Bike City: Avoiding Tram Rails

Hallo van Amsterdam!

I’ve been in my ancestral homeland of the Netherlands since the first week of August, visiting family members in different cities and getting accumulated to an even more European lifestyle than I’m used to. My maternal grandfather immigrated to the United States in the 1950s from Alkmaar in Noord-Holland and brought many Dutch traditions and family lore to his children and grandchildren. Although I heard stories about my distant cousins, I always wanted to meet them and see where my grandfather grew up. Choosing Amsterdam for my study abroad location seemed like an obvious choice. I’ve been bouncing around to have dinner with my distant aunts, uncles, and cousins in Den Haag, Lisse, Haarlem, and Utrecht, learning about their lives in the Netherlands, since my grandfather left.

These past two months have been a whirlwind of brief rainstorms, relearning how to ride a bike, and trying to pick up as much Dutch as possible. The Dutch have this program called the “Museum-Kaart,” where you pay €60 per year for free entry into most museums throughout the country.