It’s been about a week since I returned home to Florida from Amsterdam and I already miss the Amsterdam life. I miss my bike and riding around the canals and seeing all the beautiful houses. I miss my cappuccinos at the local hipster cafes and going on adventures around the city everyday with no destination. I can definitely say that Amsterdam changed my perspective on how I view life and the world. There were pros and cons of living in the Netherlands, the pros were being in a liberal culture, meeting very genuine Dutch people and exploring such a historic beautiful city and the cons being without some luxuries, learning to bike everyday and not always understanding the people or their culture. Looking back on my whole time in Amsterdam, there were ups and downs, but I can confidently say that it prepared me for real life situations and it gave me the deep desire to travel for the rest of my life. Everyday I woke up ready to go on a new adventure around the city no matter how rainy or cold and I always found the best places and met the coolest new people. I was able to travel to 5 different countries outside of the Netherlands, including Morocco, France, Italy, Germany and the Czech Republic, and now I plan to save up to travel to tons more while I’m young and able to explore. I know that I made some friends from all around the world that I’ll keep in touch with and learned so many different languages and cultures and I never want to stop. I truly believe that the best learning comes from experiences outside of the classroom and I don’t think I could have gotten these amazing experiences from just taking a class on European cultures. I learned by being immersed in each of these cultures and taking myself out of my comfort zone. I wouldn’t change one thing about my studying abroad experience, good or bad, because it made me grow as a person and discover passions I never knew I had.
