Update: Wednesday 26 Dec

Hi!

Today I want to tell you about my Christmas.

I mean, really there isn't much to tell. But I had a lot of fun anyway so here you have it.

So I guess at midnight on Christmas eve (or I suppose then that is very early Christmas morning), it is Dutch tradition (for those who are still religious) to go to midnight mass, and then go home and have breakfast (yes, at one or two in the morning) and open gifts. I was not there for that part, though Tessa's mom thought I would be. I wasn't. It's okay. I got Tessa's house at about half past noon Christmas day, we would have sat around and watched movies but Tessa and I had planned to go to the cinema. We went and saw a movie in Dutch, I was so proud of how much I understood. I'm making progress. Then we went back to Tessa's house, and we had dinner. Just me, Tessa, her sister and her parents. Nothing fancy, it was still a good dinner though.

After dinner, we played Monopoly and ate Dutch apple pie. You know I hate Monopoly, but I was trying to be a good sport. When Tessa's sister said let's play Monopoly and Tessa said "no, no, no, no, no!" I said sure. So we played Monopoly. In Dutch, of course. It wasn't too bad, but when Tessa was the first to run out of money, I lost interest in the game and it was harder for me to pay attention to the amounts of money they were demanding from me, so I did my best to also run out of money so I could join Tessa. Tessa who was cooking appelflappen and peerflappen. They are… these little pastries… Like this: flat sheet of dough, put apples/pears in the middle, fold it in half so it is a triangle stuffed with apples/pears, press the edges with forks. Bake. They puffed up nice and pretty. The pears were an experiment. Usually they only make them with apples.

This morning, Second Christmas day, was the more extended-family Christmas day. Yes, all Dutch people celebrate two Christmas days. The 25th and the 26th. We watched movies on TV all day. Tessa told me they do that every Christmas. Her family started arriving around three in the afternoon. I had met her grandmother before, but couldn't remember if I had met any of the others. Either way, every one of them came in and gave me an enormous hug. I may have met them at Tessa's graduation party, I don't know. I was drowning that day. I had only been in the country for 2 weeks and my ears were completely untrained to Dutch.

Probably around four or five, we all got ready to sit down to dinner. The fun part was that the electricity kept blowing. On the second Christmas day, they do this thing with a special kind of grill that sits in the middle of the table, and then a bunch of raw meats that you can cook and eat yourself throughout the meal. It was really cool. The problem was that there were 10 of us, so we had one traditional grill thing and two of those kind of grills that have a grill lid that—well I'm not very good at describing any of this. Here is a link to the one grill (I managed to find the exact grill for that one) and the others were kind of like this, except probably bigger and… nicer. Anyway, all three of those were plugged in and the power kept going out so we turned off everything except for one small light and the grills and ate mostly by candlelight. It was pretty cool.

Aside from the raw meats they had made salad and fries and boiled potatoes and some other things that didn't interest me like cabbage and such. And they had bread. I always like bread. I just ate a lot of meat. You know what, I don't buy meat. If I want to eat a big meal of meats that I can cook myself on the spot, then leave me be and let me eat. So… beef, chicken, these skewers (which I first thought were chicken but when I cooked one and tried it, the texture was more like pork so basically I have no idea what those were), little sausages, and some kind of breaded meat patties that were probably like Dutch kroketten or something similar. I really have no idea. I just know that I ate way too much. And in the end, Tessa's aunt and I took care of cooking the rest of the beef that was left over so that it could go in the fridge, and when we stacked it all on the tray after it was cooked I kept sneaking pieces of that. It was all pretty good. Horribly indulgent. But good.

Then, of course, ice cream for dessert. Ice cream and pudding and lots of whipped cream because whipped cream is good.

Tessa's grandmother sat next to me at dinner and she doesn't speak any English. She kept asking me all of these questions, the first one being (roughly) can you understand much of what people are saying? She is a very nice lady.

I was not expecting gifts, because I just wanted to go for the company and the experience. But Tessa's parents brought me some really delicious chocolate from Belgium, and Tessa bought me some really smelly bath set.

All in all, it was really nice and I'm very thankful that they allowed me to join them for Christmas.

It was also really nice to realize how much I could really understand of everything they were saying over the last two days. It makes me feel kind of really proud. Now if only I wasn't too chicken to ever respond to anyone in Dutch… I have to do some studying for my Dutch exam the second week of January anyway, maybe I'll learn a little something and stop being so chicken. Also, going to the movies so often really helps me too. Every movie has Dutch subtitles. Yet another opportunity to learn. I'll get there some day.

Okay, I lied. There was a lot to tell.

Update: Saturday 15 Dec

I wish I had an oven. Really, I do. I want homemade Christmas cookies. Or fudge. Or both. And other baked things. Like potatoes. And pasta things. And… Well you probably get the point.

Yesterday, Sara needed to use up her eggs before she left for Italy for Christmas next week, so she came into the kitchen just as I finished making my dinner and she started cooking. She made these little fried dough balls covered in sugar, she said it was a recipe from her grandmother. She asked if I had anything to put in the middle of them and I told her all I have is bananas so she mashed up one of my bananas and put it in the dough… Man, those things were delicious. They made my tummy feel awful for the rest of the night, so I probably will never eat them again, but they were still pretty good. There are some left over but like I said, I’m not touching them. It was probably the whole “deep-fried" part that was the tummy problem…

One more week of classes. And then Christmas break. I can’t wait. I’m tired. I don’t get enough sleep. I go to bed early and then lay in bed trying to sleep for hours. Before I left the US I got some Tylenol PM and only this week I’ve been taking those every night because I had this horrible cold and I’d wake up in the morning with a headache and feeling exhausted still, and it was impossible to get through the day... and those pills completely got rid of that problem. But there aren’t very many of them… So I can’t keep taking them every night.

I don’t really have much to say. I just haven’t posted in 10 days and it made me feel bad. I can’t wait for Christmas, but it doesn’t really feel like Christmas anyway because I’m not willing to go spend money on Christmas decorations, and I’ll be virtually alone during Christmas break except on Christmas day, and the 4 days that I go to the UK with Jenn. Tessa invited me to spend Christmas with her family, and for that I am very thankful.

That’s about it I guess. It’s snowed twice in the last couple weeks, really wet snow that didn’t stay. I want real snow. That super fluffy stuff. Maybe we’ll get some eventually… Oh well!

Update: Wednesday 5 Dec

Seeing a movie in the Netherlands is very different. I've been going a lot lately, I should know.

Ever since Jenn and I got these Unlimited cards for the local theater chain, we've been trying to make at least one movie a week, to make the card more than worth the money we spend on it.

I think I posted here before about how in the movie theaters in the Netherlands they have assigned seating. Jenn and I can buy our movie tickets from machines at the entrance to the cinema by scanning the barcode on the card, and it pulls up a map of the theater so you can pick your seats. That's nice. We've learned we don't like sitting at the very top row... Not big fans of the front rows either. We're getting rather picky.

We bought our unlimited cards a few days before I left for the States, probably the 14th or 15th of November. So for that month we only paid 10 euros for the remainder of the month. Even with me gone for 7 days, we managed to go to five movies.

Two of them were 3D. In the Netherlands, they make you pay one or two euros for the 3D glasses. I get them free with my unlimited card, thankfully. Those 3D glasses make me disoriented. Everything gets blurry and I have to take the glasses off to keep my eyes from crossing. I can't focus on things on the screen. Unless, of course, they are holding still. Then the screen spins off to look at something else in the movie and I go cross-eyed again. I don't like it. It also makes me feel very sleepy, even when I'm not tired. It messes with my brain and I wish all the good movies didn't have to come out in 3D. The Hobbit is out on the 12th and it's in 3D. Why?! Oh well, I must go.

Also, it took me a while to realize but of course they don't have those green screens that tell the movie rating. Why would they? It's an American thing. You're just so used to seeing it though...

They also don't have previews that are attached to movies. You know how when you go to a movie when it first comes out, or go to it 5 months later in the cheap theater, or buy it as a DVD, it always has the same previews no matter what? Not the case for the Netherlands. It makes sense that it wouldn't be, half the previews they play are for Dutch movies, and even the American movies have different release dates here (it's usually earlier, yay). They change the previews depending on what movies are coming out soon. That said, usually in the US they give each movie previews for movies with genres related to the movie it is attached to. Also can see why they do that, attract the viewers to movies that are similar to their interests based on what movies they are already seeing.

