Groeten from Utrecht 2012: February 2012

Sunday, 26 February 2012

7) Forget beer, have some Chocomel!

Yes cheese, bread, stroopwafels, beer, liquorice... these are all great foods of the Netherlands but a perhaps less known "dutch thing" is chocomel!!! Chocomel a chocolate milk. You can buy it in the grocery store in juice boxes and juice cartons, from vending machines, in Albert Heijn To Go stores, but it is best warmed up and served in a bright yellow chocomel cup. Similarly to coffee is comes with a little biscuit or candy when you order it and also comes with whipped cream. I have had only one chocomel in a bright yellow cup but chocolate milk is very popular here and can be found everywhere.
Here now you can drool....

The original Chocomel

Another amazing hot chocolate

me enjoying that other hot chocolate

Just for fun... pouring my cereal and the biggest bran flake I have ever seen popped out!

I will be adding photos of my pimped bike soon!
Doei for now!
Xoxo

6) Lombok and the market

On saturday I went to Lombok which is the Turkish area of Utrecht. I wouldn't want to go here during the night but during a saturday afternoon with all the stores open and the streets bustling it was great. I went with my flatmates Kate (who is the vegetarian) and we both fell in love with Lombok! she loved it for all the great fresh produce and products available. I like that also but I also loved it because it felt a little but like Camden to me which is one of my favourite places in London. The bakeries here were also something that added to my infatuation with the place. Just looking at all the fresh food! I will put lots of photos up.

Later in the afternoon I met up with some other friends and we went to the Utrecht centraal market which happens every saturday. Ok now I thought I had seen a lot of cheese in my life time but no, I was wrong. On Saturday I saw the most amazing cheeses and varieties! I think in the market there were 5 cheese stands and all of them filled with every kind of cheese. of course the most popular was Gouda( actually pronounced "whooda"). Not only was cheese popular but also STROOPWAFELS. They had a stand of fresh stroopwafels being made. You could smell it from a mile away it was so good. The fish was also very good, lots of variety and all very fresh. I guess I should also mention the flowers, there was a whole separate market for the flowers. It is only february but already there are so many beautiful assortments. For 5euros you can get 30 roses!!!!! All in all the market was a great experience and I will be back!

Lombok

Bakery #1

Kates almond apple bun thing = delicous

Fresh fresh fresh!

Bakery #2

The flower market

Stoopwafel suckers!

Stroopwafels being made.

some Gouda

I was hungry...

-Xoxo

5) The flatmates...

First things first, the term "flatmates". When I first arrived I kept saying roommates but would get really strange looks all the time... the term roommates I think in Canada can be used more loosely. You may be living in the same house as others and not in the same room as them but still can call them a roommate and they will know what you are talking about. Here that is not the case, when you say roommate you really mean having someone else in your room with you... So when I said I had 7 other roommates and some of them being guys I am sure the confused people thought it was some big slumber party or something. I am trained now to say flatmates, and I am happy to report I do not get anymore confused or slightly disgusted looks.
This week has been yet another busy one, and I have found out that even if I live with 7 other people you hardly see any of them. It can get a bit lonely eating meals by yourself and so I do my best to avoid it. I made plans to make dinner with one of my flatmates last wednesday. She is from Spain and is used to eating dinner around 9 or 10pm so we had to compromise as I prefer to eat around 7... 7:30 we went to the store and were eating at 8:30. It is actually really interesting to me to see when everyone eats and what they eat. Out of the diverse group living in 227, pasta seems to be the most popular dish. No one has eaten anything exciting really. My english flatmates I have seen eat fish,chips and peas. The canadian makes the best vegetarian dishes with lots of different spices. The Fin has ordered chinese. Everyone else eats pasta or salad. I am going to keep an eye out for some interesting dishes!
So from living on my own I have learned that I really enjoy company, making food for other people or sharing it with other people. So what is the best option for someone like me? having dinner parties of course! I guess I take after my mom? hehe. So a couple weeks ago I invited people over to make pizza and since that it has been a weekly thing to make a meal and share. Every week is going to be at someone else's flat and they will make the meal and will just keep going. In on this dinner group is a few aussies, a few canadians, a swede, and the occasional drop-ins who are other people roommates or whoever wants to come. First week was pizza, last week was curry, this week will be chill. Dinner night has quickly become my favourite night of the week!
-Xoxo

Tuesday, 21 February 2012

4) I am really afraid of clowns.

