As you know from my previous post, I was in Amsterdam this week with a few friends from my study abroad program. Amsterdam is a gorgeous city with more bikes than people and canals galore. It was a really nice way to spend my week break before classes starting on Monday. It also helped get my mind off of how stressed out I am for said classes to start.
My time in Amsterdam included lots of walking and exploring, the Anne Frank House, and a really fun canal tour. I think I averaged around 6-8 miles of walking a day because everything is so reachable by foot in this city. Walking around is also an amazing way to enjoy the gorgeous weather and to hear more languages than one can count. Being such a multicultural city, I think we heard at least a dozen different languages throughout our day. Thankfully, though, we managed to get around just fine with English. Dutch is similar enough to German that my friends and I could recognize a few words, but we equated it to someone speaking German with marbles in their mouth. Everything is much more throaty and garbled.
The Anne Frank House was probably my favorite part of this trip. My friends and I didn’t know if we would be able to get tickets because they sell out so quickly, but we were lucky enough that we snagged a few of the last ones. It was fascinating to see the Secret Annex and to see truly how small it really was. I also learned a few new things on the history of WWII in Amsterdam, which gave me a new perspective on my German studies.
The canal tour was our final big event. We just did a quick 1 hour tour through the canals and learned a lot about the history of Amsterdam and how it’s culture was shaped. The weather was so nice and the facts were fascinating.
All in all, this was a very successful trip and I’m really glad it worked out that I could visit. Tomorrow (Friday) we have our last advising session before deciding on classes that we are going to take. I’m pretty nervous about the semester beginning because my classes will be entirely in German, but I am trying not to let my anxiety get too high.
So far, the only class I know for certain that I will be taking is a Tandem speaking class. I am assigned a German student to meet up with once a week and we simply talk about a discussion topic in English and German. My partner’s name is Lea. She’s supposed to help me with my German and I am supposed to help her with English. Although frankly, based on the emails we’ve exchanged so far, her English is already impeccable. She seems nice, though, and I’m hoping my conversational skills grow immensely from this class.
Once I know what other classes I will be taking, I will post an update. That is the latest and greatest in my life. I love and miss you all!
Meghan
P.S. Please enjoy the pictures of canals, because those were essentially the only pictures I took.
Travels in Germany 