And those previews for Dutch movies? I wouldn't mind going to see one. I would have no one to go with though. No one wants to see movies in Dutch. Such a sad story for me. I guess I don't have enough control of Dutch to go see a movie in Dutch anyway, but still. I want to. I always get distracted by the Dutch subtitles on English movies. I have to force myself not to watch the subtitles, because I miss important information.

P.S. Almost forgot. When my teacher said I "make my own sentences" that's just what she means. I put the sentences together myself rather than copying and memorizing something I read on the internet, or Google translate.

Update: Monday 3 Dec

I'm getting mixed signals from something my French teacher said today. I can't decide whether or not to be offended. Every Monday we have to give a sort of presentation in French, no more than two or three minutes long. I usually don't say much because somehow I always get cowed into doing the topics that no one wants, because I wait 'til everyone else takes their pick before I choose. There's a reason no one wants those topics though... They are impossible to research.

So today I talked my full two minutes and for feedback, my teacher said that it's good that I make my own sentences, that I really have the French base down well.

Wait. So does no one else make their own sentences? I find that hard to believe. So are you saying this because you are shocked that I actually know how to make my own sentences? Do you think I am really bad at French or something, just because I don't talk much? I realize that if I don't say anything, she has nothing off of which to base her opinions on how well I can speak. But... what?

Oh come on. I'm good at French. Most of my classmates hate our class, that was a well-known fact to me. Last week it came out that they hate it because they find it too difficult. Well gee, and here I was finding it too simple. Things I learned six years ago.

She did, however, say that my grammar was perfect. I'm a bit confused... I guess it doesn't matter though. Apparently we are graded simply on whether or not we show up to class. Miss more than three classes out of twelve and you fail.

Today, I bought an advent calendar for one euro, it's purple and has Tinkerbell's face on it. I don't care if it's childish, sometimes I like to be a child. And I wanted to eat all the chocolate at once but Jenn told me I couldn't. She's no fun.

This week is Sinterklaas, the Dutch holiday celebrating Santa Claus. The Santa Claus that is popular in North America originated from Sinterklaas.

To celebrate, my class is doing a sort of secret-Santa type thing, Dutch style. Everyone has to write a short (2-line-ish) poem for their person, and buy a small gift (5-euros-ish) and on Thursday during our project meeting we're going to do our little exchange.

I don't know what to write. I don't want it to be too personal, or be too impersonal. I hate things like this, I hate people reading my writing too. Well, I hate writing things that are meant for just one person, that everyone is going to see (because of course we'll have to read the poem we receive out loud to the class). I am so not looking forward to this.

Update: Tuesday 27 Nov

Okay, it's been a while. Hi, how are you?

Maybe I should grow a lime tree, and a few jalapeno pepper plants, just so I don't have to get angry every time I want one of those two and can't find them anywhere. I don't want to buy a "guacamole kit" at the grocery store every time I need a simple lime. Or a whole kilo of limes from the market. Just for one lime. That doesn't make sense! Last time I wanted a lime, I went ahead and bought one of those guac kits, it comes with a shallot, fresh garlic, a tomato, a lime and two avocados. I only managed to use one avocado, the other one was icky when I cut it open. That's frustrating.  I just wanted to make salsa, is that too much to ask?!

So all day today I was ducking into random vegetable and grocery stores all over town just to look for limes and jalapenos, and then leave when they don't have them.

I'm happy to be home though. My one week in the US for Thanksgiving was very nice but I ate way too much all week and I hate that. Now I still want to eat all the time but I can just tell myself no. And it actually works.

My roommates are annoying me, but that's nothing new. I'm trying to keep my door closed so I don't have to worry about how hot they want to keep the rest of the house, and that works as long as it's closed, but Sara comes in to get clothes (she is still sleeping in the common room, which is fine with me but!) then she just leaves the door open when she leaves. I should talk to her about that... I want the door closed for a reason. I usually come home, close myself in my room and open the balcony door. Then when I leave my room to go to the kitchen or the bathroom it's like walking from a freezer to a sauna. But who cares, as long as everyone is happy right?

Update: Monday 5 Nov

Hi! So I know I never posted about Disney but here, have a photo album. That's the best I can do for you.

So exam week is over, now I'm waiting anxiously for results. I've gotten only one back so far. It's a passing score, though not a pretty one. Doesn't matter, will do better next time.

Last weekend, I went to the Efteling again with Jenn, we got to see the watershow. It was beautiful.

Like that.

Also, Saturday we went to a concert in Amsterdam. We went to a concert in Utrecht the previous Sunday as well, and next Saturday we have a third concert. Then we're done with concerts for this year.

I ran out of books to read, so I'm writing a story. It's not very good and it will probably die because they always die. I always feel like writing though, but have nothing to say in a blog post, so I thought writing a story would help with that.

Update: Tuesday 30 Oct

It is times like this when I wish that I did not have two roommates from warm-climate southern Europe countries.  Though I'm starting to think it is mainly Sara that is the problem.

It drives me absolutely insane when I walk into the kitchen and the window is open and the heater is on. Okay, I may not have grown up conserving water like it's a precious material like these two have, but this heat thing drives me insane. I can't tell you how many times I've been yelled at by my father throughout my life for "letting the heat out" by standing around with the door open when the heat is on. Yes, maybe we do get charged a flat unchanging rate for utilities every month, but that doesn't mean we should turn the heat on and open the window. I don't really understand it. Why even do that? If it's too hot, turn off the heater. If it's too cold, close the window.  If it's still too cold after you close the window, then I guess it's okay to turn the heat on. Sara opens the balcony door, and then she decides it's a bit cold so she turns on the heat. Then if it's still too cold, she closes the door. This is so backwards to me.  Can't we close the door first? And then wait half an hour? And then if you're really that cold put on a sweatshirt? And then if you're still too cold, maybe we can turn on the heater? I guess logically if I have such a problem with it, I should talk to her about it. Why can't that be common sense though? Right, because where she is from in Italy, winter is 65 degrees and she isn't used to having to deal with this kind of coldness. Whatever.

I have taken two of my written exams, and I did my Dutch oral exam. Got a 7 on the Dutch exam (disappointed in myself for that one) but I won't know the results of my written exams for a few weeks, I guess. In the meantime, I have another exam tomorrow, and the last one on Friday. Then there are also the assignments that count as exam scores. The oral presentations one I already did, and received an 8.  Turned in a logbook for "Introduction to Dutch Culture and Society" that one took barely any effort. It won't matter too much either, the grade is pass/fail and it is only one credit. The biggest worries are Cultural Theory & Pop Culture, and Research Skills. An essay and a research paper. I don't want to have to resit a bunch of my first term exams. That would really not be cool.

Roommates. Drive me nuts. Ahhhh!

To Whom It May Concern:

You can now comment on my blog without signing in, as an "anonymous user".

Also, I have discovered that I have control over whether or not you have to prove you are human. You no longer need to do that.

Update: Friday 26 Oct

I'm having fun experimenting with food.

Wednesday, after spending a long day in Amsterdam with Jenn, I came home, threw a few things in a pot, and sat around the kitchen resting my tired feet until I decided food was ready.  What did I throw in the pot? Well I've been wanting beef stew but I don't even care if it has beef in it. My favorite part is delicious squishy carrots and thick soup anyway.  So I chopped some celery nice and small (I dislike celery, but I am willing to admit that it lends nice flavors when cooked), diced an onion and quartered a few mushrooms. Fried them in olive oil for just a few minutes and then added water, carrots, potatoes, beef bouillon, parsley and pepper.  Boiled that for a while until the carrots started getting soft, and then threw in some rice.  Rice and potatoes for thickness. I have no flour.  I succeeded, it was nice and thick. And so delicious. I felt so proud (next time I'll put in more carrots though).

Then there was today's success.