Now I have caught up with my blogging and will not get that far behind again! will try and update every week from now on :)

Last weekend (18th,19th) I got to go to Maastricht in the very south of The Netherlands. You can walk to Belgium from here if you want. On Saturday I took a train with a few other girls who I have met here and we headed to Maastricht to celebrate Carnival! It is similar to Mardi Gras as well as the celebrations that happen in Brazil. It is Catholic in its roots and this why it is in the south of The Netherlands( below the rivers) because above them of course in history was Protestant. Now I think it is just a big excuse to dress up and party. The best way for me to describe it would be you know in the Disney film "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" when there is the big celebration scene? well it is a mixture of that, Halloween and the streets after the Vancouver Canucks had won a game during play offs last year ( note I said "won" a game). It was crazy to see all ages of people dressed in the most ridiculous costumes singing and laughing and drinking together. That is one thing I have noticed is that the view of alcohol here is very liberal and kids really have no choice but to be exposed to it because it is just such a big part of the culture. I saw some very neat costumes. It seems like people spend a lot of time and money on their costumes, and again it is for all ages. With our short amount of time there we managed to walk around the main city centre of Maastricht and really experience Carnival. The music is one thing I will never forget! Very upbeat. One reason I will never forget it is because on Sunday morning at 9am this music started blaring! Again, back to my point that the dutch have super powers... I just really don't understand how they do it. We were not up late at all on saturday night compared to most people and for me I was not taking part in the drinking that so many were so how they can do Carnaval for three whole days with very little sleep amazes me. We were there for the first day of it, it did not officially start until the Sunday and lasts until the 21st. I was exhausted after one day- and I would say the biggest parties we saw were the people aged 50-70. It is a shame but there really is no way for me to really show you what Carnival is like from photos but maybe a youtube clip will do.

The sunday we got to see the parade and so many more costumes. Had lots of fun just people watching! I felt underdressed in my bright yellow, red and green scarf( carnival colours) and red mask but I was glad I had something to show spirit. You could wear whatever you wanted and it would have worked. It was the strangest feeling getting back on the train with all the costume people and arriving to quiet Utrecht. I felt as though I had just visited some wacky world- which in a sense I had.

Doei for now,

The Dom tower of Maastricht is red!

My lunch... sugar donut sort of thing.

A whole beer garden set up as a part of a costume set! Lederhosen and everything.

I did say all ages and the whole family is included...

My friend Sarah and I in Carnival decode... look at right corner... creeper lederhosen.

This is pre-maddness

The Parade!

-Xoxo

1, 2, 3 and GO!

My last blog entry before today was on February 5th... a lot has happened since then but I will share the important things. I am going to combine week 2 and 3 to keep things simple!

Week 2, this was crazy. I really don't think I slept. I felt like and still feel like I have been thrown into a race of some sort which has turned into seeing if I can handle the dutch lifestyle. For this second week dad had gone back to Canada and it was the ESN social week. ESN stands for Erasmus Student Network and they organize loads of events for us. Starting on the Monday we had a dinner and a pub quiz. Tuesday was pool and free drinks then a nightclub. Wednesday was when I got to pimp my bike and make it really ugly so no one would want to steal it then we had a dinner. Finally thursday was a pub-crawl. Along with this social week my classes had started, I was meeting lots of people, trying to not kill myself riding my bike, replying to emails from home and getting acquainted with the area so I didn't get lost. Looking back I am very proud of myself for surviving that week but it makes sense now why I am sick...

To clarify what I mean by the Dutch lifestyle... they are invincible with super powers. They have to be that is my only conclusion! Students here will start their nights by having dinner, hanging out then won't go out to clubs until after 12... the clubs are open till 4:30-5AM! Then next day they will have class and look like they had the best sleep and stepped out of a fashion magazine. And this happens night after night. No kidding dutch people consume the second highest amount of koffie(coffee) a day in Europe after Scandinavia ( hey mom you will like it here). I love it though, the dutch are very full of life it seems and they must use as much of the day up as they can.

