Untitled Update :)

I don't feel like making up a title...

I know this is getting pretty repetitive, but I went to the beach again.  I don't know why, but somehow I didn't figure that on a beautiful sunny day, a resort beach would be packed with people. Well, it was.

See?  Lots of people.  Yeah, I was on the pier when I took that picture.  Apparently my blog needs more pictures on it though.  What else do I have...

Yay, random pictures!  Actually I took that picture to send to my little sister, but whatever.  It's... a fountain, the casino and giant movie theater in the background.  Nothing too exciting.  I think it'd be more exciting in the dark. It gets dark too late right now though, I don't want to be there at midnight alone.

I don't really like walking around taking pictures. Makes me feel like a tourist. I mean, maybe I am a tourist right now but I still don't like to feel like one.

That's a picture off the same pier (obviously a little further out though) on that day that it was super windy and rainy. With my ice cream. I was teasing my sister. I know, I'm not very nice.

Anyway, done with pictures. I got an email from the international office at the school last week about my immigration papers. I guess they didn't like the picture that I sent in with it, they wanted me to go take a new picture in Dutch passport picture standard, which I did, and then I dropped by the office with it. While I was there, they told me my immigration papers have already been approved, they're just waiting on a new picture. That made me so happy!  I don't know why, but I had been irrationally afraid that they would deny me and I'd have to go home.  I don't want to go home. I like it here. I love it here.

So I guess when I get the stuff back for that, I should probably make sure I complete it all. I was a bad person, I did not send in the required papers for my residence permit and stuff in France.  Yes, maybe that's why I was worried about the Dutch immigration stuff. They wanted a photocopy of every page in my passport, which means that they could have looked at my French visa and decided to see if I followed through with everything. I never sent in the "once you arrive" paperwork in France because I missed the deadline to send it in with the group, and I was too lazy to go to the post office and mail it myself. Ehh, French post offices are intimidating.  Nobody even received their residence permits before we left anyway. (I know. That's no excuse. Shame on me.)

Then Mom tells me I got some paperwork from the European Studies program people in the mail.  That's got me worried and excited, too.  Worried because she said it has to be mailed back within two weeks, and that they provided a business envelope with which to mail it back.  Well she can scan and email all the stuff, sure, but I still don't have that envelope.  The program office is closed for the summer, one of the ladies is on maternity leave and her replacement is on vacation until August 16th.  Otherwise I could just take the paperwork to them in person.  I might go ask the international office about it...  Still, this paperwork is stuff about language choice and introduction days and registration and I'm so excited for school to start!  I've got about a month. Classes don't start until the middle of September but these registration/introduction days start at the end of August.

I think I will make macaroni for dinner. With mushrooms. Yep, sounds good.

Rainy Days

Hello! Obviously it's time for a new blog post, even my mother came and told me that my blog is looking lonely. Well, I went to the beach the day before yesterday and intended to write a blog post there. You know, sit down on the sand and stare at the sea as I write a blog post on the fancy cell phone that my best friend's mother so graciously put on her bank account under her name so I didn't have to wait until August. Man, my life is so rough. Unfortunately it was windy and rainy and I wasn't really interested in having wind-blown sand hitting my face while I was trying to enjoy the beach, so I decided to forego that idea.

However, I did go to the beach, and I did have a nice time all by myself at the beach. There's this big glassed-in pier and there was an ice cream place along the pier that had really good ice cream. Also, the guy said it would be €3,75 but while I was digging for change he said "but for you, €3,50" and that was very nice of him. Anyway, I wandered the beach for a while, got ice cream and then dinner (yes, dessert first) and then went home. Not much to do at the beach by yourself in the wind and rain.

I know that I have been talking about the weather here a lot lately but seriously, when I first started almost a year ago I was always talking about food. I have to have something to talk about, don't I?  It's just that the weather here really baffles me. Don't get me wrong, I love it. Even so, it's strange that in the middle of July as I walk through downtown, everyone is wearing jackets and sweaters and scarves. It's a bit chilly out. Plus, the rain. So much rain. As I said, I love it. I'm not a big fan of super hot weather anyway. It's still weird though. It reminds me of spring or autumn weather back home, and those are my favorite seasons because they are right in between hot and cold.  Maybe one of these days if it actually stops raining I will go back and sit on the beach for a few hours like I had planned the other day.

Things are working out here, I guess. After that lady at the bank told me there was absolutely no way I could create a bank account without a SoFi number, I talked to the school and they suggested I have the money deposited in the account of a friend. From there I talked to Tessa, who said we could go to the bank and see what we could do. Well the bank in her town listened to the problem, and left us sitting there for a half an hour as they went to see what they could do about helping. In the end, I walked out with a bank account. So maybe that first lady didn't have any idea what she was talking about. It doesn't matter now, I have a bank account and I don't have to worry about money, as long as I provide the bank with my SoFi number before 6 months have passed. I don't think that will be a problem.