This was actually the second pizza I made (it's a pizza, in case you couldn't tell). The first one was eaten. By me. I really wanted pizza, I hadn't had pizza in quite a while and it just sounded good. So I went to the store and bought this pizza making kit, which I've had before at Jenn's house. It has in it a package of flour (I'm not sure if there's anything in with the flour), a little package of olive oil, and a package of pizza sauce. You get to mix the dough yourself (I did that with my hands as I don't have a mixer with dough hooks. Messy hands, yay) then you are supposed to spread the dough over a baking sheet, cover it in sauce, shred cheese on top of it and put on whatever toppings you want. Obviously since I don't have an oven, I couldn't do it that way. Instead I split the dough in half, and split the sauce and cheese very unevenly in "half" (the first pizza had more cheese and less sauce than the one in the picture). Put olive oil in the pan, spread the dough in the pan on the olive oil, turned on the stove to cook that, then flipped it over and spread on the sauce, cheese and veggies, turned the heat down a bit and covered it all with a wok because my pan doesn't have a lid. It was so good. The second one, I left out to cool a bit, then wrapped it in plastic wrap and stuck it in the fridge. Because I don't need to eat that much.

So now I need to come up with more ideas. And maybe I should start writing these things down so I can do that in the future too. I got really tired of always eating the same things over and over.

Jennifer and I are making hope jars. At least, that's what I'm calling them. The idea is to come up with 365 reasons to smile, reasons to love life, reasons to love yourself, put them on strips of paper, fold the papers up and put them in a jar which we will decorate. Then if ever we get sad or lonely or angry, we can pull out some papers and read good things. Jenn found the idea in a blog. We liked it, so we thought we would do it. The problem is coming up with 365 things.

Update: Tuesday 23 Oct

Right. So I said I wasn't going to come back to the US for Thanksgiving.  Because I don't need to spend that much on a ticket right now. And I shouldn't miss a week of classes. And I miss my mommy. And my daddy. And my kitty. And my puppies. Oh wait, those are reasons to go back. I changed my mind. I'm going back to the US.

So then... How not to gain back a bunch of weight when spending a week in the US again... It's only a week, what's the worst that can happen?  A better question (or perhaps just an equally good question) is what food do I want to eat when I go home that I can't get so easily here? Hmmm. Much to think about. I could make a long list of things that I'd be happy to eat but then they would probably not go very well with question number one about gaining weight. Like, I'd kill for some ribs smothered in barbeque sauce, or a huge plate of pad thai...  On the other hand, I'd be perfectly happy with making an entire meal out of nothing but baked potatoes with butter, sour cream, cheese, green onions and bacon.  I could do that here if I tried really hard; but I don't have an oven, they don't have massive baking potatoes, they don't have cheddar cheese (if they do, it's expensive and hard to find), and bacon (enough said).

I suppose if I'm really that worried about it, I will just grab a dog or two and go for a two hour walk.

Anyway, yesterday I went to de Haagse Markt (the Hague Market) which claims to be the biggest market in Europe. I'm not sure if that is true, but it is huge. Enormous. I had intended to get food there for lunch, so I bought fries at the entrance. They were very crispy. I think she might have overcooked them... Oh well, they were good. I was there to see what I could buy in the way of vegetables, and everything on the end that I started at was clothing. No, really. Slot after slot full of clothing, shoes, watches, things like that. And every once in a while, a random slot selling things like pots and pans, or textiles, or phone cases, or books.  Finally after I found my way through the crowd on that end, I found the food.

Okay, so I had gone to the market in hopes of finding things that I couldn't get in a typical grocery store. That is definitely what I found. I wasn't paying too close attention--it was very crowded. They had small buckets full of vegetables, and you could get the whole bucket for one euro.  That was mostly for garlic, bell peppers, hot peppers, green beans, things like that. Or you could get 10 tomatoes for one euro. Or two mangoes for one euro. Or six oranges for a euro. (I started writing this list and got tired of putting parenthesis so * on things that aren't in a typical grocery store) Eggplants*, bananas, apples, lemons*, limes*, habanero peppers*, Moroccan peppers* (those were skinny and red), Turkish peppers* (skinny but not as skinny and a light green), some bigger yellowish-green peppers which I never saw a label for, avocados, plums*, melons*, lettuce, summer squash*, zucchini, cucumbers, and a lot of other things that I now can't remember. I also saw a table with pallets and pallets full of eggs. Then one completely covered in piled-high trays of Greek olives. Another table with piled-high trays, this time with various different types of nuts. Seasoned and unseasoned. The market was fun. I didn't buy anything but those fries. Sara said she'd go with me next time, one euro for a bin of bell peppers is nice but how am I going to eat 10 bell peppers before they go bad? Next time, I will go earlier when there are fewer people (because that was intimidating and made it difficult to see anything, or move) and I will take someone with me to share shopping.

Okay. This week we have study break. Eh, I don't know how to study. I feel that I'm not going to learn anything new in the next week anyway, and I already know the things that I already know. So there's no point in stressing out over it because that's just going to make the exams more difficult. I'll do fine! I think. And if not, we have resits. Yay for Dutch universities, you always get two chances to pass your exams. I don't want to do resits... I will pass my exams. I'm confident. Even if I shouldn't be.

Picture!

Update: Friday 19 Oct

First and foremost, I would like to apologize for not having posted in so long. The thing is, I told you that I would write a blog post on Disneyland next. But then I really don't feel like writing a blog post on Disney. I just don't want to. So I thought I would put it off until I feel like writing that blog post, but I still don't feel like writing it and I want to post. So... Maybe one day I will post about Disney, but not right now.

So I just had this conversation recently with Tessa's (Australian) cousin Taylor. It was probably the most hilarious conversation I've had all day. It started off with Taylor saying that Frisian is the language of north Holland. At which point I had to correct him. Although Holland is the most visited region of the Netherlands (at least by tourists) it is not the entire country. The problem with him saying that Frisians are from North Holland when he means Holland as the whole country, is that North Holland is actually a province in the Netherlands. And it's not where they speak Frisian. They speak Frisian in the north of the Netherlands, yes, in a province called Friesland. So when I explained all of this to him, he got very confused. I explained that Holland is only the two provinces of North Holland and South Holland (I live in South Holland), he then asked "then what is the Netherlands?" The Netherlands is the Netherlands, bud. Why do you want another name for it? That's what it is. It was very hilarious.  We went in circles around that for a while and in the end I still don't think he understood. In answer to his "what is the Netherlands" question, I told him that the Netherlands is 12 provinces. And a few islands in the Carribean. Jenn, being the little smartypants that she is, said "like Hawaii. And Cuba." Taylor then stated that Cuba has Mexicans, at which point I had to tell him to go back to geography class because Cuba has Cubans.

So today was my last day of classes before study break (or fall vacation but our teachers tell us we're not allowed to call it that because we have to study, though the school's year calendar calls it a fall vacation) so now I have a week off. A week off to sit around and relax, I guess. And study, of course. No really, I think I really am going to study. The week after study break is exam week. I have 4 exams, though there is a final grade of some sort for all of my courses and I currently have ten courses. Yes, ten courses. It's a lot. Luckily two of them are semester-long courses, so I only have 8 final grades total.  Exams in French, Cultural Dimension, Intercultural Communication and Project Management. The other final grades are an essay for my elective course, a group research paper for Research Skills, a presentation for Oral Presentations, and an oral exam for Dutch which is done in pairs.  There is also a group audio-visual assignment for Intercultural Communication, it's 50% of the final grade (the written exam is the other 50%). That being said, I clearly have a lot to do over study break. A lot to study for, an essay to write, hopefully my group members for my two group projects won't be too busy over break and we can work on our things... They all went back to their own countries though so I doubt much work will be done.  The one good thing is that I have already done my presentation for Oral Pres. and I passed with an 8 (out of 10). Feels really good to know I have passed my very first exam (and my very first class) of my school career in the Netherlands.

My classmate, Salma, introduced me to the kantine at the school. They have soup. Two different kinds every day, and it's so good. And I have yet to see the same kind of soup on two different days. One day I had broccoli and cauliflower soup, and another day I had pumpkin tomato soup, and another day I had onion soup (that time I bought bread to dip in it) and today I had goulash soup. Also they had this yellow Indian paprika crayfish soup (I don't remember what it was called) that smelled amazing but I don't like shellfish, and another time they had a provençal soup, and another time they had a vermicelli soup, and another time they had a mushroom soup (brothy mushroom soup though, not creamy). This is a bit problematic. It's a crime that anyone would introduce me to this. Now all I ever want is soup. Even when I'm not hungry. I'll just go to the kantine and get a €1,20 or €0,70 cup of delicious soup. And drink it. Who uses spoons anyway?  I wonder if the kantine is open during study break. Wait, I really don't need to go get soup during study break.  Oh man....

Update: Sunday 7 Oct

I'm sorry! I swear I will get around to posting about Disney, I just have other things on my mind at the moment, I want to post about that before I forget.

