I liked going around the city and seeing the history of this place. The adventure took us out to really dive deeper into the place we were staying. The multiple levels to it as well as having to talk to people or having to go into places. It pushed us to talk and connect to people we have never met. The history is deep in Amsterdam and its presence has shaped many areas around it. This city has been rebuilt and dense on building up again. The Netherlands went through so much during the war. I would only improve some of the tasks to be a little more specific in what it was looking for. I learned that Amsterdam had to regrow and become again after all the devastation. That they acknowledge the travesties that were against their Jewish community. The hate and scars that are a part of history. But that history matters as we cannot let things happen again. Amsterdam is very dense and close. People would move right by me and would not move nor care to. In the Netherlands, it’s very normal it seems to be in someone’s space. The United States has this element in big cities but in smaller cities, there is an aspect of moving out of the way or space. I feel like people are very social here but to who they know. So for instance I would get a lot of stares but no one really spoke to me. I think there are unset rules in the city I was not aware of. Amsterdam is very very touristy which I didn’t really think about. While doing the PUMA exercise many people would just step out and we would have to weave through. I really did like seeing the green spaces and how they are trying to bring greenery back to the city, for example, the greenery under the trams. Amsterdam is a city we can take not on from creative and restoring old buildings. Culture and history are two big elements of this city. That is truly the beautiful thing I saw in Amsterdam.
Nice to see these reflections and reactions to a new place. I’ll be curious your reflections from the smaller and less tourist-oriented cities of Nijmegen and Utrecht. It’s also interesting to think about how open or closed societies are for new people entering, and it is especially hard to understand that from the brief experiences we are having. It’s important to realize that any standoffish feelings received are probably not anything with negative intent, but just some other way of being that is hard for us to read as outsiders. It’s easy for us to interpret things to be rude when they are just different and our own cultural lens can easily misinterpret social cues that we would otherwise think are universal human qualities. One of the most interesting aspects of international travel is to realize how many things we might think are universal truths are actually culturally constructed norms and being curious about those differences, rather than being put off by them is definitely something that has to be done with some intention. For example, when living in England for a year I was initially so offended that no one in my neighborhood came and welcomed us to the area, city, and country given everyone new an American family just moved onto the street. Only after I met some people through my workplace that I could ask why no one came and said hello did I learn that culturally there is a deep desire to not cause a bother to other people and thus, coming to our house and saying hello would be seen as intruding on my space and bothering me. So, what I thought would be a welcome hello was seen by my neighbors as them being rude by knocking on my door so they didn’t. It took a local family who had lived overseas previously to come to us and say ‘you will be our friends’ because no one else will ever say hi on their own. That was a fascinating cultural difference and taught me to be more understanding of difference and that things I thought might be universally accepted behaviors often differ dramatically by culture – something I knew in concept, but was good to be reminded of in practice.
This was very eloquently put. I wasn’t thinking of it in that lense and that is a really good point. We have only been here for a small fraction of time. I want to come back and really dive deeper in these areas.