The first thing I learned when I got to England was to always print out a map before going to a new country. I got to the Victoria Underground Station (the closest station to my hostel) without too much trouble by around 9:30pm and headed right like (I thought) the directions on the hostel's website had said. Then I started following the signs for Buckingham Palace. Big mistake, I was supposed to be going to Buckingham Palace Road, not the actual palace. What I didn't realize until after walking in circles for about 20 minutes was that street names aren't written on street signs with sign posts, major attractions are. The actual street signs are on the walls of buildings on the corners. It turned out that the directions to my hostel that I had were from the Victoria Coach Station, not the Victoria Underground station. After asking probably 6 unhelpful people, I finally found someone who told me more than "just look at a map" and found the hostel.
The next morning, I woke up early and just walked. I passed the Victoria Underground Station (I had to make sure I could find my way back to that place), Buckingham Palace (the real palace, not the road), St. James Park, the Guard's Museum where they were practicing for something that looked as ceremonial as the changing of the guards, but it was something else, Trafalgar Square, and a bunch of other places. At 10:30, I went back to Buckingham Palace and sat by the fence for an hour waiting for the changing of the guards which was going to happen at 11:30. You really do have to get there that far in advance if you actually want to be close enough to see anything, it was crazy. The ceremony was cool, but a little silly, and I was disappointed that they don't actually wear red coats anymore, they're grey now. I don't really understand the purpose of it, but it's an interesting tradition anyways.
After that, I walked around some more, killing time until 1:00 when the free New Europe tour started. The tour was great. We went to a bunch of places that I'd walked by but didn't know where I was, and they told us interesting historical facts about those places. My favorite stories were the ones about people who had broken into Buckingham Palace. One time was a 12 year old boy who's job was to sweep the chimneys, but he would never leave after work. He lived there for several weeks without getting caught by stealing food from the kitchens at night. Eventually, he was caught and sent to Australia. Another time, there were a group of tourists from another country who didn't want to pay for a hotel, so they decided they would camp out in Green Park at night, which is right next to Buckingham Palace. They got there at night and saw the gate for the Palace and thought it was the gate for the park, so they jumped the fence, set up tents, and slept for the night. In the morning, they woke up and couldn't find the exit, so they walked up to a guard who told them they better get out, and only then did they realize that they weren't in Green Park.
My favorite break in story was about the Irish man who broke a window to get in the palace. The alarm went off, but the security guard thought it must have been a fluke because no one in their right minds would break a window into Buckingham Palace, so he didn't send anyone to check it out. The guy had free reign of the palace for a few hours. He found his way into the wine cellar where he stole a really expensive bottle of wine. Then he ended up at the royal throne where he put the bottle of wine on his head and declared himself King of England. Finally, he decided he wanted to go to sleep, and of course, of all the bedrooms in the palace, he wandered into the Queen's bedroom. She woke up, and rather than freaking out, decided to appease him for a while, so they were chatting (they both had 4 children, so they talked about that) for a while until he asked for a cigarette. She said that she didn't have one but maybe her butler did, so she called him and said "There's a drunk Irishman in my room, and he would like you to get him a cigarette." The butler was obviously very confused, so she repeated herself: "There's a DRUNK IRISHMAN IN MY ROOM, and he would like you to get him a cigarette!" The butler came in and tackled the guy. Oddly enough, at that time, since it was a government of the people, the palace technically belonged to the people of Britain, so the guy hadn't broken any laws by breaking in. The only thing they could charge him with was stealing the bottle of wine! The rest of the stories that I heard on the tour can be found under the pictures I posted on facebook.
After the tour, I tried fish and chips for dinner (delicious!), walked around to Chinatown, went to King's Cross Station to see platform 9 3/4, and checked out Piccadilly Circus (like a smaller version of Times Square) where there was a pretty good breakdancing group doing a show. Then I headed to the roda that I had found out about online before the trip. It was weird playing with them because until the last 20 minutes or so, they basically did a fast version of Angola which I didn't really know how to do. Plus, their games were LONG. Each game would literally be probably 3-5 minutes, so it was pretty exhausting. At the end, we did Regional though, and I kicked butt :). After, I hung out with them for a while, and got some Mexican food. I miss Mexican food so much!! It was good there, but it sucks in Holland. They were really nice, and they invited me to the other events they had that weekend, including one in Oxford which would have been cool, cuz then I could have looked around there, but I didn't want to spend that much of my 3 days in London doing capoeira when there was so much to see, so I declined.
The next morning, I went to the British Museum, which has nothing to do with British history. It was all about world history, and they had some pretty cool stuff in there. There was a piece of the real Rosetta Stone, Cleopatra's mummy and tomb, and a bunch of other really historical things. Not to play into every Jewish stereotype ever, but the room that I thought was most interesting was the room about the history of money. Afterwards, I headed to the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. On my way, I started to see hundreds and hundreds of people protesting. There was apparently a giant protest all over London because they were cutting some money that goes to public services. It was a peaceful protest (then and there at least. According to the news, it got a little violent in a couple places by night time). The National Gallery was pretty cool too with lots of famous art by famous people, but I wasn't allowed to take pictures in there, so I can't remember which ones I was most impressed by. Then I walked over and saw the London Eye, but I didn't go on it because the line was insane, and it wasn't that nice of a day out anyways. That night, I went on the Grim Reaper tour where we heard about and saw the locations of all 5 Jack the Ripper murders, where the first mental institution was, where people were sent to Australia from, etc.
The next morning, I intended to go to the Tate Museum (modern art museum), but when I got off the underground, I saw a sign for the London Museum, so I decided to check that out first. It was about the history of England. When I left there, I tried again to go to the Tate Museum, but I ended up pretty lost, so I walked around for a while and decided to try to head to the street the guy at my hostel had told me about where I could get good Indian food (because everyone had told me Indian food in England was great). On the way, I found this HUGE market where they were selling everything from clothes to makeup to souvenirs REALLY cheaply. I wanted to buy clothes, but I had no idea what my size would be and I couldn't try anything on :(. After lunch (the Indian food really was delicious), I started making my way toward Covent Garden where the Old City tour started, and in the process, I found 2 more giant markets!! I spent a lot of time that day just walking around the markets. Covent Garden was interesting (it's not a garden), it was basically a shopping center but also, there were people all over the street performing for tips. Everything from jugglers to musicians to people all painted in one color standing perfectly still to magicians. Then I went on the tour, where I got to see pretty much everything else that I hadn't gotten around to seeing yet (St. Paul's cathedral, Tower Bridge, the location of the beginning of the Great Fire, etc). Then I headed back to the hostel to get to bed early, because I had to wake up at 3am to catch a 4am bus to the airport, and I didn't want to oversleep and miss the flight.
I made it to the airport by 5:30 for my 7am flight, which would normally have been way more than enough time, but I forgot to put my conditioner into a little plastic bag which set off their alarm, and my entire bag had to be searched. The confiscated my shampoo, conditioner, and even my deodorant, which they said was a liquid (wtf?? definitely not a liquid...) because clearly, I was going to blow up the plane with that stuff, and I only made it to my gate with about 10 minutes to spare. Luckily, I made it though, and all in all, it was a great weekend.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Joue du Loup - French Alps!