I'm having reminiscent moments lately.  When I walk outside into the damp cold autumn weather, it really makes me miss home. Last year I missed autumn weather, this year I miss it again. I miss the crispness of the air when it's just starting to get cold, and that whole I-can-see-my-breath thing.  Of course I'll definitely be able to see my breath here too when it gets colder, but since it's so humid that probably won't be until it gets later into the winter.  The Netherlands is a beautiful place, and I love it here, but it's so different from home. Two autumns ago when I was just starting at Boise State, I remember how beautiful I thought the campus looked with all the trees changing, and the occasional rain, and red and yellow leaves all over the ground. It's weird, I never realized back then that it would be such a unique autumn for me, because I'm not going back to Boise State.

I also miss that southern France autumn. It was so beautiful. I miss piles of wet yellow leaves all over the ground and walking an hour to school in the fog.  Sometimes when I'm walking through the streets in a random city (for example, Friday I went to Gouda) I suddenly wish I was in a tiny mountain village in France, getting ready to go to a little locally-owned restaurant for some authentic Pyrénées-region soup. That soup was amazing.  I have a CD by Lady Antebellum, one of my favorite bands, that my friend gave to me just after I got to France last year. So when I hear the songs from that CD, I think of standing at a bus stop in the  cold with Lady A singing in my ears, with a nice warm scarf and the jacket that my mommy brought me from home when she came to visit.

I get to miss Thanksgiving again this year. Of course, I could make my own "Thanksgiving feast" but it's nowhere near the same. I guess I don't mind too much. One girl in my class, Nora, is German but lived in the US for one year during high school. She says she loves Thanksgiving, and she had this idea to have our own Thanksgiving party. Except she's vegetarian. And she just loves stuffing. Vegetarian stuffing? Interesting. I don't know about that. No, the part that I really do mind is that going home for Christmas would cost way too much. Hopefully I can find someone willing to take me in for Christmas, being alone would just be too sad. My roommates are going home. For New Year Jenn and I are going to the UK to meet up with some strangers, so I have that holiday covered, hopefully I figure something out for Christmas. It'll be okay.

Update: Wednesday 3 Oct

I totally intended to write a post about Disneyland but I didn't feel like it earlier this week, and at the moment I am sitting in the atrium at my school (underneath a staircase even) and I am on my netbook, so all the necessary pictures would just be too much trouble to deal with at the moment. That post will come later, I promise.

No, today I want to talk about... things. Things like me, and school, and other things. I think that "thing" is not too bad, as words go.

So there is this "me" thing. I'm trying to figure things out. I know there are some things, new habits that I'm automatically developing, that might even shock my mom, who my whole life has told me I need to eat more fruit. Yeah well, I don't like very many fruits... still, it's a good alternative to pigging out on fatty foods all the time. I think I have to buy more apples and oranges weekly, I eat a lot. Mainly just apples and oranges though, because while I like bananas I don't like green bananas, and the slightly brown bananas are okay but they go from yellow to horribly brown way too quickly. Either way, I am losing so much weight lately, and I'd like to attribute that to the fact that I eat less, and I eat healthier, but really I have no idea why I lose weight. It's not as though I exercise a whole lot. There's also the fact that in the past month or so, I only get heartburn when I eat foods that I didn't make with mostly fresh ingredients. For example, last week in Disney Jenn's mother kept feeding me candy, and it gave me heartburn every single time, but it was basically the first time I'd gotten heartburn at all in a couple weeks. That's pretty nice. I eat noodles for dinner a lot, with a rather odd assortment of random vegetables. Or an apple with peanut butter, because I don't like apples by themselves (and Jenn and Tess think that's disgusting, but they have never tried it, so they have no room to talk). There was more I wanted to say about the "me" thing but I can't remember anymore...

The school thing.  I really like the school thing in many ways, but there are things I also don't like. Which is to be expected, you can't ever like everything.  What don't I like? Well at the moment the class that angers me the most is Dutch class. Okay, so it lasts for one semester and it's pass/fail, all that we earn for it are LWE credits (Living and Working in Europe). It moves horribly slow and seems so utterly pointless to me. My teacher explains the same things over and over and over, but not very clearly. I mean, I learn languages very easily so.. I get it. But then she starts asking questions around the room and when people are confused, she starts yelling. Pardon my language, the other day she literally yelled at the class "What is the fucking question?" and then to one kid, she was trying to ask him something and he was really confused and she said "fuck it. I hate you!" It was pretty shocking. Hilariously terrifying. I dislike the class, I dislike the teacher, and I feel that I would be better off learning on my own, or from my Dutch peers.  The problem with that is that I am very self-conscious and I don't like to talk to people in their own language (especially when I don't have the very best grasp on it) because I don't like to be wrong. This all just frustrates me, because it's not a required class, and I really could learn it all on my own if I tried hard enough, but I want those LWE credits. We're required a certain amount per year, and I don't want to have to find something else to fill the credits. Most of the stuff we have gone over in class are the basic things that I kind of already knew, to some extent. We're four weeks in now, I feel like we should be further than that.  I don't know.

On the other hand, there's that "things that I like" part of school. While I don't particularly care for "Cultural Dimension of Europe" or research skills, I really like intercultural communications, and oral presentations. It is because of these classes that I believe I will choose to focus on the private sector next year rather than the public sector. Public sector is politics and such, which at first is what I thought I would prefer, but then I went to my very first oral presentations lecture. Oral presentations is the class in which we have to build a business presentation and present it as if we are actually a representative from some company, giving a business presentation to a room full of business people. Okay yes, I have problems talking in front of people. But I have this huge love for words... Written and spoken language. I think problems with talking in front of people can be overcome, if I try hard enough. I think private sector would give me more options in terms of future careers. Maybe I can work for an international company somewhere, anywhere in the world.  Also, if I focus on private sector there's a university in Norway where I could go for exchange, and I would love to go to Norway, for just one semester. Then in my third year I have to do an internship, and I was told that the private sector internships are usually well-paid, whereas the public sector internships typically don't pay well, if they pay at all. My internship can be anywhere I want it to be (I think. I'm not sure if it has to be within Europe), so I guess I have to think where I might want to go.

I'm going to start writing down my blog ideas in a notebook... I think of so many possible things to put in my blog, and then I never remember them when it comes time to write.  It's not a huge loss because I still write pretty long posts, but maybe if I didn't always forget, I could post more often...

Update

It appears that today I will be talking about food. This afternoon I realized that I bought a considerable amount of food at the grocery store, and then I'm leaving Wednesday for the weekend. Now I have to be creative in trying to eat everything that is perishable without pigging out.  Should be fun.  Considering I normally only eat dinner at home on school days and take a piece of fruit to school for lunch, hopefully I can work it out. Actually tomorrow and Tuesday I have classes at noon, so I'll just have an early lunch I guess.

The other day I borrowed a recipe that I found online for Spanish rice, but changed it up a bit to suit my preferences. Nothing big, I left out the chicken broth and chili powder (because I can't find chili powder), used cumin and the Dutch grocery store version of "chili powder" (it says it's Mexican style chili powder, but it seems rather fragrant-free to me and that's just wrong. Plus I don't think I could taste it at all in the rice, though I didn't add much) and swapped out the canned tomato for a chopped fresh tomato.  I made that to put on nachos along with taco meat and avocado. Goes pretty good in a tortilla too.  Also, in the way of nachos, I was sad that they don't have regular tortilla chips and was resigned to using Doritos, and while I was at the store looking at the 8 different flavors of Doritos that I could chose from, I noticed they had a plain flavored. Yes! Regular tortilla chips, Doritos style!

So now I have this zucchini, half a green pepper, some avocado, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots and mushrooms that I need to eat before I leave Wednesday. Things that go great in ramen noodles. I decided to experiment a bit tonight and cracked an egg into my ramen while it was simmering, it was so good.  Why did no one show me that earlier?  Might have to do that more often.

So Wednesday (as I said before) I am leaving for Paris and Disneyland. Since Tessa couldn't go, Simona's boyfriend might be going in her place. Which would be good because then Tessa can get her money back. Also good because I hate going to an amusement park with an odd number of people. Other than that, I don't know how it will be because I've only met the guy once or twice. We all get to share one hotel room though.

I think I had more to say, but I took a 2 hour break in the middle of writing this and now I've completely spaced anything else I might have wanted to write.  Goodnight!

