By Julie Han, Simon Fraser University, winner of the 2018 (Spring) Stories from Abroad Scholarship, member of the BC Study Abroad Writer in Residence Team
Study Abroad Destination: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
The truth is everybody wants a piece of you, or rather where you are. As soon as you announce your plans to study abroad, you’ll find yourself drowning in endless requests for souvenirs eating away at your already slim budget. But, after months of actually being there, riding past kiosks of silly wooden shoes, sloppily painted ceramic, and tins of stale stroopwafel, I found myself increasingly resentful of these requests. In addition to my sad budget and suitcase space, none of these small tokens represented Amsterdam lived.
And...