After packing my suitcase and trekking it to the Tilburg University train station with my flatmates Emma, Morris, and Simay, we met up with Landon, Gabe, and Luis, and headed to Eindhoven. After some confusion about where to get off, we made it to the Eindhoven Beukenlaan station where we met up with the rest of the Tilburg ESNOW participants and headed to the place where the bus would pick us up (after waiting an hour) at about 6:30 (or 18.30 as they say in Europe!). I sat next to a Dutch guy named Danny, and we set off on our 14 hour ride. On the way to France, we drove through Belguim and detoured through Luxemborg for the bus to get cheap gas. (Does that count as visiting a new country?) We stopped for some food and got Burger King at the most insanely busy Burger King I've ever seen. Getting to the counter was like trying to fight your way through a mosh pit since there were no lines, just giant crowds of hungry people.
We finally arrived around 8am and had to kill 9 hours before they would let us into our rooms, so we met some people studying in other parts of Holland, walked around in the cold and explored the city and mountains a little, and eventually found a cafe with some open seats that we sat in for the last 2 or 3 hours entirely because the room was heated. Then when were allowed into room, we headed over (luckily we had one of the closest rooms to reception area where the bags were being stored, because I don't know if I could have carried mine much more, and also, being this close means we're one of the very few rooms that gets wifi!). It's a little chalet with bunk beds (I'm staying on the lower one since I'm the least likely to sit up and hit my head on the upper bunk), a room with 2 other twin beds, and a pull out couch that the boys are sharing. It's a little cramped for 6 people, but we make due.
Every morning, two of us wake up early and walk to the bakery to buy French Baguettes (which taste WAY better in France!) or croissants for everyone to share. Then we get ready and head to the slopes. The first day, Luis gave me and Libby (a British girl studying in Lidon that we met) a refresher course on how to ski and showed Emma and Jeanette the basics. After a few runs down the small green slope, me and Luis went up the only open ski lift to a blue. It was REALLY windy and the snow was icy at the top. I summoned up all the courage I had and went for it. It seemed really steep and difficult at the time, but thinking back (only 3 days later) it would probably be really easy now. After that run, I was way too scared to do the same one again, but I also figured nothing less could possibly be half as exhilarating, so I called it a day around lunch time. Also, my ski boots were absolutely killing me. The next morning, the weather was really nice, so we went to the top of the other ski lift (the only one open that day...) and did an easier blue run a couple times (or at least I thought it was easier, maybe I was just better by then, I don't know). But again, the boots were murdering my calves, so I had to give up.
I finally got new ski boots the next day, and that made a world of difference, but the weather sucked, so I went down once and figured I'd rest for a day. Today was BY FAR the best day so far. We met up with a bunch of the Tilburg people staying in the other room and decided we would all ski together. We went up the ski lift I've been using for the last 2 days, but instead of going down, we went to another ski lift that took us up even higher and skied down a blue run to warm up. Then, when we got back down to the 2nd lift, we took it back to the top again, and went down a red slope!! Then we went all the way back down to grab some lunch and headed back up again with a couple other people this time. About half way down, we found a place off the path with fresh, powdery snow and built a huge snowman that we named Jacque Pierre, had a snowball fight, ate some snow, and just hung out for a while before heading back down again.
Tomorrow will be my last day of skiing, and then I'll trade my skis in for a snowboard to try that out for the last 2 days. I'm a little nervous because it seems harder, but I can't wait to try!
We finally arrived around 8am and had to kill 9 hours before they would let us into our rooms, so we met some people studying in other parts of Holland, walked around in the cold and explored the city and mountains a little, and eventually found a cafe with some open seats that we sat in for the last 2 or 3 hours entirely because the room was heated. Then when were allowed into room, we headed over (luckily we had one of the closest rooms to reception area where the bags were being stored, because I don't know if I could have carried mine much more, and also, being this close means we're one of the very few rooms that gets wifi!). It's a little chalet with bunk beds (I'm staying on the lower one since I'm the least likely to sit up and hit my head on the upper bunk), a room with 2 other twin beds, and a pull out couch that the boys are sharing. It's a little cramped for 6 people, but we make due.
Every morning, two of us wake up early and walk to the bakery to buy French Baguettes (which taste WAY better in France!) or croissants for everyone to share. Then we get ready and head to the slopes. The first day, Luis gave me and Libby (a British girl studying in Lidon that we met) a refresher course on how to ski and showed Emma and Jeanette the basics. After a few runs down the small green slope, me and Luis went up the only open ski lift to a blue. It was REALLY windy and the snow was icy at the top. I summoned up all the courage I had and went for it. It seemed really steep and difficult at the time, but thinking back (only 3 days later) it would probably be really easy now. After that run, I was way too scared to do the same one again, but I also figured nothing less could possibly be half as exhilarating, so I called it a day around lunch time. Also, my ski boots were absolutely killing me. The next morning, the weather was really nice, so we went to the top of the other ski lift (the only one open that day...) and did an easier blue run a couple times (or at least I thought it was easier, maybe I was just better by then, I don't know). But again, the boots were murdering my calves, so I had to give up.
I finally got new ski boots the next day, and that made a world of difference, but the weather sucked, so I went down once and figured I'd rest for a day. Today was BY FAR the best day so far. We met up with a bunch of the Tilburg people staying in the other room and decided we would all ski together. We went up the ski lift I've been using for the last 2 days, but instead of going down, we went to another ski lift that took us up even higher and skied down a blue run to warm up. Then, when we got back down to the 2nd lift, we took it back to the top again, and went down a red slope!! Then we went all the way back down to grab some lunch and headed back up again with a couple other people this time. About half way down, we found a place off the path with fresh, powdery snow and built a huge snowman that we named Jacque Pierre, had a snowball fight, ate some snow, and just hung out for a while before heading back down again.
Tomorrow will be my last day of skiing, and then I'll trade my skis in for a snowboard to try that out for the last 2 days. I'm a little nervous because it seems harder, but I can't wait to try!
Sunday, February 13, 2011
I finally ventured out of Holland!
Until today, this week was pretty uneventful. Lots of hanging out, watching TV/movies (I'm running out of Dexter episodes to watch, so if anyone has any suggestions for a good series to start, let me know!), going to class, etc. A few highlights to this week:
1) On Monday, I found the Tilburg University Gymnastics club. They meet in a basketball court about a 20 minute bike ride away (which I found by myself without asking my roommates for help with directions!!). They have a blow up tumble track, and some mats, and they have some beams and bars that they can set up on request. The coach was pretty good, and the people were really nice. The only downside was that my back hurt more than it has in a while the next morning.
2) Tuesday night was mentor dinner (we had Spanish food - Some kind of bread with tomato and cheese). The theme for the club that night was "wild animals" so everyone was dressed up. I borrowed a zebra shirt from my roommate, but I ended up going to the gym instead of the club.