Update

I can't ever come up with creative titles. And to be honest, maybe titles are a little overrated. I think from now on I should just title all my posts "Update" unless they are important, in which case I will title it something along the lines of "Important" though I doubt anything will ever be important enough to require that. It needs a title so you have something to click on to isolate the post, but other than that I am too boring for titles these days.

I apologize for having not posted recently, I've been a bit caught up in school. Thursdays are my days that I finish at 13:00 so I have plenty of time to post today. Actually both of these last two weeks that teacher has let us go at a decently early time, so Thursdays are even shorter still.  However, for some reason Thursdays are the days that it is hardest to wake up in the morning. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are the three days that I have class starting at 8:45, and for some reason Wednesday is fine, and Friday is fine, but last Thursday I was 45 minutes late and today I made it on time but I could barely stay awake through my first class. (In my second class I had a chocolate espresso drink that may have kept me awake, either that or I just like the class better. I think I just like the class better. Caffeine has never affected me much.) I suppose this is probably because on Wednesday, I've just spend Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday sleeping in  to a more decent hour, and Friday I've gotten up early enough the last two days to actually go to bed earlier the night before... Yes, I've decided that all makes sense.

Last Friday night, my whole class got together at someone's apartment for a few hours before we all went to the International Pub together. That was a lot of fun.  Also, the International Pub had a special (I think it's every Friday night but I'm unsure) where from 22:00 to 23:30, you pay €10 to walk in the door and then you get unlimited drinks until 23:30. A few people didn't think they'd be drinking €10 worth (including me) because the drinks are normally €1 (which is already extremely cheap) so instead the four of us went to Hannah's and played pool in this huge common area that her apartment building has, before we headed to the pub. It was a very good night. For most of us. Poor Mark lost his phone, and poor Emils was apparently accosted by some guys who beat him up and took his phone and wallet (this was after we all split off to go home, so I don't know the whole story).

On Saturday Tessa, Jenn, Simona and I met up at the beach and went bowling. Which was very fun. I've decided I should go bowling more often. Most of us were getting so many gutter balls that we decided gutter balls are the goal and if you end up with a high score then you probably fail at failing. It was a lot of fun. Now one week from today we will be in Disneyland Paris. With Jenn's family.  Actually I think it ended up that Tessa can't go, because she has a test on that Friday. That is extremely saddening because we should really all be there. And we all already paid, and it's a little too late for refunds. I also feel bad for missing school to go to Disneyland but I don't think it's an opportunity I would like to miss, and I intend to make it a point to be in every single one of the rest of my classes for the rest of this semester. (I was going to say for the rest of this term, but that doesn't seem adequate enough. The term ends the first week of November, the semester ends the second week of January, or some time around there. The last day of term 2 exams is my birthday. Yay! Guess that means I can party to celebrate a completed semester and to celebrate my birthday. The twenty-first, too.)

Okay, last I wanted to show you where my bike lives during the school day. The reason for this is that it's not something I've seen very much in the States, so I find it very interesting and I thought you might as well.

Welcome to the bicycle parking. It is situated in the basement of the school. How does one get a bike into a basement? Well...

Ramps and stairs. Which, by the way, I really hate. The stairs are so far apart, it's hard to lead a bike up a metal ramp while walking awkwardly up stairs that force you to step unevenly. (One step flat, one step up, one step flat... etc. I hate that even without a bike.)  I suppose it makes sense because if you are coming downstairs and the ramp it too steep, it would be difficult to keep up. Whatever, though. (Sorry that the picture is blurry, I was balancing my bike and my phone and my bag.)

And for those of you that don't know what my school looks like... It's a very neat-looking building. (I can't remember if I've posted from the inside...)

This is the inside of the Ovaal, which is the building I have all of my classes in. There are two other buildings, although they are connected to the Ovaal, so you can get anywhere in the school by walking in the front doors of the Ovaal (or, I suppose, coming up the stairs from the basement bike parking). The skyways all lead to the Slinger, and then you can get to the Strip from both the Slinger and the Ovaal.  I never have to enter any building but the Ovaal, so navigation in the other two doesn't really concern me.

That picture is taken from the 4th floor (in American terms, think 5th floor). One detail that I really love is the internal staircases that you can see on the other side over there, if you look closely, that go between the 3rd, 4th and 5th floor. There are more like that behind the aula (that's the big auditorium which is inside the green cylinder that you can barely see to the left in that picture. Also, in this older picture I stole from Sara's facebook you can see the staircases that comes down beside the aula, and those are nice too). There are 3 sets of elevators, and each set of elevators is accompanied by a triangle staircase in the back (yea, that's not really clear, but I'm not sure how better to explain). Since the whole building is a big oval, if you know that your next class is in 3.71 and you take the wrong elevator, luckily all you have to do is keep walking in a big circle and you'll find it eventually. Though after two weeks, I've learned that if my classroom is #.7# (as most of them are for some reason), I need to go to the far set of elevators/stairs, go up and take a right. Easy to figure out. I really like my school. Really.

Also, I have determined that I am definitely happier now than I was a year ago, or two years ago.

In other news, like I said I get out of classes early on Thursdays (today, we were released at about 12:15). I started writing this post at 14:30. Before that, I came home from school, then went to Subway for lunch to reward myself for not eating out this week (I know. It's probably lame to reward myself with the thing that I am awarding myself for not doing. Might be a step backwards. Oh well, I really needed Subway). Then I went to Blokker and spent €40 on things I probably could have done without, but wanted (a cheese grater, a garlic press, a frying pan, a bigger cutting board, a bowl, a serving spoon because all we have is flat wooden spoons, and a couple storage containers for things like rice and tea bags because we have ants). Then I came home and cleaned the apartment because it is my week to do so.  Thursdays are probably the days that I will aim to find an 8 hour job. After, of course, I go to the municipality and get my BSN and residence permit. I don't want to work Fridays or Saturdays because I want my weekends free. Sundays, stores aren't open long enough to matter.  I can only work 10 hours a week total, so I guess I'll see what I can find.

I said the bikes would be last, and then I went on to write an entire second half to the post. Oops. Sorry. Well, I'm done now. Finally.  I guess this is what happens when I haven't posted in a while...

Oddity

Rode my bike to school today. School really isn't that far, riding my bike to school shouldn't be a big deal. It kind of is though, I'm not accustomed to riding a bike... My legs were already tired halfway there and old people on bicycles were passing me. Cool stuff. And I tried to get hit by a few cars. On the way home was much better. Didn't jump in front of any cars. Didn't get passed by any old people.  Really the only reason I took my bike today is because I woke up at the exact time class was starting, so I felt the need to hurry. I've guess I've been finding excuses to avoid my bike all week... Riding a bike around here is scary stuff, give me a break.

So oddly enough, I think my favorite two classes for this 6 weeks are going to be Intercultural Communications and Oral Presentations.  Those were the ones I was dreading most (along with intro to research skills, but that one turns out to be just as bad as it sounds).  My intercultural communications teacher is from New Zealand, she's very amusing, it's a huge class (I think a combination of several classes) and apparently we're just going to spend the term talking about cultural differences in communication habits (I guess maybe you can get that from the name of the class). Does not sound too bad to me.  Oral presentations... That one sounded horrible to me. We have to come up with a thing to research and give a presentation about, like a business presentation type of thing, on a product, company or research. I'm not sure why that class sounds so interesting to me but it does.

I can't wait for winter. I like cold weather.  Well, I like sweaters and hot chocolate and coming in from the cold and snuggling up in bed at night with a big blanket.  Too bad the weather here is so mild. Mild summers, mild winters, you don't see much of the extremes. During my introduction week, we had a little seminar to learn about the Netherlands (it was nothing I didn't already know though) and the teacher for that told us that if ever, during our stay here, they actually host the elfstedentocht (eleven cities tour) we have to skip school and go. The elfstedentocht is this thing they have in the northern part of the country, when all the rivers, canals and lakes freeze over enough that the ice is suitable for skating. They have a speed skating match and a leisure skating tour both of which follow the same course which goes through eleven cities in Friesland. The course itself is about 120 miles long. The last time the ice was suitable enough was 1997. Who knows if I could afford to miss school anyway, but I just thought it was funny that one of our teachers even, was telling us to skip school for it.

Today I am going to the post office to mail round one of post cards, and then I'm going to go to the store and buy instant noodles because even if they're not the same as the ramen noodles that I love, they're still noodles and noodles sound so good right now.

