Sunshine and Good Times

Hey Folks,

Let me just start off by saying how gorgeous Amsterdam has become these past couple of weeks. The warm weather, the sunshine and the trees finally turning green hanging over the canals makes the city look like a fairytale. Sometime I still look around and am amazed that I am here in this amazing place. Now that the weeks are moving so quick I’m getting really nervous to leave. I actually don’t even want to leave at all if I’m being honest but I do miss my family and friends back home and am truly pumped up for my final year of college. Who knows, maybe I’ll move back here after college. Let me just fill you in on my life this past week….

I had class only on Tuesday and Wednesday. In Tuesday’s social trends class I had to pick a topic for my final research paper that gets graded by this genius professor who has written books used all over the world in classes. Also if the paper is good enough you can try to get it published. My topic is Euthanasia and how far it’s able to go in terms of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. This paper is going to be so time consuming and hard but I’m really interested in this topic so that’s good because its a solid 22 pages. Anyways my other class is an art class I have talked about previously and I’m continuing to learn so much about artists and creativity. For future students trying to go to UvA, this school is extremely hard, especially the grading, but the subjects and professors are very intelligent and I have learned quite a lot.

My best friend Abby came to Amsterdam this weekend with her friends and we had a lot of fun. We went to the park one day and hung out on the grass with tons of other people for about 5 hours playing games and chatting. I took them around to touristy places and luckily Dam Square had a really cool carnival going on.

Basically I spent a lot of time outside this past week and weekend and have loved every minute of it. Although the fact that 65 degrees is almost too hot for me is freaking me out because I have to go back to Phoenix for a little which is double that… Yikes.

My future plans from here on out so far are… next weekend is KINGS DAY!! I am attending a music festival for it and dressing head to toe in orange as that is their national symbolic color. A few days after that I will be in Malta soaking up even more sun in the clear blue water with Zak. Beginning of May I will be focusing on that research paper mostly. Mid-May my friend Taylor comes which I am stoked about because shes saying for quite a while and it’ll be cool to show someone around to my favorite places and explore places I haven’t been able to. I really need to go to the Anne Frank house (waiting for my mom) and go to the ever so famous tulip gardens. End of May I am going to Paris, then Switzerland then Prague to visit my friends Zac and Mikey!!!! Afterwards I come back to the Dam for a little then my sweet sweet mother comes and we take off on our Italian adventure.

I would recommend anyone who is studying abroad to not even travel towards the end. It’s so important to stay in one city for a while, make friends, explore everything, find your favorite places and actually feel like you live there and are no longer a tourist. I see friends that are also studying abroad take off almost every weekend and they don’t give their cities enough time to fully get to know it. It’s not going to be fun every single day and some days I just hangout in my room and binge watch shows but that’s normal and if I were out every moment of the day it wouldn’t feel normal to me (plus I’d be broke). It’s also been very different for me to be alone so much. Not that I don’t have friends here because I do and I love them but living by myself and not being with people every second is new to me but I think I like it and have learned more this way. Anyways now I’m just avoiding my readings and rambling on but point is- it’s so much better to travel at the end of your journey you won’t regret it.

I won’t hit cool places like London, South of France, or Germany this trip because I’m not a billionaire but I will definitely be back very soon.

Lovin’ life currently, wishing everyone back home and around the world a lovely week 🙂