3) I went to capoeira class on Thursday, and Formado Tyson taught again. Apparently, when class gets split up into beginner and advanced, I get to be in advanced. Everyone else had an orange cord and above, which means I have probably played 2 less years then any of them, but he still put me in that group :)
4) Friday we took a trip to watch the Tilburg Trappers v Nijmegan Devils hockey game. Trappers lost, but it was fun to watch a game, even if it is about 10x slower then the NHL.
And finally... Belgium!! Rocha picked me up around noon, and we headed to Antwerp. We got lunch and then had Belgian waffles!!! They were amazing. Wayyyy better then eating them at home. But we had them in an actual restaurant, and usually the Belgians get it as a snack and eat it with their hands, so we decided we would have to go back some time to get the real experience (again). He has been someplace that has a waffle stand with what he says are the best waffles, so he said he would take me there another day. Then we walked around the city for a while. It's BEAUTIFUL. Unfortunately, you really can't get even close to understanding how amazing the city looks from my pictures. There were cathedrals, statues, clock towers, and even horse drawn carriages. We saw some interesting shops (and definitely some interesting paintings of Disney characters having gay sex). Then we got Belgian chocolates at a place called Leonidas. I've never seen so much chocolate in my life. Thankfully, they have boxes of assortments of chocolates so I didn't have to try to pick which ones I wanted to try, because I never would have been able to make a decision. Despite my ridiculously high expectations for this chocolate, I wasn't disappointed at all!! They were some of the best things I have ever tasted. I'm definitely going to need to go back to Belgium even if it's just for the chocolate. Finally, I had read online that the central train station was a really cool building, so we decided to walk over there. It was about a 20 minute walk, and we got a little lost in the process, but it was totally worth it in the end. I have never seen a building so ornately beautiful in my life. It was HUGE and really really detailed. Then we went to a little pub because he said he'd had a Belgian beer one time before that he thought I might like, but they didn't have it there, so he tried another one but neither of us liked it. But we were sitting next to a Belgian guy who told us a little more about the country and some of the places we had seen, so that was pretty cool. Overall, it was definitely a great trip, and I'd love to see more of that country.
1) On Monday, I found the Tilburg University Gymnastics club. They meet in a basketball court about a 20 minute bike ride away (which I found by myself without asking my roommates for help with directions!!). They have a blow up tumble track, and some mats, and they have some beams and bars that they can set up on request. The coach was pretty good, and the people were really nice. The only downside was that my back hurt more than it has in a while the next morning.
2) Tuesday night was mentor dinner (we had Spanish food - Some kind of bread with tomato and cheese). The theme for the club that night was "wild animals" so everyone was dressed up. I borrowed a zebra shirt from my roommate, but I ended up going to the gym instead of the club.
3) I went to capoeira class on Thursday, and Formado Tyson taught again. Apparently, when class gets split up into beginner and advanced, I get to be in advanced. Everyone else had an orange cord and above, which means I have probably played 2 less years then any of them, but he still put me in that group :)
4) Friday we took a trip to watch the Tilburg Trappers v Nijmegan Devils hockey game. Trappers lost, but it was fun to watch a game, even if it is about 10x slower then the NHL.
And finally... Belgium!! Rocha picked me up around noon, and we headed to Antwerp. We got lunch and then had Belgian waffles!!! They were amazing. Wayyyy better then eating them at home. But we had them in an actual restaurant, and usually the Belgians get it as a snack and eat it with their hands, so we decided we would have to go back some time to get the real experience (again). He has been someplace that has a waffle stand with what he says are the best waffles, so he said he would take me there another day. Then we walked around the city for a while. It's BEAUTIFUL. Unfortunately, you really can't get even close to understanding how amazing the city looks from my pictures. There were cathedrals, statues, clock towers, and even horse drawn carriages. We saw some interesting shops (and definitely some interesting paintings of Disney characters having gay sex). Then we got Belgian chocolates at a place called Leonidas. I've never seen so much chocolate in my life. Thankfully, they have boxes of assortments of chocolates so I didn't have to try to pick which ones I wanted to try, because I never would have been able to make a decision. Despite my ridiculously high expectations for this chocolate, I wasn't disappointed at all!! They were some of the best things I have ever tasted. I'm definitely going to need to go back to Belgium even if it's just for the chocolate. Finally, I had read online that the central train station was a really cool building, so we decided to walk over there. It was about a 20 minute walk, and we got a little lost in the process, but it was totally worth it in the end. I have never seen a building so ornately beautiful in my life. It was HUGE and really really detailed. Then we went to a little pub because he said he'd had a Belgian beer one time before that he thought I might like, but they didn't have it there, so he tried another one but neither of us liked it. But we were sitting next to a Belgian guy who told us a little more about the country and some of the places we had seen, so that was pretty cool. Overall, it was definitely a great trip, and I'd love to see more of that country.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Amsterdam!!
Yesterday, we left for Amsterdam at about 7:45am, and the first stop was Zaanse Schans. It was a little old city (buildings from the 17th and 18th centuries) with some windmills, the oldest Albert Heijn (the grocery store here), a clog making workshop, a cheese factory, and some old houses. It was cute, but nothing special.
Then we drove to Amsterdam! Even driving around it was fun, it has some really pretty buildings, and a lot of random artwork. For example, in one place, there were a bunch of painted snowmen each dressed up differently. For example, one was a pirate, and one was some kind of gangster and that "Thug Life" underneath it! I was expecting it to be a dirty city, but overall it's really nice. Then we went on a Canal Tour. We were in an enclosed boat (it was nice to get out of the wind) that had windows everywhere. We rode around and heard a recording telling us about the different buildings we passed. I don't remember most of what we saw. I do remember seeing where the Mayor lives, lots and lots of gables (something about the roofs of buildings... we never figured out exactly what it was though), a bunch of other canals, Central Station, and LOTS of bikes.
When that was over, we had 4 hours of free time, so we got lunch and headed over to the van Gogh museum. It was interesting, and I learned a lot about van Gogh. I never knew that he was so religious, so influenced by Japanese art, or that he committed suicide (he shot himself and died from the wound 2 days later). You aren't allowed to take pictures in the museum, but I turned my flash off and managed to take a bunch without getting caught. Unfortunately, we had taken a while to figure out how to get there, and we knew we needed a lot of time to figure out how to get back and get to the Anne Frank house, so we only actually got to spend an hour and a half or 2 hours there, and I only really got to see 2 of the 4 floors, and rushed through the other 2.
So we figured out how to get on the right bus to get back to the main part of Amsterdam, but when we got off, we asked someone for directions to the Anne Frank house, and the way she led us turned out to be in completely the opposite direction of where we needed to be. When we asked someone else a few minutes later, he pointed us the same way!! Finally, after walking about 10 minutes in the wrong direction, we asked a third person who gave us specific directions to where it actually was. We barely made it in time to get in, but luckily we got there. I wish I could have taken pictures there, but it wasn't allowed (and I actually respected their wishes this time lol). It was a lot bigger then I expected, I always imagined them to be practically living in a closet, but they basically had an entire 3-story house to themselves. Granted, there were 8 people hiding there, and it's not like any of them could ever leave, so I'm sure it was still pretty cramped, but it was not nearly as small as I thought it would be. Basically, it was the house, as she had lived in it (but unfurnished) with quotes on the walls from her diary written in Dutch and English, and some glass cases with objects and letters that had belonged to her or her family. There were also some short video clips from those who had known her, including one by her childhood best friend, Hannah Goslar who was the Holocaust survivor who had spoken to my Birthright group when we visited Yad Vashem last summer.