Classes

Right, so classes start Monday. I'm ready. They say our schedules should be complete today but they keep changing them so I guess we'll see.  I made a prettified version for you. The blank squares don't apply to me.

They did switch me to the three year track, which is exciting and worrisome at the same time. Means I have to keep on top of things really well, because it supposedly moves at a much quicker pace than the four year track. Understandable, you have to squeeze a four year degree into just three years.

My new class is okay, I don't really dislike any of them. I just don't know any of them, either. My old class seems like they were more friendly, but two days probably isn't long enough to be able to judge that.  My new "educational career supervisor" is nice though. We all had to schedule interviews with our ECS so that she could get a feel for how we operate or something. So that if any problems crop up over the year, they kind of have a background on us to understand what's going on. I don't really know... She wanted me to tell her about myself, how I ended up here, what my study habits typically are, how my living situation is, if I plan on getting a job, etc.  But she was fairly easy to talk to, and she seemed to think I will have a good handle on my studies this year, so I hope she is right.

As it turns out, the only third language offered in the first year is Spanish, and since I told her I have been studying Spanish for four years (and it is on my high school transcript as well) she didn't think they would let me take beginners Spanish. I will be taking Dutch, advanced French, and then the other electives that are  available for anyone not taking a third language.  She said I will have an opportunity next year to add in either Russian or Italian. Think I will definitely go for Russian.  I don't really mind that I can't take Spanish, I guess. I had already committed to dropping it anyway, before I knew that this program allows you to learn several foreign languages.

The weather has been extremely nice the past few days, so I think tonight or tomorrow I will go to the beach. It was cold and overcast all the week before, I should take advantage of this nice weather. I finally went and fetched my bike from in front of the apartment I was staying at over the summer, so I could try riding out to the beach again. Maybe when I'm not sick anymore though, or my lungs might commit suicide just to spite me...  I should probably be worried about the fact that my bike is not currently chained to anything but rather leaning against a tree with the back tire locked to the frame, but I just can't bring myself to really care. It's an old bike. I doubt anyone would be interested in it.

:D

On 5/9/2012 9:16, Hietala, J.R.E. wrote:

Dear Angie,

I can you can enter the ES3. Your new class is ES3 -1A and your supervisor Marije Minkman.

Kind regards, 

____________________________________________
Jenna Hietala

YESSSS!!!

Just Pictures

All I have are pictures today. I went to Amsterdam with that InterAccess group after all, but it was pretty boring. Probably a waste of €20 (for the train ticket). I don't really mind though.

Anyway, on the way home I was playing with my phone camera. They're probably not very good because they were all taken in motion, and it's really just the view out of a train, but I personally liked that view, so here you go.

This train tried to ruin my picture. I thought that it had, until I uploaded it and realized it wasn't actually a picture of the blurry side of a passing train.  I took this picture for the pretty blue flowers...

Oh. Only place I took a picture in A'dam.

Yay, train tracks and a bit of green.

Station Leiden Centraal... I didn't think I got that one either, apparently my phone's camera is faster than I assumed.

A few buildings of The Hague, from a distance.

My stop, Den Haag Centraal.

I'm sad that this picture came out so blurry...

This one too, although that just makes it look really cool.

Den Haag Centraal, forever under construction. It was when I was here in December, too.  That says exit. No it doesn't, it says "uitgang," but it means exit.

Pretty painted pillars.

He has Italian ice cream. With whipped cream. And a bicycle.  He's on the tram tracks, too.

That very blurry sign says they are searching for a part time worker. Wish I had my Dutch social security number and school schedule already... I wouldn't mind having that job.

Grocery store. I don't think I've been in this one, I think it's pretty small. There's one that is closer and bigger.  Might be worth visiting just to see what they have that's different, though.

Tram tunnel through a building.

Tram. They just put new advertisements on some of the trams (though not this one), the entire things are covered.  They're very pretty.  Usually it's only tram line 1 though, and this one would be either line 9 or 15.  Some of the line 1 trams are blue now. I'd like to know how they put on those giant stickers so perfectly... I think I stuck and unstuck the vinyl sticker to my phone a million times before it was straight.

Big Chinese restaurant, which is always packed... So I bet their food is really good. I'd like to go there...

Bike signal and walking signals... Oh, and you see the traffic signal lights are right at the stop rather than across the intersection. You can also see the bike path crossing to the left of the pedestrian crosswalk...

One of the city parking garages, right across the street from my apartment... If you walk behind it on that street right there to the right, you're in Chinatown.

.end PhotoDump

School, Week 1

Okay, so I haven't written in the last week. I was trying to come up with something interesting to write. Since I failed to come up with anything, I'll just write a lame blog post like I always do. It doesn't seem that anyone ever really minds. (Though it also doesn't seem that a lot of people read this anymore. I miss when I used to get comments. What ever happened to that?)

Okay, let's see. Monday was my first day of introduction, followed by Tuesday and Wednesday. Of course my roommates started Wednesday and then had things all day Thursday and Friday. But we all start classes on September 10th so I guess we do come together at some point.

They kind of split us off into our classes. but then apparently they didn't like the way they arranged the classes and they intend to change it, so the people that we've been getting to know this week won't be our classmates after all.  I guess that's fine.  I haven't really made any friends yet.  There is one English girl who it turns out shares the back courtyard with me, she lives in one of the apartments one street over. We've been talking a bit, I guess.  The rest of my class is Dutch (mostly girls) and they of course stick to speaking Dutch whenever they possibly can, so it kind of automatically excludes Jessie (the English girl) and me.

Aside from the fact that they intend to switch around the classes, I'm trying to see if my high school diploma is good enough for me to move to the three year track instead of the four year track. I would love to be able to graduate in three years rather than four, it would be much cheaper and well obviously, take less time. I talked to someone in the European Studies office and she said she would put in a request to the enrollment center to re-examine my high school diploma and see if I qualify to switch. I'm not entirely sure what would qualify someone to switch. I'm wondering if my diploma has to be vwo-equivalent, in which case I have no idea if they will approve me. I'm sure the college courses I took in high school will definitely help, plus the fact that I maintained good grades throughout high school...  Fingers crossed. I really want to be switched over.

So if I switch to the three year track it means I have to pick my specialization after the first year instead of after the second year (either private sector or public sector. I don't know what to choose yet).  It also means that the optional study abroad year is second year rather than third year (only optional for international students, mandatory for Dutch students). I have to decide whether or not I want to do it, it might be good for me and you never know, it could end up being relatively cheap or at least equivalent costs to what I'm already paying to live and attend school here.  The three year track just moves a bit faster than the four year track, apparently they try to cram as much information as they can into your first year so that the next two years move at about the same pace as the last two years for four year students. Confusing.

I know a lot of people probably want to know what "European Studies" even is. The biggest focus is on languages. After that, it's a lot of division between learning about European economics, politics, culture, etc. Maybe not the most exciting thing, but it will definitely be far more useful to me than just studying every little aspect of the French language (and little else) in the U.S. would have been.  Plus this program allows you to study multiple languages at once, so I can take advanced French, beginning Dutch, and another language on which I have yet to decide. More than likely it will be Spanish (and they don't let you do two advanced languages at once so I'd have to start at the beginning) because I don't think there is any other option but if they switch me to the three year track I'll have to find out, because then I'll have to start that second choice right away (in the four year track you don't start the second language until the second year). Someone mentioned Mandarin and Russian...

The beginning Dutch course is only available the first semester unfortunately. I guess after that they expect you to have learned enough to just get by and you don't need any more. Dutch is a difficult language and it's not widely used, so I can understand why they would think you don't need to learn much of it. It doesn't matter, I still want to learn to speak it more than just one semester will give me. I'm good at absorbing and self-teaching though, so I think after a semester I'll have a good enough head start to continue on my own.

It's the last day of August; I'm sitting on the balcony and my feet are freezing and my arms are freezing, though I'm wearing a jacket; the sun is out and the sky is a pretty blue. Yes, it's fairly cold here but I enjoy it. The university has this international student organization called InterAccess and they're doing an Amsterdam trip some time next week, I may or may not go depending on if I'm feeling up to it. I haven't decided.

And... I think tonight for dinner I will make pasta. With broccoli and onion. And cheese. Yep, sounds good to me.

