Groeten from Utrecht 2012: 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!