I’m heading home back to the US today. Initially, my flight home was on the 13th, getting home late at night. However, I need to be in Atlanta on the 15th and 16th for meetings. Trying to figure it out, it wound up making more sense to stay in Amsterdam for an extra night, and…

I decided to spend the morning, after getting all packed up, at the Van Gogh Museum. If you couldn’t guess by the name, it is home to the biggest Van Gogh collection in the world. He was Dutch, hence the museum being here I assume. He was mentally unstable and depressed most of his life;…

Today was our last day, and we mostly spent it recapping what we learned, and what we could take home with us. We also reflected, a lot, on how alone we all feel. One of my cohort members is the head of the ACLU in Texas. She’s deleting all of her work apps on her…

We stayed in Amsterdam again today, sort of. We went 20 minutes away, but it felt like a different world. Almere We had a late start, not leaving the hotel until 7:10! First stop of the day was Almere. I believe it would be offensive to call it this, but it’s basically a suburb of…

Back towards Rotterdam today, but we stopped a bit short, in Delft. It’s a popular tourist destination and is close to The Hague. The Hague is actually where most of the embassies are (not in Amsterdam) and is best known as the home of “International Court of Justice” which is the judicial arm of the…

Today we went to another city, Utrecht. First stop was the breakfast buffet in the hotel. We were all in line at 6:15 to eat quickly before the 7 am train. The staff had gotten to know us so they trust us – which is maybe a mistake; it doesn’t technically open until 6:30 but…

We started out at 6:30 this morning, and headed to Rotterdam. Rotterdam is the second largest city in the country. Rotterdam was bombed heavily during the war, so had to be almost entirely rebuilt. Unlike other cities that tried to honor the historical architecture, Rotterdam just started from scratch and is a little insane. The…

Today was the first full day of the conference, and we generally stayed within Amsterdam. We started at 6:30 with breakfast, and then we were off! We did lots of nerdy things, starting with understanding Amsterdam’s 2050 Comprehensive Plan. Their five focuses: “Everything of value is defenseless” was the mantra of the city planner we…

Today was an optional day for the conference, where we met each other casually, and spent the day being tourists together. I started off with the hotel’s breakfast, including some smoked Mackerel. It tasted like..smoked fish. Too many bones for my liking. A large percent of the country is actually Vegan. They’ve made this choice…

Did everyone else know that Holland wasn’t a country? It isn’t. It’s just a province, in the Netherlands. And not like in the way that they now say Pluto isn’t a planet – Holland was never a country. You can google it if you want. (I did – because I swear it was a country?!?)…