Untitled

Sitting on the balcony tonight, enjoying the night and the fresh air. I look up and there's the moon, it looked so cool. I know, bad cell phone pictures never give anything justice but I don't really care. It's been raining and kind of chill all day, which I don't mind but Sara hates. She says it's around 35° back in Italy right now and it's just too cold here for her. Usually it's anywhere between 20° and ~26° during the day, and as low as 15° at night. I was thinking she was looking a bit bored lately, today she told me she can't wait for school to start so she has something to do. I have to agree. Sitting around the apartment all the time is a bit boring. I go for walks. It doesn't solve all problems, but it is at least better than doing nothing.  Next hurdle to conquer: Don't buy food every time I leave the house. While I love living right downtown for various reasons, it's not a good thing that every time I leave the apartment I have to walk by restaurants and all tons of great smelling food (I'm one street over from Chinatown, even).  It's all too tempting to just buy some food. Yesterday and today I did a smart thing and ate before I left the apartment.  That proved rather successful.

So I've done basically nothing for the past two days and still my mood has been better than it was previously so I guess whatever I've been doing, I will continue to do.

Plus my first day of introduction at school is tomorrow!

It's Inherited

Did you know there are people who are afraid of the ocean? I can't imagine. I love the water.  I love walking on the beach for hours with nothing to do but listen to the water. It sings to me, and I could never get tired of the way water sounds.

I'm pretty sure I get it from that lady who always wanted to stop and put her feet in every river and stream we passed during our long road trips.

That said, I went to the beach yesterday. Surprise!  Actually, yesterday I walked further than I've ever walked along the beach and I was exhausted and sore when I got home.

I walked out to this harbor inlet.  Then I walked all the way out to the end.  I did try walking on those enormous cement blocks for a while (where can I get me one of those?) but some of them were pretty far apart, and the holes between them are pretty deep.  I freaked out and had to get back on the path.

There were guys fishing out there. I thought maybe my daddy would like that. These guys all gave me funny looks as I passed by.  I guess maybe not a lot of people wander out to the end of their fishing spot like that. Or maybe just not a lot of females?

They were posing for me. I'm certain of it.

Not sure I will ever stop taking pictures of seashells on the beach.  There are so many of them. (Looks like I got my shadow in there too.)  I do, however, get tired of walking on enormous piles of them that hide under the water. Ouch.

One more picture because that seagull is adorable.

Enter Roommate Number Two

So do you want to hear the good news first, or the funny news?

You took too long to answer so now I get to choose.

The good news is that my other roommate showed up today.  She's a very nice girl from Spain, on a first impression I think she speaks very good English.  I think she said her name was Alicia, but she has an accent from Spain and I'm not very familiar with that accent so I guess I will have to recheck on that. (It sounded like Aleethia or something but if I remember correctly, with a Spanish accent all of the S sounds turn to TH sounds.  Don't quote me on that.)  She is 19 years old (will be 20 next month) and she will be here for the entire year.

The funny news?  Well, she walked in the door and said, hi I'm your new roommate but... I have the single room.  So I take her to the single room where Sara is, we knock on the door and have a little discussion. They were both very reasonable about it, but I told them that in my personal opinion, Alicia is correct and she has the single room.  Sara was not entirely happy with that but she moved all of her stuff to the double room and let Alicia move into the single.

The evidence?  I went and got my key, and tried it in the door to the single room.  Apparently all three keys work for both rooms. Then, the rooms are numbered.  The single room has a 1 on it, my room has a 2 and a 3.  The little tags that came on our keys have A, B and C.  Mine is B.  Sara has C and Alicia has A.  It seemed to me that A would correspond with 1.   Last, Sara said she is paying €355 for her room, and Alicia said she is paying €400.  I am also paying €355 a month.  Seems reasonable that a person with their own room would have higher rent than the persons sharing a room.

I think Alicia's mother drove her up from Spain, as she was with her when she arrived and she stayed to help her get unpacked, then they left the apartment. I think that's very sweet, I wish my mommy could have brought me too. That wouldn't make much sense though. While we waited for Sara to get all of her stuff out of the single room, I stood outside with the two of them and we talked a bit.  Alicia said she studied French for 4 years but never really caught on to that, she has been studying Italian for the last year and she has been learning English since she was very young.  I'm glad, because I don't know if I could deal with living with two people who have a very limited grasp on any of the languages I can speak.

They also asked me where I was from, followed up by how I ended up all the way over here. And I told them about my semester in France, and my cancelled semester in Spain, and why I decided that university in Europe would be better. They appeared to think it was interesting but maybe they were just faking it.

So, I am happy with my roommates. And even though Sara wants to go talk to DUWO about the fact that she thought she was getting a room by herself, I think everything will be just fine.

This.

You can't see them very well, because they were off in the distance and I couldn't get close enough to get a good picture, but I really want to go kiteboarding. Effective immediately.  Hey one of you out there in the water, your turn is up! Hand it over. Please.

I went to the beach today. All by myself, because Sara thought it was cold out so I didn't even invite her. Plus, she got a travel card yesterday but she didn't put much money on it so I don't think she has enough to travel to the beach and back. I don't figure a lot of people like to go to the beach when it's cold and super windy. I loved it though, and hey, I learned something new today. That when it's windy and not rainy, the beach is full of kiteboarders.  I'm sure it's very difficult, but it's still something I'd like to do some day.

I also kind of discovered a quicker way to get to Den Haag Centraal station from my apartment today.  I had to go to the station twice today, the first time because I really wanted Starbucks and the second time because I got my personal ov-chipkaart in the mail today so I had to go to the ticket counter and activate it.  Oh that's right, my mailbox key. It turns out that Sara's mailbox key works. Mine is obviously a completely different key. It's even shorter. I don't know how that happened but I guess when the guy comes to fix the mailbox tomorrow, I'll show him that one key works, and my key is too small.  I wonder if maybe the previous owner of that set of keys lost their mailbox key and didn't want to pay DUWO for a replacement, so they just put another key in its place. I don't know, but it's annoying.  Good thing hers worked.

Yesterday, Sara told me she was going to visit another Italian friend across town, then an hour later she came back with said friend, introduced as Giovanni, and they told me that they were bringing me back to his place to eat.  I agreed, and we went to his place, where I met his roommate. His roommate's name is Angelo, and he is from the island of Sint Maarten, which is part of the Netherlands Antilles, a group of islands in the Caribbean that is under Dutch rule.  The first learned language on his island is English (Dutch being secondary and not very well known by most of the people there) so unlike my two new Italian friends, I don't have to speak very slowly and use simple words. What a relief. He is also in the 4-year European Studies program so he will be in my classes. He told me how nice it is to meet someone who speaks fluent English.  He's been here since the end of July, I guess he missed being able to talk to people in English.

Still no sign of roommate number two, the one with whom I actually share my room.  I hope it's not rude to say so, but I really hope that this one will be from a French- or English-speaking country. Or at least that they are fairly fluent in either of those languages.  It's overwhelming, trying to talk to Sara. She doesn't understand much, and it makes me feel bad to see her get sad because she's trying so hard to understand. It really makes me wonder about my teachers in France, and my French host family. I don't think they spoke any slower to me than they did with each other or their own children. If they did, then I guess I probably frustrated them from time to time too. I think I had a better understanding of the language than Sara or Giovanni though, I didn't always get so confused when they were talking to me, and I understood more words than I didn't.

I do still firmly believe though, that by the time she leaves she will be much better at English. She does try very hard. She likes to speak English, I can tell.  Giovanni seems to avoid it as much as possible. That's okay though, their classes will probably be in English. She told me that when they learn English back in Italy, they just learn grammar and repeat things a lot. They never actually practice speaking.  I guess I can relate to that, that's mostly how my language classes in high school were too.  The teachers always told us that we weren't allowed to speak English in class at the beginning of the year, but throughout the year it always became evident that they weren't going to enforce that. That's really too bad, I learned so much more French in France where we all had to speak French in class, mostly because it was the only common language between us all. Sara and Giovanni will be in Erasmus classes with other European exchange students, so I'm sure English will probably be the only common language between all of them there as well.

I think half of my blog posts are finished with "I had more to say but I can't remember it."  This time I don't think I had anything more to say. Actually, I said more than I even intended to say. When I made the decision to post today, the only thing I wanted to say was that I want to go kiteboarding. So can I call this post a success?  Maybe.

