The 4th of June, Amsterdam

Today we walked fromt he dam to the ´homomonument´. It was built to remember the homosexuals that had died during World War II. We sat down on a pink triangle that hung over the canal. Pink triangle patches were used by the Nazis to identify the homosexuals from the rest. There were 3 triangles and the sides pointed to references such as the Anne Frank House, and a War memorial. While we sat on the pink marble, we discussed logistics concerning our projects. After that, we were able to disperse to forgoe our own project endeavors. My project topic involves how immigrants feel when they arrive in Holland. So, I thought it might be interesting to get a perspective on the influence of media in the Netherlands. After I had grabbed some lunch at a cafe nearby, I headed towards the University of Amsterdam (UVA). I was in search of Brad Bushman. Dan had mentioned to me about how Brad is a UM communications professor currently in at the school here as a guest lecturer involving violence in Dutch media. However, nobody at the university actually knew who or where he was. But just when I was about to give up, a woman was just stopping by and recognized the name and said he was a collegue of hers. But even after that little sliver of hope, Professor Bushman was still MIA.

I sat down at the Stone Cafe and started to rethink my project topic. Since it now seemed that my original idea would be too difficult to finalize, I thought that I could use the conversations I had with people I had met along my trip. Then things started to come together. I realized that I had already done the research. I had spoken with people from Ethiopia, Turkey, Belgium, Holland, etc.

This was the first day that the group had a majority of the day to do what we wanted. It felt nice not having a schedule, but the group still made arrangements and deadlines, which I thought was interesting. I hope that our GIEU crew still makes time to hang out with eachother when we return to the states. After today, I feel like this won´t be a problem... except the possibility that I might be a little late. Catch you all back in the homeland, peace. Adam a.k.a punshki.