Vondel Park and Energy Junkies

Hello! We had another really fun day in Amsterdam! We started the morning with breakfast and started a little later than usual. Then we took the tram to Vondel Park where we had time to explore. The park was originally private and owned by the wealthy people in the neighborhood, but was then donated to the city and became a public park. It is named after a Dutch poet. One unique animal inside the park are these bright green parrots.

There were many people biking, running, and walking all around the park and it's many paths. We ate lunch inside the park and afterwards played some frisbee! After that we took another tram to see the Energy Junkies exhibit from the NEMO (Amsterdam's science museum). There we learned more about energy use habits and ways to decrease our energy use. It was an interactive experience that makes people aware of their energy usage and explains why it's detrimental to the environment. Something I learned about was the idea of having a carbon budget and deciding what energy consuming activities to spend it on. Afterwards we ate some ice cream and sang happy birthday to Alex! We had free time for the rest of the afternoon so we split into groups to do different activities. Today I walked around the city and then stopped at Albert Heijn to pick up some snacks. Then we walked to get some boba. Afterwards we went to the Lego store which had many very cool sets! There were even some famous paintings made out of legos!

We then went back to the hostel to rest before going to eat ramen (which was delicious!) for dinner.

Other groups used the time to go shopping and eat dinner. Some other dinners were Japanese food, and Thai food! We went back to the hostel and played some pool before going to bed to get ready for an early morning tomorrow! It was another really nice and relaxing day! ~ Grace Flikke