Finally, we went to the Red Light District around 8:30. Apparently, the Red Light District was built around someplace called the "Old Church." I'm sure it was party because we were there so early, but it was WAY more tame than I expected. First of all, I thought girls danced naked in the windows, but they were all in bras and panties. And they didn't even dance or anything, they really just stood there (under a red light) looking out the window waiting for someone to come to them (and half the time, they stood there talking on their phones). The most graphic things we saw were in the advertisements for places offering "live sex shows." They didn't hold back at all on those. You also can't take pictures in the Red Light District. Supposedly, if people see you trying to take pictures of the girls, they might take your camera from you and throw it in the water. After that, we headed back to Tilburg.
Other then that, there were a few miscellaneous things that happened this week. On Monday, I went to an open roda in Eindhoven with the people from Tilburg. After class on Tuesday, I left the building and there was a Camel outside that you could sit on!! They were promoting studying abroad in the Middle East, I think. Later, Rocha picked me up and brought me back to Eindhoven so we could go to a class at Capoeira Interacao. It was a really awesome class, but we got really lost on the way there and ended up getting there an hour late, so we kinda jumped in without warming up. Between that, the cold weather, and the fact that I had exercised 5 days straight at that point, I had a LOT of trouble in class and probably looked like I suck. I could barely breathe and basically had to stop every five minutes. It was worse then the first time I took Scooby's class!! On Wednesday, I finally gave myself a break. I just did my Environmental Econ homework all day... that class is REALLY hard :(. Thursday, capoeira class was taught by Mestre Paulao, one of the founders of Grupo Capoeira Brazil. He used to be the main teacher in Tilburg, but he moved back to Brazil, and he's back in town for a little while. I really enjoyed his class, so hopefully I'll get to take another one before he leaves. Friday, I hung out with a friend at the city center, and he helped me understand how to read the train schedule, so hopefully I can start travelling now! After he got on his train, I went to the bathroom and found out you have to pay for that here. Wtf? And when I went back to my bike, I had apparently forgotten where I parked it and looked around for a good 15 minutes before I found it!! I think someone should invent bikes with car alarms on them for this place. And I've learned not to bother trying to ride my bike on windy days. The wind was so strong that even on 1st gear, I could barely pedal!
Then we drove to Amsterdam! Even driving around it was fun, it has some really pretty buildings, and a lot of random artwork. For example, in one place, there were a bunch of painted snowmen each dressed up differently. For example, one was a pirate, and one was some kind of gangster and that "Thug Life" underneath it! I was expecting it to be a dirty city, but overall it's really nice. Then we went on a Canal Tour. We were in an enclosed boat (it was nice to get out of the wind) that had windows everywhere. We rode around and heard a recording telling us about the different buildings we passed. I don't remember most of what we saw. I do remember seeing where the Mayor lives, lots and lots of gables (something about the roofs of buildings... we never figured out exactly what it was though), a bunch of other canals, Central Station, and LOTS of bikes.
When that was over, we had 4 hours of free time, so we got lunch and headed over to the van Gogh museum. It was interesting, and I learned a lot about van Gogh. I never knew that he was so religious, so influenced by Japanese art, or that he committed suicide (he shot himself and died from the wound 2 days later). You aren't allowed to take pictures in the museum, but I turned my flash off and managed to take a bunch without getting caught. Unfortunately, we had taken a while to figure out how to get there, and we knew we needed a lot of time to figure out how to get back and get to the Anne Frank house, so we only actually got to spend an hour and a half or 2 hours there, and I only really got to see 2 of the 4 floors, and rushed through the other 2.
So we figured out how to get on the right bus to get back to the main part of Amsterdam, but when we got off, we asked someone for directions to the Anne Frank house, and the way she led us turned out to be in completely the opposite direction of where we needed to be. When we asked someone else a few minutes later, he pointed us the same way!! Finally, after walking about 10 minutes in the wrong direction, we asked a third person who gave us specific directions to where it actually was. We barely made it in time to get in, but luckily we got there. I wish I could have taken pictures there, but it wasn't allowed (and I actually respected their wishes this time lol). It was a lot bigger then I expected, I always imagined them to be practically living in a closet, but they basically had an entire 3-story house to themselves. Granted, there were 8 people hiding there, and it's not like any of them could ever leave, so I'm sure it was still pretty cramped, but it was not nearly as small as I thought it would be. Basically, it was the house, as she had lived in it (but unfurnished) with quotes on the walls from her diary written in Dutch and English, and some glass cases with objects and letters that had belonged to her or her family. There were also some short video clips from those who had known her, including one by her childhood best friend, Hannah Goslar who was the Holocaust survivor who had spoken to my Birthright group when we visited Yad Vashem last summer.
Finally, we went to the Red Light District around 8:30. Apparently, the Red Light District was built around someplace called the "Old Church." I'm sure it was party because we were there so early, but it was WAY more tame than I expected. First of all, I thought girls danced naked in the windows, but they were all in bras and panties. And they didn't even dance or anything, they really just stood there (under a red light) looking out the window waiting for someone to come to them (and half the time, they stood there talking on their phones). The most graphic things we saw were in the advertisements for places offering "live sex shows." They didn't hold back at all on those. You also can't take pictures in the Red Light District. Supposedly, if people see you trying to take pictures of the girls, they might take your camera from you and throw it in the water. After that, we headed back to Tilburg.
Other then that, there were a few miscellaneous things that happened this week. On Monday, I went to an open roda in Eindhoven with the people from Tilburg. After class on Tuesday, I left the building and there was a Camel outside that you could sit on!! They were promoting studying abroad in the Middle East, I think. Later, Rocha picked me up and brought me back to Eindhoven so we could go to a class at Capoeira Interacao. It was a really awesome class, but we got really lost on the way there and ended up getting there an hour late, so we kinda jumped in without warming up. Between that, the cold weather, and the fact that I had exercised 5 days straight at that point, I had a LOT of trouble in class and probably looked like I suck. I could barely breathe and basically had to stop every five minutes. It was worse then the first time I took Scooby's class!! On Wednesday, I finally gave myself a break. I just did my Environmental Econ homework all day... that class is REALLY hard :(. Thursday, capoeira class was taught by Mestre Paulao, one of the founders of Grupo Capoeira Brazil. He used to be the main teacher in Tilburg, but he moved back to Brazil, and he's back in town for a little while. I really enjoyed his class, so hopefully I'll get to take another one before he leaves. Friday, I hung out with a friend at the city center, and he helped me understand how to read the train schedule, so hopefully I can start travelling now! After he got on his train, I went to the bathroom and found out you have to pay for that here. Wtf? And when I went back to my bike, I had apparently forgotten where I parked it and looked around for a good 15 minutes before I found it!! I think someone should invent bikes with car alarms on them for this place. And I've learned not to bother trying to ride my bike on windy days. The wind was so strong that even on 1st gear, I could barely pedal!
