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...

Plastic bag ~

Hello!

I have been trying to post more often. Last week I felt a little stressed though, about packing and moving and all that fun stuff.  I guess I wasn't in the mood to write.

Then I got to Jenn's house to stay the week here and we're awfully silly. No time to write a blog post, of course.  Let's see, the other day we went to the forest not far from here and we only intended to be there for a short while but we got lost, and wandered around for three hours before we figured out how to get out with the help of the GPS on our phones.  I know, it's probably cheating to use our phones to find our way out of a forest but we were ready to leave and it turned out we were on the complete opposite side than we needed to be.

Butterfly.  Anyway, I have plenty of bug bites to show from our walk in the forest.

We thought that maybe we'd go have a picnic with Tessa and Simona but... hey, we can't even get our butts out of the house to go grocery shopping.  Though Tessa did come over to see us two days in a row. See, why do we need to leave the house? Everyone comes to us!  And we have rockband.  And junk food. All the more reason to not go grocery shopping.

As odd as it may seem, I miss plastic bags. When I need a small trash bag, or when I need something to wrap my breakable things in to put in my suitcase, or when I have any other various need for a simple plastic grocery bag. Oh the little things, often overlooked~   I found a walmart bag in my suitcase, and put it to immediate use, and then realized I wish I had more. Hmm.

In two days I'll be moving into my new apartment, and I can finally fully unpack my suitcases and meet my new roommates. Then only a little less than two weeks before school stuff starts! I already ordered books, as expensive as that was. I tried to buy used but the people who posted saying they had some to sell never responded to my messages and comments, so that was very inconvenient.

At this moment Jenn is going to the grocery store. She didn't want me to go. I have to stay here like a good little kid and behave myself, I guess. Time to trash the place! Only joking. Bye!

To those never to be forgotten:

For once in my life, I feel like I'm actually heading in all the directions that I need to be headed, in terms of my future, education, career, and just life in general.  So many people have helped me with all of this, but there's one person who I feel like has done the most overall.

Thank you, Aunt Cathie.  For giving me the strength to do things I never would have done, and the knowledge that life is too short to not always do exactly what you want to do.  I don't know where I'd be without you.  At times I reflect on the decisions I've made and the plans that I'm working on and how it all comes back to you, how much your life inspires me and pushes me to try to be the best that I can be.  I still have a long way to go, Aunt Cathie, but I know I'll get there eventually.  You are and have always been a beautiful and amazing person, and I hope that things are wonderful where you are right now because you deserve it.  I love you forever.



Also, this is my 100th blog post. (I only just realized that.)

APPARENTLY

I'M NOT POSTING OFTEN ENOUGH, ACCORDING TO SOME PEOPLE.

I was going to post a few days ago but I wasn't in the mood to write and then I just never got around to it...  I know, in the beginning I posted daily. I liked posting daily, but I just don't have enough to say each day to do that right now.  Soon, maybe.

I'm only in this apartment for less than a week longer. Then I'll be in my new place in two weeks. I'm so excited to get to my new apartment! I actually went and walked past it today, it'll make everything so much more convenient. I'll be right downtown.

I still don't know what I'm doing for the time between two apartments though. I'd really hate to waste €200+ on a hostel for 6 nights. I figure if I'm living in a hostel for a week I'll either be eating out every day or starving, neither of which sounds very good. Jenn said I could stay at her house and then she told me to hold on to the hostel, so I'm confused... But that's okay.  She also told me maybe a month ago that they would help me with my stuff because I have two huge suitcases and they are awkward to take on public transportation... I'm sure everyone is busy though, so I will figure something out I guess.  Note to self:  Put more money on tram card.

So after I get moved into my new apartment, I only have a little over a week before school stuff starts up.  Honestly, I really can't wait. I feel really lonely lately, I can't wait to meet people. Especially my new roommates. I hope we get along well. I also can't wait to get into French classes again, and apparently I get to take beginner's Dutch courses. All makes life easier on me, I guess.

Okay, I don't really have anything else to say. Short blog post.

:)