I also had a problem with my roommate. Let's see, the English girl left right after I got here, and the Spanish girl has apparently rented out her room to some guy named José.  I haven't really even formally met him. I think he's been here for two or three weeks now. The guy apparently was unaware that he needed to clean up after himself as a courtesy to any other person staying in the apartment. It's not like he doesn't know I'm here, our paths cross every once in a while (I think he avoids me, which says a lot because normally I'm the one avoiding people) but even so, I got really tired of the enormous mess that he always left in the kitchen.  We have limited space, we have limited supplies, and if he leaves two frying pans and a pot dirty on the stove, well that's about all we have. So basically I have to clean up after him to make my meal. Yesterday I left him a note saying that he should clean up after himself as he's not the only one who lives here and I shouldn't have to clean up his messes. This afternoon, though I know I heard him in there cooking earlier, the kitchen was clean when I went in there. Yay! Maybe I should thank him.

So I have my bank account, my cell phone, and in less than a month I will be in my more permanent apartment. Sounds good to me!

It feels like a beach day...

Okay, let's see.  I posted pictures, they're actually on facebook for once so if you'd like to see those, hopefully you are my facebook friend.  Otherwise, don't worry about it. It's not that exciting, I guess.

As before stated, I spent the weekend with Jenny and her family, but the weekend ended up lasting until Tuesday for various reasons.  I stayed until Monday so that I could go to Tessa's graduation with Jenn.  It was nothing like any other graduation I've ever been to but overall it was still just a graduation, end result the same as any other. Jenn and I were going to go to the vodafone store on Monday so that I could get a phone but they said in order to have the phone in my name I have to be a European residence, and I don't have my residence permit yet. I resigned myself to wait until October to get a phone. So when we got home and told Jennifer's mother that, she said I should stay yet another night and we could go to the phone store Tuesday and put it in her name on her bank account.  It was very nice of her and for that I am eternally grateful.  I'm glad that the phones and plans are so much cheaper here, plus they are big on discounts. So on my two year contract, I get 50% off of my plan for the first 12 months.  I definitely cannot complain about that.  The plan was only €47,50 a month to begin with.  I can live with that.

Little kids are adorable. Until you've got a six-year-old standing in front of you asking "waarom niet?" over and over and suddenly you have to wonder what you just said no to that would make her ask why not?  Poor kids, they don't understand why I don't answer them, and I don't understand anything they are saying.  Then there is Jennifer's three-year-old cousin who doesn't seem to care that I don't answer, she just keeps talking.  And her nine-year-old brother who tries so hard to speak English, but he also says it would be better if I just speak Dutch. Oh, if only it were that easy, right?  He knows far more of English at nine years old than I know of Dutch at twenty. Lucky kid.  I wish I could learn with the brain of a five-year-old.  I would pick it up so much faster.

So yesterday it was extremely hot, then last night there was a thunderstorm. Awesome weather.  I would go to the beach today if it didn't sound like a lot of work...  Maybe I should just stop being lazy and go anyway.  I love easy access to the sea, I can go whenever I want as long as I'm not having a decidedly lazy day.  Just to walk in the water for a bit...

Also, yesterday was the strangest 4th of July, as for once in my life it was not a holiday.  Nothing special at all, just another day.

Moral of the Story:  I really didn't have anything to say in this blog post so it's boring and useless, but I had nothing better to do than update everyone on my boredom.

Have a nice day!

Belgium?

I have a hard time coming up with things to write about. I know that I can't exactly say I don't do anything, but none of it really strikes me as anything interesting to write about.

I went to the bank on Monday to see if I could make a bank account. It turns out that I can't until October. Yay! I also went and talked to the immigration office at the school. The lady there was very nice. She said that I don't need to worry about getting my residence permit just yet, though I can have it as soon as I want it.  But since I'm renting my apartment only for the next month and it's through another tenant rather than directly through the company, she said it would probably be easier to wait until I'm in my more permanent apartment in August.  It's not absolutely necessary for me to have it right away and it's easier than having to try to change my address in a month.  The other thing she told me was that I wouldn't get my Dutch "social security" number until October, which is why I can't open a bank account. She said there was no way around that and I would just have to wait.  This is kind of unpleasant, considering no one told me anything about this beforehand...

This weekend, Jennifer's mother invited Tessa and me to their camping house with their family for the weekend so that the three of us could go over to Belgium on Saturday.  It depends on how loosely you define "camping" but it was very nice. I always loved forests, no matter where they are.  We took some pretty random pictures in the forest, too.

We did go to Belgium on Saturday and Belgium is very different.  It seems odd to me. I'm not sure what it would be like growing up in a country where the other half of the population grows up learning a different "native language." We did fail in one small way, we were in Belgium and didn't eat any Belgian waffles.  Shame on us. We bought some Belgian chocolate though, delicious stuff.  Antwerpen was a nice little city, too.

One of these days I will learn Dutch so that I don't have to be paranoid that people are talking about me.  I can understand some of the more basic stuff but that's about it, and that's very limited.  One thing is for sure, I really don't like it when people are making fun of me, even if they are just kidding around.  It really frustrates me. I suppose it's something I can get over, but some people are just annoying.

I had more that I wanted to add to this post, but I can't think of how to word it. I can't think of how exactly I want to say everything, I guess because the idea itself is still a bit of a strange concept to me. More on that later, then.