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Finally the Weekend
My weekends start on Friday since I have no classes. I was supposed to meet up with Beija Flor on Friday at 2:30 in the Tilburg Central Train Station, so I rode my bike over there only to realize that I had forgotten my phone. After spending about 15 minutes looking for her unsuccessfully, I decided to turn around and go back home. I called her, and she was still there, so I turned back around and went to the train station. We had lunch in the city center and talked for a couple hours. It was nice to meet her after hearing so much about her. When we had lunch, I had some kind of cheese sandwich, and now I understand why Europeans are so obsessed with cheese, it was the best cheese I've ever eaten in my life! I know that sounds stupid, but I've never liked cheese that much before, and it was amazing!!! By the time I got home, I had ridden about 6miles (from 2 round trip rides to the train station), and my legs were so sore.
On Saturday, Rocha, a guy who trained with Maculele in Atlanta before moving to Eindhoven (a city about a half hour from Tilburg) picked me up, and we went to his gym to train together. When we were walking to the aerobics room where we were going to train, we heard someone ask us in Portuguese if we play capoeira. Turned out, it was a capoeira teacher and one of his friends who also trains. They ended up joining us and after we all practiced for about an hour, they invited us to train at their academy whenever we wanted. Then we walked around Eindhoven for a while. I like the architecture, everything doesn't look as industrialized and franchised as it does in America. I wanted to take some pictures, but it was too cold. Then we got lunch in some eclectic little restaurant. They gave us 4 open faced sandwiches that we split. Two were cheese (delicious again), one was ham, and one was deer (or as Morris likes to say, I ate bambi...). Deer was actually surprisingly good.
Today, I went to Culemborg with some of the capoeira people for an acrobatics workshop. Apparently there's nothing exciting to see in Culemborg. The workshop was pretty fun. I did a roundoff backhandspring on my left side for the first time in my life (probably because its the first time I've ever tried it), and I actually did a decent set on a roundoff backtuck which NEVER happens. And since the workshop was in a gymnastics gym, I got to play around on bars and beam for the first time in years. Also, I met a few more people and got invited to train in a few more cities. :)
On Saturday, Rocha, a guy who trained with Maculele in Atlanta before moving to Eindhoven (a city about a half hour from Tilburg) picked me up, and we went to his gym to train together. When we were walking to the aerobics room where we were going to train, we heard someone ask us in Portuguese if we play capoeira. Turned out, it was a capoeira teacher and one of his friends who also trains. They ended up joining us and after we all practiced for about an hour, they invited us to train at their academy whenever we wanted. Then we walked around Eindhoven for a while. I like the architecture, everything doesn't look as industrialized and franchised as it does in America. I wanted to take some pictures, but it was too cold. Then we got lunch in some eclectic little restaurant. They gave us 4 open faced sandwiches that we split. Two were cheese (delicious again), one was ham, and one was deer (or as Morris likes to say, I ate bambi...). Deer was actually surprisingly good.
Today, I went to Culemborg with some of the capoeira people for an acrobatics workshop. Apparently there's nothing exciting to see in Culemborg. The workshop was pretty fun. I did a roundoff backhandspring on my left side for the first time in my life (probably because its the first time I've ever tried it), and I actually did a decent set on a roundoff backtuck which NEVER happens. And since the workshop was in a gymnastics gym, I got to play around on bars and beam for the first time in years. Also, I met a few more people and got invited to train in a few more cities. :)
Friday, January 28, 2011
First Week of Classes
I finally had to start my classes on Monday. First, I had Labor Economics at 8:45am. Until now, I've always refused to take classes before 10:30 if I could help it, but there's no way to work my schedule to not have some 8:45 classes. It doesn't seem like it will be the hardest class, but the teacher is pretty monotonous which is not great for such an early class. Although, he did start the class by saying "I don't think you need to attend my lectures in order to pass my exam," so we'll see how long I keep going to this class. Knowing me, I'll go every day anyways. On the plus side, this professor said we're stopping a month early because he'll be done with his lessons.
Next was International Business Research. It seems like it's going to take some work, but it will be a lot easier then taking Research Methods in Economics back at home since all we have to do here is basically write a proposal for a research paper and start it, but we don't actually have to find any data. Plus, we get to do that in groups. The best part of this class was that the teacher definitely sounded American. It was nice to hear someone without an accent for once. It makes it a lot easier to pay attention in class.
The last class of the day was Environmental Economics. I'm a little worried about this class, it seems like it's going to be pretty hard, and pretty boring. Plus, we have an assignment due in a week and a half that I need the book to do, but the book store is out of that book and might not get more copies until March. In this class, for the last 3 weeks, we're going to have Dr. Gerking as our professor. He's the Mathematical Economics professor at UCF, but he has been traveling to Tilburg to do research pretty frequently for I think the last 10 years. I've heard he's pretty hard, but I don't think it will be any harder then the first professor.
On Tuesday, the only class I had was Development Economics. Worst professor ever!! Ardavan had told me that this guy was "confused," and I had assumed he actually meant confusing, but he really did mean what he said. He spent the 1st 20 minutes trying to figure out how to work his projector, and then told us we would have to skip our break cuz he would need the extra time. But after another 40 minutes, he said that we could go on break, so he'll see us on Thursday. He accidentally let class out 30 minutes early, and he didn't seem to realize it. Plus, he was REALLY quiet. It was manageable when he had his microphone in, but at some point, he took it off and started playing it for about 10 minutes, and that was causing some annoying feedback sounds, plus we couldn't hear him again. Scotia asked him if he could use his microphone again, and he hadn't even realized he wasn't wearing it.
I had to go to Environmental and Development Econ again on Thursday, but nothing notable happened.
I dropped the Dutch class I was originally going to take because I could only get in to the Friday section, and since I have no other classes on Fridays, I want to be able to have long weekends to use to travel. Since Dutch wasn't going to count for anything, I figured I'd rather have my weekends free. Plus, to my surprise, every time I talked to someone from here and I mentioned that I would be taking a Dutch class, their only response was "Why waste your time? You speak English, you'll never need Dutch." So much for everyone hating Americans for not trying to learn their languages.
Some things about classes here that are different from back home:
1) Every class is 1 hour and 45 minutes which is longer then I'm used to, but every professor gives about a 15 minute break after the first 45 minutes.
2) A lot of classes switch professors half way through the semester. Sometimes it's because each professor has his own specialty, so they teach the parts they are more proficient in. Other times, I have no idea why they do it. But it kind of sucks when normally I would partially pick classes based on how good the professor is. In this case, I could love the first one and hate the second or vice versa, but I won't know till it's too late.
3) The schedules are really random. All the classes are the same number of credit hours, but for some of them, I go twice a week, some of them once a week, and some of them, you usually go once a week but theres like 4 or 5 times throughout the semester when you go twice a week. I even have one class where I have to go every Thursday and every other Monday. I don't get it.
4) Books are WAY cheaper. I think I have to pay about 50 euros per book. And those are NEW books! Granted, I don't think you can sell books back here at the end of the semester, so I'm losing some money there, but maybe I can sell them online.
