greg, Aaron, and Mark

Los Aguas Aguas (awesome latin ska band) at the ROOTS festival

Monday was dubbed "museum day," which we started off first thing in the morning to avoid crowds. We got to the Anne Frank house right when it opened and still had a 20 min line. Visiting the house was such a powerful experience. The tour took us through the entire house, which was originally the office for Anne's father's, Otto's, companies. Hence, the ground floor was offices, and two of Otto's employees agreed to help the Frank family. Thus, they lived upstairs, and there was a secret bookshelf passage that led to the bunker up the stairs. Upon finding Anne's diary, Otto Frank, the sole family survivor, wanted to preserve everything as best as possible. As such, all of the original paintings and pencil marks on the walls are still there. There were two tiny rooms for eight people to hide in and to never leave the house or see sunshine. The original diary is also on display with some entries highlighted..it was incredibly powerful to read Anne's thoughts while walking through the house, and to watch clips of her father in interviews where he admitted that he had no idea some of the dark thoughts that went through her mind until he found the diary. She was a fighter who didn't want to burden others with her worries.

Anne Frank house: the bookcase that hid the secret passage to their bunker

After the Anne Frank house we made our way to the Van Gogh museum, which was what I was looking forward to most in the trip. On the way, we walked past an I amsterdam monument, which of course we had to climb. But more exciting, when I got my ticket for the Van Gogh museum, I was able to pull of being 17 and getting a free ticket. Yay! The museum itself was amazing and everything I was hoping for. There were so many painting and self-portraits that I had read about in books or used to decorate my walls even and now was actually able to see in person. The colors in his work are so impressive, even taking into consideration how much the paintings have faded over the years. The museum also had his original paints, canvases and pallets on display--kinda cool. The walk through the museum was designed in such a way that the visitor progressed through Van Gogh's movements and transition and were exposed to other artists who influenced his works during the different phases in Van Gogh's artistic career. Van Gogh is by far one of my favorite artists, as such I cannot even describe how it felt to walk through a museum dedicated to his work.

I (am)sterdam--Greg, me and Mark are on the t-e!! :)

Van Gogh self portrait

Me and Van Gogh's sunflowers!!!

On Tuesday, our final day, we decided to take a walking tour of the city. The tour ended up being 3 hours long and taking us all throughout the city, which was really exciting because even though we had walked basically all of it already, we now got to hear the fun facts behind the different areas in town. For instance, the palace/parliament building in Amsterdam housed Napolean's brother Louis when he ruled the city and is actually the largest built authority building in the world. We finished off our trip with lunch at an "authentic Dutch restaurant" recommended to us by our tour guide. It ended up being a complete tourist trap that all tour guides tell their tourists to go to, where the servers actually gave a menu that was labelled "tourist menu." We felt a bit cheated. But, the food was good and reasonable, so all in all, no complaints.

I really enjoyed my trip and loved seeing the city and walking through every inch of it. Even though Venice is known to be the ultimate city built on water, I would argue that Amsterdam was prettier, had more to do, and had a better combination of canals and parks.