Tuesday August 4th

Today was the day I've really been looking forward to. We went to the flower auction early this morning. Got on the trams to Leidseplein and then took a bus right to the Flower Auction, FloraHolland. The building is gigantic, its the largest commercial building in the world. It has 243 acres of ground space inside. This is all in one floor! I thought the visit here was the best group thing we did, it topped everything else that we were required to do. It taught me a lot about several automation functions as well as basic ideas to offer the winery. It was crazy looking over the transportation floor, where they move the flowers from one place to another, there were hundreds of small almost segway type transporters that would hook on to a cart of flowers and then go zipping across the building. The tour was really interesting and I didn't feel rushed, I could've watched the auction floor all day. It was amazing to think that this is where all the world's flower prices are determined. The auction room was neat because they just flew through he flowers, stopping for no body. I liked the idea with the headphones wirelessly connected to the tour guide's microphone so we could all hear without having to be near her and her being able to talk quieter and save her voice. All in all I thought it was awesome and future classes should definitely go to this. After the tour was done, we took the 30 minute bus ride back to the apartments and I took a nap. We had to get up at 5:30 for the auction. We had to be ready by mid day and we were going to the hash, hemp, and marijuana museum as well as Our Lord in the Attic. I liked Our Lord in the Attic, especially with being Catholic. I thought everything was very well restored but I was surprised at how small it was. I thought it was going to be a much more grand museum. The hash, hemp, and marijuana museum was a little bit of a let down because it was pretty small and most of the info recordings weren't interesting. I did like the video they showed, strangely enough it was made by the USDA in the 1940s. Today went by a lot faster than I was expecting, we all thought it was going to be super busy and take forever. Around 6 several of us headed to an Ajax (EYE-Axe) soccer game. Ajax is Amsterdam's team and there sure were a lot of people there. The stadium holds 50,000 and it was definitely at that mark. I have never been to a pro soccer game before, even though I played soccer for 12 years. It was a lot of fun but Ajax lost. The defense was playing on their heels. It was very hype when Ajax scored, the whole stadium went wild. Today was a good day! Did a lot of things but I definitely am ready to get back. I'm not looking forward to the flight back. And I miss my girlfriend.