Our trip to the suburbs

 Hey All!

It’s crazy how close how close we are to being done. Right now we’re in Amsterdam, and this city feels so alive. It’s kind of overwhelming. 

We just completed an activity where we did a scavenger hunt all over the city. The questions were all designed to get us out of the tourist areas and into the normal parts of the city to interact with how the city was designed spatially. I like being sent on quests, but I was just so exhausted so it was hard to engage. I would have liked more time to complete it, especially after everyone had to adjust to people getting COVID. 

We decided to complete the quest that had us ride to the end of the metro line. When we got off the train all we saw were bike paths in between really spaced out apartment buildings. We decided to walk to the road. After walking for LITERALLY 15 minutes, we found the highway. It was actually an overpass, and we couldn’t even see on to it. This suburb area was so devoid of roads and cars. It was wild, but honestly felt like other suburbs with nowhere to go. 

Then we decided to walk up to the next metro stop. We walked into a park; this entire place was so spread out and devoid of life. There were no cafes, no grocery stores, no shops at all. Every three minutes we’d walk by another strange apartment building. It reminded me of Le Corbusier's modernist buildings, with no sense of human scale. Another odd part was that we hardly saw anyone. We finally found an apartment building with shops on the bottom floor, but they were all boarded up. It seemed like there weren’t enough people to keep it open. As we walked on, I saw an elderly man eating an orange on the side of the road. It seemed so desolate, like there was nowhere for him to go. The lack of options and opportunities reminded me of our suburbs. 

Coming back, one of our trains was getting fixed, so we had to take a circuitous route. We ended up riding 4 of the 5 lines! So that was cool! Sorry y’all, short post today, this is kind of crunch time.