Week 2

As my 2nd week here is coming to an end, I can’t help but wonder where the time has gone. Its pretty amazing how fast these 2 weeks have gone by, but at the same time, its starting to feel like I’ve been here forever.

The past week has been fairly busy. The international student group here organizes an “introduction week” for all of the international students, which is full of all kinds of activities and gives us a chance to meet a whole bunch of other international students. It’s been a lot of fun, but I am completely exhausted right now. There have been a lot of parties, a lot of late nights and a whole bunch of bruises that seem to have appeared out of nowhere. I also finally bought a bike, which makes getting around the city so much easier. It’s pinkish-purplish and turquoise and very pretty, and my butt is very sore from all of this riding! The amount of bikes here is pretty amazing and the traffic that they cause is a little overwhelming….it actually kind of scares me to have to drive through the city center sometimes because there are bikes, pedestrians, cars, buses, taxis and pigeons coming at you from all directions! But I’m still alive and I think it’ll just take a little while to become a bit more comfortable with it. I’ve also (kind of) acquired the skill of riding a bike drunk (Mum you can ignore this part). I’ve managed it a few times, except that I had a little bit of a wipeout last night, but I’m still alive to tell the tale.

I guess I should also mention that classes have started. I’ve decided that my least favorite part of being an international student is the fact that I actually have to study. It’s been incredibly frustrating because the international office (the place where they set up all of my classes, etc) has been extremely unhelpful. It’s kind of been like jumping through hoops to get my classes in order. I had signed up to get a student number last Wednesday and was told that it would take a day or 2 and then I’d be able to register for my courses. Of course, the number wasn’t available until Tuesday and without it, I had no idea where or when any of my classes were. I had to spend a chunk of time deciphering a Dutch website in order to figure out the timetables which was a lot of fun (please try and notice the sarcasm here). I went to my first class on Tuesday, but for some reason, the teacher never showed up, so I guess my first actually class was yesterday. It was a psychology class and was horribly boring. Its kind of unfortunate that the university offers so few psychology courses in English. Their semester system is also somewhat different. Instead of having on semester that goes from Sept-Dec, like it is at home, that semester is split into blocks. So I have some classes that fall in the first block, so Sept-Oct, and others that are Nov-Dec, which means that the class that I’m going to be taking this block is basically the same workload as a course at home, except only 7 weeks long. Even though I’m only aiming for a passing grade, the amount of reading I’m going to have to do is somewhat overwhelming!

Week 1

After almost a week in the Netherlands, I'm finally starting to write in this thing, so here goes. I arrived in Amsterdam on Friday morning after a sleepless, but mostly painless flight. From the airport, I took a shuttle/taxi-thing that was shared with a very strange and quite scary Dutch family and after a 2 1/2 hour drive, I was dropped off in front of my student-house. I'm living in a building in the south of the city, which is about a 15 minute bike ride into the center. The area I'm in is very pretty, although my building itself is nothing entirely special. When I first walked into my room, it kind of resembled a jail cell because it is just teeny-tiny and I had only a bed, a desk, a lamp and a locker for my clothes. But I've managed to get more storage units over the past few days and have made my room a bit cozier. I’m also hoping to get to a 2nd hand furniture store around here to pick up a few things to liven this place up a bit.

The first few days were pretty tough...there really weren't that many people living here and I was feeling homesick and lonely and too shy to start talking to people. It also didn't really help that there was very little to do since classes hadn’t started yet. But the past few days have been pretty good. The university had an orientation for its international students on Wednesday and Thursday and that’s given me the chance to meet other students from all over the world…its pretty amazing how many different nationalities there are here!

I’ve also learned that the Dutch are really an interesting breed of people. For starters, the language is somewhat overwhelming and it really does sound like people have a throat infection when they speak because there are so many guttural sounds. I haven’t picked up very much, other than please, thank you and hello. But I think I might sign up for a ‘survival Dutch course’ so that I can get a crash course in the basics, even though everyone speaks English. Also, everyone here rides a bike. And if they don’t ride a bike, they ride on someone else’s. I’ve had the chance to experience this a few times, because I haven’t bought a bike yet. The first time I got on the back of someone else’s bike I was pretty unsure, but its actually a lot of fun. I even got the chance to ride a bike with someone on the back, after a slight mishap involving a borrowed bike and a lost bike lock key and I was better at it than I would have anticipated.

Of course, the Dutch weather is also worth mentioning. I was very excited to get here and have 2 really warm and sunny days. But of course, since this is Holland, it didn’t last. Its been rainy, damp and windy these past few days, which I feel is a proper introduction to what I’m going to be experiencing for the next few months. It’ll take some getting used to, but I’m sure I’ll get over it.

I think that about sums it all up for now. Basically, I’m having a lot of fun and am really loving the liveliness of this city! Keep checking this for updates because I’m going to try to write here every few days or so and I’m not really doing it for my own benefit!