Roommate Number One

So this afternoon, around 4pm, I was sitting here trying to make a playlist (it wasn't going very well) when I heard a key in the lock.  A key in the lock can only mean one thing!  New roommate!  Actually, I guess it could mean several things, like "someone is picking your lock and you might die," but I didn't think that one was very likely, and since I've been waiting to meet my new roommates and this was the most likely week they would be here, somehow I just figured it was a new roommate.

This girl drags her suitcase in the door, closes it and comes over to shake my hand.  Her name is Sara and she is from Italy.  She will be here for six months.  She said that it's very scary for her, because she has never been away from her country for that long, though she did once take a small vacation in both Spain and Germany (or "German" as she said).  Her English is not very good. She seemed very frustrated by that, she says she loves English and she wants to understand me but it's hard. I'm trying to speak slowly, and pick words that are likely she has learned but she does look confused every once in a while.  It will be interesting for me I suppose, because I have to start finding multiple ways to say the same thing in case she doesn't understand. She offered to teach me Italian if I help her with English. I would probably help her with English regardless, so it's fine for me.

She's a very funny person. She keeps asking me if it's okay if she does things. She stopped by my room to let me know she was going to take a shower. I also happened to be in the kitchen filling my water bottle when she poked her head in with her box full of kitchen stuff that DUWO gave to each of us, and asked if she could put her things in the cupboard.  Of course I told her that was fine. I told her she can just stack her dishes with mine and we could all share.  Then she asked if we could also share the grocery shopping, which I told her was fine too.  She said she wants to cook things for me, because she loves to cook. Hey, I'm not going to say no to authentic Italian food.

She told me she has had a very long day of travel and she's very tired and hungry so she will go to bed. Then I felt bad because I had thought about asking her if she wanted to go get noodles with me, but I could hear that she was on Skype so I just left without saying anything.  I mentioned this to her and she immediately dragged me into her room and had me add myself to her Skype and facebook.  I never got the facebook request, I'm not sure why, but I do have her on my Skype now. She said that she told her boyfriend about me earlier and how I am very nice and sweet, and now she wants me to meet him on Skype.

I don't know why everyone is always surprised when I tell them how old I am.  Back in the US, Mom's coworkers and friends always assumed I was younger than reality.  Yet, the first week I was in France one of my Paris roommates asked how old I was, and when I said nineteen she said she was surprised because she had thought I was at least twenty-two.  So Sara asked me how old I am and I said twenty, she looked a bit surprised, as if she thought I was older. She's twenty-two.  Maybe I'm just too well-traveled.

So she asked me if I wanted to go walk around the city tomorrow. I don't see why not, I know my way around most places and she just got here, who knows? Maybe we'll discover some new stuff too.  I mentioned to her that I had been thinking about going to the beach some night this week and she looked very interested, but I don't have money on my travel card, it's a bit too far to walk, and she doesn't have a travel card at all. I just ordered a personal travel card (with my name and picture on it!) but since it will come in the mail and my mailbox key doesn't work, I have no travel card. There is a little over five euros left on the anonymous card that I have, but I don't want to add to it just to get a new card.  I figure I can keep that card for if anyone comes to visit me. Having a travel card is much cheaper than paying the fare every time.  I told the DUWO office that my mailbox key doesn't work, and a guy called me and made an appointment to come check it out on Thursday at 11:30am.  No mail until Thursday! Yay!

Okay. Think I had more to say but once again, I can't remember.  Goodnight!

Pictures on Demand!

Apparently this week I am taking picture requests. Because Mommy gave me a list of things she wanted pictures of and I... well, I went out and took pictures, of course.

The first item on the list was the front gate.

And the mailboxes too.  I have a key to my mailbox but it does not work.  I am going to have to do something about that, but not right now.  Maybe Monday.

Anyway, one must first unlock and open the gate, then there's a big empty corridor at the end of which is a metal staircase, and a back gate.  Up the staircase is... another staircase to yet a third level, and an outdoor hallway type thing which leads to my apartment.

That picture faces the staircase that I just mentioned. The overhead walkways are for the third level that I also just mentioned.  The open door on the right there, 19C, that's mine.  It looks like this:

Hmm, I believe that covers the second thing on the list, which was "outside."  Oh and this. Next up, the view out the balcony. Honestly, it's nothing exciting.

To the right...

To the left... See? Nothing exciting.  Though that building with all the staircases up the back of it to the right is pretty cool.  Also, I have neighbors down there somewhere who play some nice loud music and talk a lot. Not a big deal, as you can see I have the balcony doors wide open.

Fourth order of business. Umm. Oh yes, the noodle place. I love the noodle place!

It is that green place right there. It's called Eazie.

My interior picture is pretty crappy. That's what I get for trying to take a concealed phone picture.  Anyway, basically you step up to that counter and tell them what kind of meat you want in your noodles (you can get like... anything. Shrimp, fish, beef, chicken, eggs, lamb, I don't even know what else. I always get chicken, and I like chicken so I don't really need to be able to read the rest.) and then what kind of sauce you want--there are a bunch and I'm not listing them for you--and then what kind of noodles you want. Well, it's not really just noodles.  You can get steamed rice or fried rice or ramen noodles or udon noodles or chinese egg noodles or a wrap...  After that, you pay and then move on down the counter where you can pick 5 vegetables to put in it.  Well, not just vegetables. They have pineapple as well. And cucumber. I've never really heard of cucumber in a stir-fry type dish, but whatever the people like is what goes, I guess.  Then they take it back and fry it up for you, and then (since I always get take-away) they bring it up to the counter and yell out the number from the slip they gave you when you paid (this is where it helps to understand numbers in Dutch).  And they ask if you want chopsticks.  And put your takeout box in a bag and then you leave.  Well, you can eat in also and then they bring your order to your table in a big bowl. I have never eaten in. That's okay with me.

I always get the same thing there. Even right down to the 5 vegetables. I should try something different. I'm really curious about the wraps, and the rice.  I could vary on sauce too but I do really like that teriyaki sauce I get.  Oh, I'm just so good at staying in my ruts though. I doubt I will ever get anything different than my usual.

This concludes my SECOND BLOG POST OF THE DAY.  I should not keep this up. I will run out of things to talk about and then I will post even more infrequently. (Google Chrome says infrequently is a word. Yay!) Though I'm not sure that's possible. I've been trying to post, sorry about that.

New Apartment

Okay. So I thought I would post some apartment pictures before my roommates get here. At the moment I have the entire apartment to myself.  Note:  I love this apartment! I love my room! And, I don't think I will mind sharing at all.

So for starters, when you walk in the door, you have a hallway.

Not overly exciting.  To the left is the kitchen, the door on the right is the single bedroom.  At the end of the hall before the turn are the double doors leading to my bedroom. In this picture, both doors are open. I suppose I should have taken one with the doors closed but I like them open, so get over it.  After the turn, there is a bathroom and a common room, kind of like a little sitting room. Also, I really like the hallway lights. Here, have a link. I find them very interesting.

Next up is the kitchen.

 It doesn't have too much to offer and it will be interesting trying to share a fridge among three people but that will be fun.  At least the kitchen has a kitchen table, my summer apartment did not.

As I said, at the end of the hall before the turn is my bedroom, I took a panoramic picture of it but it's too small to really see anything, so I have three different pictures.
Two beds.
My bed and desk. And also the double doors that lead to the balcony.
The other desk. And the wardrobe that I have chosen to occupy.
At first I took that desk too, but then I realized it would be weird to make my roommate use the desk next to my bed.  Taking that closet and bookshelf was the obvious choice because the bookshelf accompanying the other one is at the foot of the other bed. If my roommate doesn't like what I've left her, that's too bad and she should have gotten here sooner.

Umm, let's see.  Past my bedroom when you turn the corner in the hall, it looks a bit like this. The bathroom is the door straight ahead, it looks a bit like a bathroom....

Toilet to the left, I didn't think anyone needed a picture of that. I think we all know what a toilet looks like.

Then the door to the right in that picture was the common room.

The window opens up to the same balcony as my room. I really like this common room, if I annoy my roommate by staying up on my computer too late or something to that effect, I can just go to this room.  My summer apartment didn't really have that option.

Like I said, I love my apartment. And I'm right downtown, so I can go one street over and get noodles if I want to, which I will tonight for dinner. I will also go to the store and buy laundry detergent because my clothes are all dirty... Yay for having a store right across the street!  I am really going to love this.

If you have trouble opening any of the links or pictures, let me know...