This past weekend, I traveled to the city of Amsterdam with a few other people from the IIP Berlin program. We all had a really great time and saw a lot of really cool sites in downtown Amsterdam. We also ended up staying in an Airbnb that was a yacht, so that was pretty cool as well. The yacht was located in a small bordering town called Volendam. It was about a 20-30 minute bus ride from the city center. The food was also really good and the people were incredibly friendly. Many of the locals spoke almost perfect English, which helped our time there go really smoothly. Amsterdam’s night life was also really interesting and amusing. However, I will not go into too much detail, because words honestly would not do it justice. It is one of those things I think everyone just has to see and experience for themselves.

We also had the opportunity to do the Heineken Experience, which was really fun. We had the chance to learn how their beer is made from raw ingredients and mass produced. I forget the exact number, but Heineken bottles an absurd amount of beers per hour, which is pretty impressive. They also had some cool soccer stuff on display and a bunch of us played FIFA in that room. The view from the rooftop was also really awesome.

At some point during the day on Monday, we discovered that our flight back to Berlin had been delayed. And then it got delayed further, and further, and further. By the time we got to the airport, our flight had been moved from 9:30pm to after midnight. At that rate, we would not be arriving back in Berlin until after 2:00am. Eventually, the flight got scratched for the evening and moved to the following day at noon. After waiting in a customer service line for about an hour, we were finally provided with compensation from the airline. They put us up in a nearby hotel for the night. The hotel was actually really nice and we got some sort of semi-executive suites. I honestly was not expecting something so nice from EasyJet (a discount airline that makes a seat on Southwest Airlines seem like a luxury flight). So I guess all’s well that ends well.