Other stuff about my week:
We had mentor dinner on Tuesday in my apartment, so the mentors cooked some traditional Dutch meal. It was basically mashed potatoes with what they called cabbage in it but it looked a lot more like parsley, and some sausage on the side. Then we went to LG, the club all the exchange students go to on Tuesdays (but I had missed it last week cuz I was sick). The Tuesday parties are usually themed, and this week was "Welcome to Holland," so everyone was supposed to wear orange. The only thing I could find that wasn't a 60 euro soccer shirt was an orange construction vest, so that's what I wore. Plus, an I got an orange Beesie from Stefan. Here's what a Beesie looks like, its some kind of Holland World Cup mascot thing.
And here's me in my construction vest:
I still haven't taken many pictures of Tilburg, it's always too cold for me to want to take my hands out of my pockets. I'll probably post pictures of the city in like 2 months when it starts to warm up.
Next was International Business Research. It seems like it's going to take some work, but it will be a lot easier then taking Research Methods in Economics back at home since all we have to do here is basically write a proposal for a research paper and start it, but we don't actually have to find any data. Plus, we get to do that in groups. The best part of this class was that the teacher definitely sounded American. It was nice to hear someone without an accent for once. It makes it a lot easier to pay attention in class.
The last class of the day was Environmental Economics. I'm a little worried about this class, it seems like it's going to be pretty hard, and pretty boring. Plus, we have an assignment due in a week and a half that I need the book to do, but the book store is out of that book and might not get more copies until March. In this class, for the last 3 weeks, we're going to have Dr. Gerking as our professor. He's the Mathematical Economics professor at UCF, but he has been traveling to Tilburg to do research pretty frequently for I think the last 10 years. I've heard he's pretty hard, but I don't think it will be any harder then the first professor.
On Tuesday, the only class I had was Development Economics. Worst professor ever!! Ardavan had told me that this guy was "confused," and I had assumed he actually meant confusing, but he really did mean what he said. He spent the 1st 20 minutes trying to figure out how to work his projector, and then told us we would have to skip our break cuz he would need the extra time. But after another 40 minutes, he said that we could go on break, so he'll see us on Thursday. He accidentally let class out 30 minutes early, and he didn't seem to realize it. Plus, he was REALLY quiet. It was manageable when he had his microphone in, but at some point, he took it off and started playing it for about 10 minutes, and that was causing some annoying feedback sounds, plus we couldn't hear him again. Scotia asked him if he could use his microphone again, and he hadn't even realized he wasn't wearing it.
I had to go to Environmental and Development Econ again on Thursday, but nothing notable happened.
I dropped the Dutch class I was originally going to take because I could only get in to the Friday section, and since I have no other classes on Fridays, I want to be able to have long weekends to use to travel. Since Dutch wasn't going to count for anything, I figured I'd rather have my weekends free. Plus, to my surprise, every time I talked to someone from here and I mentioned that I would be taking a Dutch class, their only response was "Why waste your time? You speak English, you'll never need Dutch." So much for everyone hating Americans for not trying to learn their languages.
Some things about classes here that are different from back home:
1) Every class is 1 hour and 45 minutes which is longer then I'm used to, but every professor gives about a 15 minute break after the first 45 minutes.
2) A lot of classes switch professors half way through the semester. Sometimes it's because each professor has his own specialty, so they teach the parts they are more proficient in. Other times, I have no idea why they do it. But it kind of sucks when normally I would partially pick classes based on how good the professor is. In this case, I could love the first one and hate the second or vice versa, but I won't know till it's too late.
3) The schedules are really random. All the classes are the same number of credit hours, but for some of them, I go twice a week, some of them once a week, and some of them, you usually go once a week but theres like 4 or 5 times throughout the semester when you go twice a week. I even have one class where I have to go every Thursday and every other Monday. I don't get it.
4) Books are WAY cheaper. I think I have to pay about 50 euros per book. And those are NEW books! Granted, I don't think you can sell books back here at the end of the semester, so I'm losing some money there, but maybe I can sell them online.
Other stuff about my week:
We had mentor dinner on Tuesday in my apartment, so the mentors cooked some traditional Dutch meal. It was basically mashed potatoes with what they called cabbage in it but it looked a lot more like parsley, and some sausage on the side. Then we went to LG, the club all the exchange students go to on Tuesdays (but I had missed it last week cuz I was sick). The Tuesday parties are usually themed, and this week was "Welcome to Holland," so everyone was supposed to wear orange. The only thing I could find that wasn't a 60 euro soccer shirt was an orange construction vest, so that's what I wore. Plus, an I got an orange Beesie from Stefan. Here's what a Beesie looks like, its some kind of Holland World Cup mascot thing.
And here's me in my construction vest:
I still haven't taken many pictures of Tilburg, it's always too cold for me to want to take my hands out of my pockets. I'll probably post pictures of the city in like 2 months when it starts to warm up.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Last days of Welcome Week and ESN Camp
After the immigration session on Thursday, we were supposed to have a tour of the city and go to something called a Cantus, which is apparently basically a big festival where everyone just sings and drinks a lot of beer. I was taking a nap and my roommate forgot to wake me up, so I missed that, but I got to go to capoeira and go out with my Dutch roommates instead. I got really lost trying to find capoeira. This was the first time I tried to find anyplace by myself, and it was pretty difficult. There's only 3 or 4 turns, but the last turn is onto a dark street in a neighborhood where everything looks exactly the same, but I eventually found it. Then I went out and the bars here are crazy. They get really really packed, and they don't close until 4am. Plus, there's no cover charge anywhere, so we went into 3 different places (1 of them, we went to twice). And I mapped out how far I rode my bike that day, and it was about 9.5 miles!
Friday, we started "ESN Camp" which was basically just a weekend where we played some games, danced, hung out, and nearly everyone (not me) spent the whole time getting completely wasted. There were some competitions that were pretty fun though. We did something called a pubquiz which was basically just a trivia contest. But before we did it, people were talking about it, and it kept sounding like they were saying pop quiz to me, so I was a little nervous until I found out what it really was. We got 2nd place, but a few of the questions were pretty biased toward Americans, so any team without at least one American didn't stand much of a chance. And we learned the "ESN Dance" to this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f--2gDdOgNA&feature=related. That's some seriously good quality music right there. I think it's only rivaled by this other song that they used to teach us some Dutch a few days ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJv4Rs-euGM&feature=related
On Saturday, we had a morning workout. Everyone was saying we were going to do gymnastics, so I was pretty excited, but then I found out that what they call gymnastics here is really basically a cardio/aerobics class. Then we played some more games, some of which were pretty strange. Like for one, they hung jeans from the ceiling, and you had to see who could hold themselves up hanging on the jeans the longest before falling. And we played beer pong, which none of the Europeans knew how to play! For Dinner, we had what was apparently traditional Dutch food such as Croquets which is apparently a bunch of types of meat mixed together and then fried, and Frickendel which is basically a fried Sausage. So we had those along with fried cheese, fried balls of rice, something that was like a mini eggroll, and french fries. EVERYTHING was fried, and they put mayo on almost everything, especially the french fries. I felt pretty obese after that meal. Then we did a Bonte Avond which was where they split us up into groups based on our nationalities, and we had to make a play or presentation that represented our country in some way. Most were pretty funny and interesting, and I learned a lot about a bunch of the different countries.
