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!