It’s Travel Time!

Written by Jill Bragdon
Participant Visualization Program 2011

The Texas A&M group had the opportunity to spend some travel time in the Netherlands this past week. Bright and early Wednesday morning the students loaded up on a charter bus and headed to Amsterdam. After a 4 hour bus ride, they arrived to their destination.

Once in Amsterdam the group hopped off of their bus and directly on to a canal tour through the city. The students were then set off to find their own lunch. Some trying traditional Dutch fries, others finding small cafes to dine.

Then the group had the opportunity to tour the Anne Frank house. This was such a neat experience for the group. Most of the group had read the book during their younger years, so to see this book become a reality was somewhat surreal.

For dinner the group dinned together at "Mother's." Here, the students experienced their first Dutch rice meal. There was so much food, and it was all delicious. After being stuffed beyond belief, and worn out from walking the city end to end, the students went back to their hotel for some rest and relaxation.

The next morning the adventures started again! A day packed full of exciting things! For a group of design-loving students, getting to see the huge "i amsterdam" letters was worth the trip alone. The group took some time to climb on the letters and shoot some photos. Next they were off to the Van Gogh Museum! Listening to an audio tour and absorbing as much Van Gogh as possible, the students spent a few hours around the museum.

After an eventful couple of days in the lively city of Amsterdam, the students took a bus to Zandvoort, a smaller beach city in the Netherlands, to continue their journey. After getting settled into their hotel rooms, the group met up to have a Skype conference with their fellow NSF participants.

On the last day of their adventure the students had a project on the coast of the North Sea. For a bunch of Texans, the weather was quite a challenge. Although the weather was cold, the sun was shining! The students spent most of the day on the beach working on their project, to break for lunch of course. After the projects were complete, the students loaded up and headed back to Bonn!

Overall the excursion to The Netherlands was a great experience full of fun, adventure, and of course, a little bit of learning.