Today, we had a "secret activity" which turned out to just be more alcoholism, which was pretty much expected. People did beer races for probably about 3 hours, and just got completely wasted. Then we went home, and I went to sleep for a while, but a bunch of people had another party! I don't know how they party so much. Maybe I'll be crazy about it too by the time I come home.
Friday, we started "ESN Camp" which was basically just a weekend where we played some games, danced, hung out, and nearly everyone (not me) spent the whole time getting completely wasted. There were some competitions that were pretty fun though. We did something called a pubquiz which was basically just a trivia contest. But before we did it, people were talking about it, and it kept sounding like they were saying pop quiz to me, so I was a little nervous until I found out what it really was. We got 2nd place, but a few of the questions were pretty biased toward Americans, so any team without at least one American didn't stand much of a chance. And we learned the "ESN Dance" to this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f--2gDdOgNA&feature=related. That's some seriously good quality music right there. I think it's only rivaled by this other song that they used to teach us some Dutch a few days ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJv4Rs-euGM&feature=related
On Saturday, we had a morning workout. Everyone was saying we were going to do gymnastics, so I was pretty excited, but then I found out that what they call gymnastics here is really basically a cardio/aerobics class. Then we played some more games, some of which were pretty strange. Like for one, they hung jeans from the ceiling, and you had to see who could hold themselves up hanging on the jeans the longest before falling. And we played beer pong, which none of the Europeans knew how to play! For Dinner, we had what was apparently traditional Dutch food such as Croquets which is apparently a bunch of types of meat mixed together and then fried, and Frickendel which is basically a fried Sausage. So we had those along with fried cheese, fried balls of rice, something that was like a mini eggroll, and french fries. EVERYTHING was fried, and they put mayo on almost everything, especially the french fries. I felt pretty obese after that meal. Then we did a Bonte Avond which was where they split us up into groups based on our nationalities, and we had to make a play or presentation that represented our country in some way. Most were pretty funny and interesting, and I learned a lot about a bunch of the different countries.
Today, we had a "secret activity" which turned out to just be more alcoholism, which was pretty much expected. People did beer races for probably about 3 hours, and just got completely wasted. Then we went home, and I went to sleep for a while, but a bunch of people had another party! I don't know how they party so much. Maybe I'll be crazy about it too by the time I come home.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Sports, sports, and more sports!!
I got to go to capoeira yesterday!! I was a little worried about getting lost in a foreign country when I still don't have a phone, so I emailed the group here and asked if there would be anyone coming from nearby who I could ride my bike with, but one of the students offered to pick me up and drive me instead which was great since it's always so cold here! The students were really friendly and the teacher was pretty good. He said I'm welcome to come back any time. Unfortunately, they only have classes on T/Th, and those are the nights we almost always have filled with social activities for the exchange students, but I'm definitely going to try to make it to class whenever I can. I miss CBP though! I was really out of breath, but more because of the cold then because the class was that hard.
Today, we went to the Sports Center for the first time. It's REALLY close to my apartment, so I'll probably be there all the time! We started the night with basically a brief cardio class, and it was pretty funny watching everyone, but I'm sure I looked just as silly. Then we got to play some traditional Dutch games which were hilarious. For the first one, there was a giant circular material that all 8 of us in my group had to stand inside so we were standing on the bottom of it and holding the top over our heads kind of like we were in a hamster wheel. Then we had to walk in it together which was actually a lot harder then it sounds. The next one was like a potato sack race, but with 2 people per sack, and the last one I did was basically a three legged race, but instead of tying people's feet together, we were wearing wooden clogs and the inside ones were glued to a board so you had to move in unison. Unfortunately, when I went to get a drink, I missed what was probably the best game of them all - nail pooping. Apparently, it's where you tie a string around your waist with a nail hanging from the back, and stand over a bottle. Then you try to squat down and lower the nail into the bottle, and apparently it's really difficult but even more hilarious.
They had a few sport clubs represented, so I talked to the guy in charge of field hockey about joining a team, but a little while later, I found out that they're starting an ice hockey club too!! It's being started by a couple girls who have only played since October, and they don't really have any equipment yet other then sticks and rental skates, so theyre mostly just skating around passing pucks, but I'm excited to join in and maybe actually teach them something! There's also a jiu jitsu class that I want to try, and gymnastics wasn't represented there, but the pamphlet they gave us says they have a club, so I'm going to try that too!
Other then that, not too much has happened. We registered for classes, and some of mine conflict somtimes, so I need to figure out if there's anything I can do about that, but apparently that just happens here sometimes, and you just need to pick one to go to and skip the other. And right now, my only Friday class is the Dutch for International Students class which is optional, so I might drop it because that would restrict me to traveling only on Sat/Sun instead of being able to leave Thursday night and get back Sunday night.
Today, we went to the Sports Center for the first time. It's REALLY close to my apartment, so I'll probably be there all the time! We started the night with basically a brief cardio class, and it was pretty funny watching everyone, but I'm sure I looked just as silly. Then we got to play some traditional Dutch games which were hilarious. For the first one, there was a giant circular material that all 8 of us in my group had to stand inside so we were standing on the bottom of it and holding the top over our heads kind of like we were in a hamster wheel. Then we had to walk in it together which was actually a lot harder then it sounds. The next one was like a potato sack race, but with 2 people per sack, and the last one I did was basically a three legged race, but instead of tying people's feet together, we were wearing wooden clogs and the inside ones were glued to a board so you had to move in unison. Unfortunately, when I went to get a drink, I missed what was probably the best game of them all - nail pooping. Apparently, it's where you tie a string around your waist with a nail hanging from the back, and stand over a bottle. Then you try to squat down and lower the nail into the bottle, and apparently it's really difficult but even more hilarious.
They had a few sport clubs represented, so I talked to the guy in charge of field hockey about joining a team, but a little while later, I found out that they're starting an ice hockey club too!! It's being started by a couple girls who have only played since October, and they don't really have any equipment yet other then sticks and rental skates, so theyre mostly just skating around passing pucks, but I'm excited to join in and maybe actually teach them something! There's also a jiu jitsu class that I want to try, and gymnastics wasn't represented there, but the pamphlet they gave us says they have a club, so I'm going to try that too!
Other then that, not too much has happened. We registered for classes, and some of mine conflict somtimes, so I need to figure out if there's anything I can do about that, but apparently that just happens here sometimes, and you just need to pick one to go to and skip the other. And right now, my only Friday class is the Dutch for International Students class which is optional, so I might drop it because that would restrict me to traveling only on Sat/Sun instead of being able to leave Thursday night and get back Sunday night.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Roomies & Campus Tour
A couple people have asked me about my roommates, so here it goes. It's kind of an odd set up. I originally thought that I would have an apartment with 4 other people where I would have my own bedroom but I would share a bathroom, living room, and kitchen with them. It turns out, we do have our own rooms, but we actually share everything else with the whole floor which is about 15 people in total.
