So we got off the plane at the Schipol Airport in Amsterdam with all of our luggage and got a cab right outside of the airport. I was traveling with 5 other UW-Whitewater students who decided to study in Arnhem as well. It was raining right as we exited the airport so I'm so happy my mom packed the last minute rain jacket! This has actually come to use many, many times. The taxi took us right to "Meeting Point" youth hostel where we would be staying. We landed at approx. 6:30am and then got to the hostel around 8am and we couldn't check in until 11:00am. We had a lot of bags and initally at the airport I was able to take out some money from the ATM so I had euros. The taxi ride took about 10-15mins (driving in the rain) and cost us about 50-60 Euros which we all split, so this was nice because we had all of our luggage. The man at meeting point hostel let us leave all of our luggage down in the basement, though we couldn't check in because he was all booked up. We were initially not happy to just leave our luggage at the hostel in the basement, but decided there really wasn't any other option. I took the most important things out and just wore a backpack, and the others did the same. At this point we couldn't stay at the hostel so we walked down the street to find somewhere where we could have breakfast and coffee. The hostel was right near all of the "action" right near the Red Light District and also downtown. We found a cute little breakfast place and initally they handed us the menu, and we were struggling because it was all in dutch, and then the waiter handed us an english menu (I think he could tell). I had a crossaint and some toast, and coffee. The crossaint was very flaky but I liked it a lot. And the coffee was a lot stronger and in a very, very tiny mug. NOTHING like in America at all. From here on out we basically had to kill time before 11:00am. We went to the train station and just looked around. We found internet that we all could jump on and quick email our parents that we arrived and what not. After getting to the hostel finally at 11:00am they were changing the sheets and what not, so we did have clean sheets which was nice. It wasn't too bad of a hostel, we stayed in a 18 bed room and we had a big window that we could look down right on the street which was cool.
We actually were missing the sixth person in our group, Tayler because he wasn't on the same flight as us. So two of the guys and myself took a train back to the airport (train is much more cheaper than the taxi) and we waited for him forever! We ended up paging him at the airport and looking at all of the gates but he wasn't there. After getting back to the hostel we were getting worried about where he could be - but he ended up back at the hostel, and just found wi-fi at a McDonalds so he could look up the address to our hostel.
That day in Amsterdam we walked around the city a lot, we took a lot of pictures (canals are everywhere!) and we did visit my first cofeeshop. As most may know, the "coffeeshop" in the Netherlands is a place where you can smoke, obviously this is legal here. That was an initial culture shock just to see that "wide" in the open, but people do it. I'm glad I actually got to visit one. You don't just walk down the street and smoke which some Americans think, you can smoke legally in coffeeshops and at your home and what not. It is legal all over the Netherlands, not just Amsterdam. We also went to a place for dinner, I got a 4 cheese pizza which was good and it had your "average" types of food (pastas, bread, pizza...etc.) and we all ate and had some Heineken's. We also went out that night to check out the Red Light District. I'm also excited to have done this - and it was a culture shock. But there are a lot of people out and about and there were a lot of people at the Red Light District as well. I thought they just called it that, but literally all of the windows with the women in them have red lights surrounding, so you knew exactly when you hit those streets, cause you'd see the red lights everywhere. We went to a few different pubs and actually went out that night with 3 guys from Wales. They were really nice and we asked each other a lot of quesions. Of course we had the politics talk and health care talk. They know a lot about American politics and we established early that American politics and news is covered everywhere, but none of the "Americans" knew who the Prime Minister was of England! They knew Obama and could go down the list of many, many more presidents and we only knew of Tony Blair. Another thing that made me feel stupid - but it was interesting none-the-less. We talked about American TV shows and music they listen to and things like that. And it was interesting just to get the prospective from people about America, who have never lived in America. The guys from Wales were in our 18 bed-room at the Hostel, so it was cool to meet them.
Time Change? This actually didn't phase me too much. The first day in Amsterdam just about everyone took a nap, because we had a harsh day of traveling, but so far the time difference really hasn't been affecting me to much, which is nice! I thought I would be a lot more messed up but I wasn't.
We went to bed late that night, as we were pub hopping in Amsterdam, but had to check out of the hostel at 10 the next morning. We packed up our stuff and headed to the train station to go to Arnhem! The 19th was the "official" check in day for students at the Arnhem Business School.
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