The weekend of the 11th, and 12th I was so lucky to have my friend from home visit! Erika is working in the north of france so getting to Utrecht was not so difficult. We met in Amsterdam and shopped, had dinner then came back to Utrecht. Amsterdam was very cold! all the canals were frozen and people were skating on them. In the Netherlands they love to skate, and this is proven with their speed skaters in the olympics. There is an 11 city tour in Friesland called the Elfstedentocht where people skate 200km on the canals and rivers. Unfortunately it was not frozen enough in all the areas so this match did not happen but I still saw lots of skaters in Amsterdam!

Sunday was just a relaxing day to walk around the city but it is hard to do tourist things on Sundays here because nothing is open on Sundays.

Then we get into last week and that was when my classes started to pick up a bit. I am taking The Netherlands and the World and Dutch Present Day Society. NL and the world has been a bit slow but is starting to pick up. DPDS is very interesting! I love this class. So far we have discussed stereotypes connected to The Netherlands as well as the countries we come from, makes you think about why there are stereotypes and why and how categorize so much. Now we are starting to discuss dutch politics... will talk more about my classes later!

The other events from last week were an international kitchen where I took tortilla roll-ups, a dutch buddy event where I got to meet my dutch buddy, a pizza making night, a couple nights we went out and last week was also a very unlucky week for me! The story goes... Monday I was out and about Utrecht with my friend Isabella. We had just been shopping and then I step out of a store and a bird (pardon my language) shit on me! then I move and got shit on again. Thankfully it was just my jacket and not my hair! So now you would think I would have double luck right?... well that night I was at an event and lost one of my keys to my bike lock( I have two locks). So we were out kinda far from where I live and I had a spare back in my room but had no way of getting back to IBB so got on the back of a friends bike. I sat down and noticed the bike felt funny, so as it got going I was mid sentence saying "this feels a bit strange and I may fall so if you hear" CRACK! yea then I fell on my bottom. I really hope that I am just saving up the luck because that hurt! and that bike key has yet to turn up...

Finally about last week... The Dutch have accepted me into their country! got my visa all done and now I have a very beautiful sticker in my passport.

This is both proving it is cold and also proving that you need to really lock up your bike well!

The best hot chocolate you will ever have.

Utrecht city centre

Amsterdam, people skating on the canals!

See I am going to school...

That is ice!

Utrecht Dom tower at night!

-XoXo

2) Home away from home

Hej again!
Sorry took a long time to get back to this... been a busy couple weeks getting settled and "studying" hehe. I am sick with a bad cold right now and the Dutch people seem to be invincible with no cold medication or at least very minimal compared to what I was brought up with so it's sleep and fruit smoothies for me. You would think that being lazy all day I would have gotten around to writing on my blog earlier than 10pm, ahwell. I will post three times today as I will do a recap of the last 2 weeks in the separate events. This one being the first of them will be about my home away from home... Ina-Boudier Bakkerlaan! I do not have a photo of the outside, should have though of that but will post one later in the term. Ina-Boudier Bakkerlaan better known here as IBB is the student housing complex I live in. IBB is actually a street name but the entire street is basically just student living. I live with seven other people in a "flat" as I have started calling it or in canadian terms... apartment. Our flat is on the 16th (technically 17th) floor and yes there are stairs but it is a long way up, the lift is really appreciated on grocery day. It is quite a mix of people I live with two people from Spain, a girl from Finland, girl from England, a girl from Czech, a guy from Slovak and a fellow Vancouverite. So far so good! really nice people. We share a washroom and the kitchen. The washroom has one toilet and two showers, and a mini laundry room( washer included!). The kitchen has two in north american standards, beer size fridges... ok so I am used to a double door stainless steel fridge for four people, this two beer size fridges for eight people has taken some getting used to. There is a mini flat screen in the kitchen which is nice to watch CNN or BBC to actually know whats happening in the world. My room is really nice now that is is sort-of decorated, thanks to my dad! The view is of the Stadium where FC Utrecht plays so last sunday I could hear the game happening with all the cheering and chants, pretty neat! To get to the city centre where my classes are it is about 10 minutes give or take depending on bike traffic. Yes you may be laughing but this is true! certain times of the day mean more pedestrians to hit, cars to be hit by or other bikes to get in your way. Now that the weather has warmed up the roads are not as slippery and that has helped with the bike riding. Finally about where I am living... it is close to two grocery stores which his good! I will really appreciate having a car to get groceries from now on. No wonder we have such a small about of space in the fridge, you never really have enough groceries to fill your section up because when you want to buy something you really have to think about if you want to carry it on your bike or not. The best grocery store is Albert Heijn!