Almost everyone is from someplace different. We have people from Australia, Portugal, Canada, the Philippines (I think... that guy never really talks, but that's what I heard), Finland, right here in the Netherlands, etc. Morris, Jill, and I didn't mean to all sign up to live in the same place, but it turns out we did. They're the other two students from UCF. We thought we were going to be in the same building on different floors, but we're actually not only on the same floor, but in the same hallway too.
We all get along well. Tonight, the guy from Portugal who actually lives here year-round and is a regular student at the university decided he would cook dinner for all of us so we could eat together. The living areas have been pretty dirty since we got here, but we hang out and talk or watch tv together in there anyways.
Also, today was the first day of the welcome week. We had to watch some boring presentations, but then we got in our "mentor groups" which are groups of about 15 exchange students with 3 "mentor buddies" who are students at the University. It's supposed to be a smaller group that you get to know better, and we all have dinner together once a week. We went on a tour of the campus with our mentor groups. It's a pretty small campus, which is kind of nice, but EVERYTHING is grey. Every single building. And it doesn't help that with the weather here, the sky is always grey too. It's a little depressing, and that also makes it hard to distinguish between buildings. They have different architecture, but since I don't know the campus well yet, they all look pretty much the same. There isn't a lot of art or plants, but there are a couple kind of cool trees and some really random statues including one of some naked girl. I really need to start remembering to take pictures.
Almost everyone is from someplace different. We have people from Australia, Portugal, Canada, the Philippines (I think... that guy never really talks, but that's what I heard), Finland, right here in the Netherlands, etc. Morris, Jill, and I didn't mean to all sign up to live in the same place, but it turns out we did. They're the other two students from UCF. We thought we were going to be in the same building on different floors, but we're actually not only on the same floor, but in the same hallway too.
We all get along well. Tonight, the guy from Portugal who actually lives here year-round and is a regular student at the university decided he would cook dinner for all of us so we could eat together. The living areas have been pretty dirty since we got here, but we hang out and talk or watch tv together in there anyways.
Also, today was the first day of the welcome week. We had to watch some boring presentations, but then we got in our "mentor groups" which are groups of about 15 exchange students with 3 "mentor buddies" who are students at the University. It's supposed to be a smaller group that you get to know better, and we all have dinner together once a week. We went on a tour of the campus with our mentor groups. It's a pretty small campus, which is kind of nice, but EVERYTHING is grey. Every single building. And it doesn't help that with the weather here, the sky is always grey too. It's a little depressing, and that also makes it hard to distinguish between buildings. They have different architecture, but since I don't know the campus well yet, they all look pretty much the same. There isn't a lot of art or plants, but there are a couple kind of cool trees and some really random statues including one of some naked girl. I really need to start remembering to take pictures.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
First full day in Tilburg
It seems like everyone here but me drinks a LOT. The day was pretty much devoted to hanging out at some bar for "Welcome Drinks." We took a bus over to it at 3 (they start early!) and were just told we could hang out however long we wanted and go back to the apartments whenever we were ready. A few people couldn't believe I didn't want to drink because as I was told on a couple occasions, "all the Americans who come to Holland just come to drink and smoke." When we were ready to go, Morris, some Norwegian guy named Martin and I talked to one of the mentors, and she told us to just take the 2, 3, or 4 bus back to Conservatoriamlaan (no clue how to spell that...), but she forgot to tell us which direction we needed to take it. Needless to say, we walked to a farther bus stop then the really needed to and then took it in the wrong direction and had to sit on the bus as it went all the way to the end of its route and then back in the other direction. Oh well, live and learn. At least we got to see a little more of the city in the process
Other than a few restaurants and bars, EVERYTHING closes on Sundays. Luckily we bought food yesterday, but a bunch of us really need to go shopping for a few things, and there is absolutely nowhere that is open on Sundays. I miss 24/7 Walmarts and restaurants!
A couple hours later, we went to another building where a bunch of people were hanging out getting to know each other. Everyone here is from all over the world, it's pretty cool. I even met 4 or 5 Brazilians, so hopefully I can learn some more Portuguese while I'm here. They thought it was pretty cool that I wanted to learn, and it turns out that 2 of them live on the floor right above mine. I have probably met at least 40 or 50 people already, but I think I only remember like 10 people's names. This is going to be difficult since there are about 150 of us, and a lot of the names are really really hard to even pronounce, let alone remember. Also, I've spent so much time talking to foreign people that when I finally met a few other Americans, it felt weird to hear people speaking without accents!
Other than a few restaurants and bars, EVERYTHING closes on Sundays. Luckily we bought food yesterday, but a bunch of us really need to go shopping for a few things, and there is absolutely nowhere that is open on Sundays. I miss 24/7 Walmarts and restaurants!
A couple hours later, we went to another building where a bunch of people were hanging out getting to know each other. Everyone here is from all over the world, it's pretty cool. I even met 4 or 5 Brazilians, so hopefully I can learn some more Portuguese while I'm here. They thought it was pretty cool that I wanted to learn, and it turns out that 2 of them live on the floor right above mine. I have probably met at least 40 or 50 people already, but I think I only remember like 10 people's names. This is going to be difficult since there are about 150 of us, and a lot of the names are really really hard to even pronounce, let alone remember. Also, I've spent so much time talking to foreign people that when I finally met a few other Americans, it felt weird to hear people speaking without accents!
Saturday, January 15, 2011
I made it!
After a LONG day, I'm at my apartment in Tilburg, where my school is. The flight from Miami to London was about 8 hours. I sat next to a old British couple on the plane, and they were nice, but I could barely understand a word they said! We were supposed to have an hour between flights, but by the time I got off the plane, there was only about 15 minutes left before the gates closed for the connection flight, so we didn't make it. We had to wait around for another hour and a half to get on the next one.
Thank god when we got off in Amsterdam, Ardavan (a Tilburg University student who studied at UCF last semester) was waiting at the airport for us, so he escorted us to the train station and to the school. Everyone said we wouldn't have any trouble getting from the airport to the Tilburg train station, but without him, I'm pretty sure we would have ended up in the wrong country or something.
Other then that, we just did basic welcoming things with housing, getting bikes, etc, and I went to the grocery store with my floor-mates. I'm really tired and jet lagged, and a little sick. I'm mostly moved into my room. It's the biggest room I've ever had! But there's practically no furniture, so I haven't figured out how to organize my stuff yet. I'll post pictures when it's a little neater.
On the plus side, its not nearly as cold as I expected it to be!! I could walk around in a long sleeved shirt and a sweater today and be fine! But apparently it was freezing a couple weeks ago, and it's just warmer than usual right now.
On the plus side, its not nearly as cold as I expected it to be!! I could walk around in a long sleeved shirt and a sweater today and be fine! But apparently it was freezing a couple weeks ago, and it's just warmer than usual right now.
I miss you all already!!
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
2 more days!
I figured writing a blog would be the easiest way to update everyone back home about what and how I'm doing in Europe. I've always sucked at keeping a diary when I've tried, so hopefully this attempt at record-keeping goes a little better, but we'll see. If I don't write for a long time, please remind me to!
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