Welcome Week
Written on Aug 27, 2022
What a WEEK. I’ve met hundreds of international students, explored the city, got a bike, partied until 5 AM, and have mastered the public transportation system. Am I in a movie? This first full week here in Amsterdam was packed full of so many activities. I’m going to break it all down into what happened each day.
Sunday, Aug 21
I needed to get out and meet people ASAP! The first thing I did was attend the small meet-and-greet events in my building. My building is full of 170 international students so the three RAs encouraged us to come to the common room each night. These first encounters were a bit awkward — everyone was feeling shy and jetlagged — but they were very important.
I messaged a guy named Luc — the only other NAU student I knew that was studying abroad in Amsterdam — and it turned out he was living in the same building! I felt grateful there was someone else here who could relate with the same specific struggles I’ve had to get here. We decided to go grocery shopping together for the first time with a girl from Austria named Açelya who I met on night one.
Since Luc and I already bonded over the fact we are both Arizonans, we got some of the logistical to-do items done together on the first days here. This included trying to ride the metro, going to IKEA, researching SIM cards and Dutch bank accounts, and finding food near our apartment. Funny how I’m over 5,000 miles away from Arizona and still hanging out with an NAU student.
Monday, Aug 22
All international students were required to register with the Municipality of Amsterdam in the first few days to receive a BSN number, which is similar to a social security number. Luc, Açelya and I went to do this on the other side of the city and then I picked up my rented bike from Swapfiets. I’m not sure how much I’ll be biking this semester vs taking the metro, but I am about 25 minutes from the main city of Amsterdam either way. However, the city’s infrastructure and high public transportation prices practically make having a bike a requirement. Biking back to my apartment took almost 45 minutes because I had to stop and look at directions constantly. Dutch cyclists are serious about their bike lanes and it’s obvious they are fed up with the inexperienced getting in their way. Needless to say, it was intimidating.
Once I got back, there was a potluck planned for that evening where everyone was encouraged to cook something from their home country. Barely having any groceries or cooking knowledge, Luc and I made some good ol’ fashioned “American” pancakes. To my surprise, they were a big hit, and we got a chance to meet many more students who had moved in over the weekend.
Tuesday, Aug 23
On Tuesday, the Erasmus Student Network (ESN) Introduction Week began! This was a program meant for international students to network and learn about the city. I signed up for this last spring when I was accepted at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. When many of us from my building arrived at the convention center for the official welcome orientation, I was shocked to see hundreds of students from all over the world in this auditorium. We were broken up into around 25 groups total with an average of 20 people in each group. I met my group members and we went to lunch together — sharing details about our home countries and what we were studying.
After lunch and some bonding time, we went on a boat tour through the canals of Amsterdam to get to our final destination. The boats dropped us off in Amsterdam-Noord at a festival venue on the water! Here we ate food, met even more people, and had a blast at an outdoor silent disco. It was fun but also extremely hot and humid so we were all very sweaty. Getting back to our apartment was a challenge because this venue was far north across the water and we live far south. A group of us from my building had to run to catch a ferry seconds before it departed. Then, we got lucky and barely made it onto the last metro of the night heading south.
Wednesday, Aug 24
I started the day by attending a hip-hop class at CREA - the cultural student center for my university. They held open-house trial classes for music, art, and dance that our ESN welcome week included in the itinerary. Fun fact, I took ballet for 13 years and I love dancing, so I enjoyed every second of this class. However, I was in jeans and there was no AC. I sweat through everything I was wearing with no change of clothes and a full day of activities. This was uncomfortable, but everyone else was also soaked.
After dancing, we broke into our original ESN groups and took a Dutch crash course to learn the basics. Most people in Amsterdam speak English, but the majority of signs and menus are still written in Dutch. This language sounds a bit like German to me, but the German friends I had made also struggled with the pronunciations. They taught us what would be in the first few weeks of an intro language class: the alphabet, numbers, common greetings and phrases, and of course, how to order drinks.
Group 1 had dwindled in size but we found some lunch and got to exploring with our two guides. We were technically supposed to do a scavenger hunt around the city center, but we voted to just visit the locations of the scavenger hunt as a walking tour instead. We got to see Museumplein, which is where museums like the Van Gogh museum, Rijksmuseum, MOCO museum, and Stedelijk museum are located. We also walked through Dam Square, Amsterdam Centraal, Muntplein, and Rembrandtplein. By the time we finished exploring, I had walked 10 miles (16 km).
To finish out the day, we went to a place with bowling, laser tag, and mini golf. As a group of about 20, we had an intense game of laser tag. It was the best laser tag experience I’ve ever had with the fog, black lights, teams, room layout, and lasers. Again, there was no AC, and we were all horribly sweaty once we were done. We got drinks and attempted to cool off outside before doing some glow-in-the-dark mini golf. Throughout the day, I got to spend time with a variety of people from my group.
Thursday, Aug 25
Everyone was exhausted by Thursday, so the majority skipped Sports Day to recuperate. I decided to do laundry and go grocery shopping instead but did try joining the group a bit later on in the day. However, one girl from my group broke her foot before I arrived during a game of basketball, so the few people who were there from my group had already left.
People were eager for Thursday’s main event in the evening: Coco’s Outback party. Groups coordinated pre-drinking activities since the party didn’t start until 11 pm. I met with a few people in Vondelpark and we all went to Cocos together. I was honestly expecting a restaurant/bar place similar to the laser tag location from the previous night. I was extremely wrong. This was a three story club on a street bustling with nightlife. If you know me at all, you probably know that I don’t really party. We danced at Coco’s until almost 3 am and it was a blast. I guess I’m a party person in Europe.
Outside of Coco’s with Viola and Sophia — two girls I met in my group from Germany
Friday, Aug 26
Obviously, Friday activities had a late start and a more laid back energy. Those of us from my group who woke up met at the Amsterdam museum and had brunch at a restaurant in a park. We later met more group members in a different park and hung out in a cafe. I’m not used to sitting around with “nothing to do” because I usually have three jobs and a full to-do list, but this was a nice change of pace. I had dinner with two people from my group and pre-gamed with a few more. Drinking culture here is much more casual than in the states, which I prefer.
Our last activity was the final party at Melkweg. This was a large club at a concert venue on the west side of the city. This party felt much bigger than the previous night, but Coco’s had better music and was more fun overall. I left the club around 3:30 am with friends I had made from my building, but we didn’t get back home until almost 5 am.
Saturday, Aug 27
We were dead and now our sleep schedules were now messed up. The group of us who traveled home together decided to go to Ikea — primarily for the meatballs. This was all we had enough energy for.
