Days 22- 25

This week has been quite hectic and full of classes and other fun stuff. Monday I had my first ever Dutch language course. It is the beginner level, so I thought it would be fairly easy, but NO. I get to class and our professor, Rachel (pronounced Rah-Shell) starts jabbering away in Dutch, and only Dutch. That's right, no English whatsoever. Sort of intimidating, since I only understood about 5% of what she said during the 3 hours of class. But Rachel is a sweet teacher and is extremely helpful. She constantly tells us to stop her when we are puzzled, which I do about every 8 minutes. Today (I have the class Mondays and Thursdays) it was better because she slowed down a bit with the rapid Dutch! I am the only American student in a class of about twenty students. There are kids from Germany, Bulgaria, China, Estonia, Turkey, and other places in this class. It is nice because we are all international students whose primary language is not Dutch, so we can all help each other out. The German kids are quite good at Dutch since German and Dutch are quite similar. I'm constantly bugging those kids to help me. There is this one Chinese kid named Shi Xin (I think) who sat next to me today and he wouldn't stop muttering to himself, in Dutch, English AND Chinese! He's a goofy kid, but it got to be a bit much after 3 hours of it. I am looking forward to learning more Dutch though!

On tuesday some kids and myself found a delicious hamburger joint close to my dorm called Burgermeester. I've tried a few burgers here and none of them can compare to the ones in the U.S.A. But this place was delicious!! They even had groovy spinach burgers with goat cheese for the vegetarians. I just got the original but boy was it yummy!delicious, American-sized cheeseburger. It was especially delicious and warm because it was so darn cold and rainy outside. It was worth it to drive in the pouring rain to get a good burger.

The outside of one of the University buildings.

Yesterday (Wednesday) I got to go to an ancient history museum with my Colour and Culture class. We saw lots of Egyptian runes and Greek statues. A cool way to spend my Wednesday morning. That afternoon, a few of us went to a cool café called Hill Street Blues after Dutch Policy. If you sat downstairs there are these coveted seats right by the canal. Well, not by the canal but actually on it. It was a great way to unwind after a long day of classes.

The view from my chair. I could have literally stepped out of my chair and walked/jumped directly into the canal. That would've been gross though...

I wish I had more exciting things to write about now. Luckily, I am going to Madrid this weekend for a little vacation! I am so excited. It will be warm and sunny (hopefully) weather, as opposed to the frigid rain and wind here in A-Dam. I can also speak Spanish there, which I am much better at than Dutch. I will write all about it after the weekend.

I miss: everyone at home and in L.A.
I love: sunny days.