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. :)
Sunday, January 30, 2011
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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