Groeten from Utrecht 2012: 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.