Days 100-101: let it sneeuw!

Greetings from the white city of Amsterdam! Why is it white, do you ask? Well, maybe it's because we got about two inches of snow yesterday!! It was an absolutely stellar day in the snow. Right after I got out of class at noon it started to flurry. Then it kept snowing until around midnight. TWELVE hours of luscious snow! It automatically got me in the mood for Christmas. The minute there's snow, my mind first goes to Christmas. My day yesterday was sadly unproductive due to being overexcited, enthusiastic, and rambunctious about the snow. I just running around my room and my friend's room screaming "IT'S SNOWING!!!!! IT'S ALMOST CHRISTMAS!!! I LOVE SNOW AND CHRISTMAS!!!" I feel bad for everyone who had to listen to me frolick about and act like a nincompoop.
Even though there was a bit of snow over the weekend, it was a. only flurries, b. didn't stick through the night, aside from a few crystals, c. I didn't get to see it. Therefore I refuse to acknowledge any of those as the first "real" snow. Instead, I am going to just say that yesterday was the first real day of snow.
my snow-covered courtyard, view from my window
besneeuwde fiets=snowy bike

The day was jam-packed with relaxation, Christmas tunes, enjoying each other's company, and enjoying the beautiful snowfall. That night I also took a glorious walk over to Plantage in the snow. I joined some lovely dwellers there for stoopwafel s'mores, hot chocolate, brownies, and Love Actually. It was a glorious holiday celebration.
Unfortunately these photos don't give justice to just how stunningly quiet and beautiful the snow and night were.

Yesterday was another monumental day: It was my 100th day in Amsterdam. SO weird, right?? I've been here for one hundred days already. So freaky! As of today also, I only have 17 more days here- less than three weeks before I leave the city and return back to the United States. It's so strange to think that I've been here for a pretty long time. While it sometimes feels like I've been here for ages, it also feels like I just got started here, and that I have so much more to accomplish in the Netherlands. So many things left to do, so little time!

Since the snow was the most exciting thing that's happened, and it truly made me grin from ear to ear for about twenty-four hours straight (I just had a presentation for my Islamic Law class and was rambling and being awkward in my usual terrible-at-public-speaking-way, but I'm still happy as a clam), I don't really have anything else as riveting happening today, aside from frolicking through the sneeuw (NOTE: I have been spelling that word wrong: this is the correct way) on my way to Crea Café to do miscellaneous work. yippee.

FUN FACT: it is quite dangerous to fietsen (bike) in the snow. I've already talked to friends whose bikes have skidded out, resulting in a not-so-glamorous face plant.

FUN FACT: Even the Dutch fall off their bikes in the snow!

Okey dokey then, I'm off to do work today- tot ziens!

Days 97-99

Happy Holidays Everyone!
Since Thanksgiving is officially over, it's now time to start getting into the Christmas spirit. Time for christmas cookies, eggnog, gingerbread houses, christmas lights, the christmas tree, carols, wreaths, snow, a crackling fire.....I could go on and on and on...
ps. I am listening to Christmas tunes as I write this, just to get into the holiday mood.

So much has happened in this weekend, and only so much space to write it all! Once again, I have thought of more exciting and delightful events that have occurred over the past few weeks that I have failed to mention in previous entries. Again, my apologies for backtracking and the lack of consistency. But hey, I guess this blog somewhat can define a bit of who I am as a person: random, disorganized, goofy, sometimes irrelevant, full of EXCITEMENT!

Anywho...

I'll start with this past weekend, which happened to be Thanksgiving weekend.
Thursday afternoon, the nifty-ily fabulous Sinclair Post Miller (otherwise known as Clair to the Baltimore/GFS homies) flew in from Copenhagen, Denmark to stay with me for the weekend. She arrived just in time to help me boil and mash a large quantity of potatoes to make some scrumptious mashed potatoes for dinner. Since I don't have an oven, and I also have very limited cooking skills, I thought it would be best and safer for my fellow diners if I stuck with something simple and something that it is difficult to screw up. They actually turned out okay!
The vast majority of our program, along with our program leaders and various professors joined us at a cool bar/restaurant that CIEE rented out just for the occasion. Among the special guests were the one and only Bonny Wassing, Vreer (our trans* guest speaker, wearing an impeccably sharp kilt of some sort), Hannah's husband and baby Noor. Noor is by far the cutest and happiest Dutch/American baby I've ever seen.
I was honestly terrified that no one was going to bring food for our epic Thanksgiving feast- I was under the assumption that the rest of our group was going to forget to bring food. Boy was I wrong! There were so many different dishes of potatoes (sweet and regular), corn, cranberry sauce, turkey, bacon-wrapped dates, Russian beet salad, other miscellaneous salads, a plethora of breads and spreads, and this isn't even including the vast amounts of pies! I was initially really upset that I could not be in Baltimore to spend Thanksgiving with my family. However, I couldn't have asked for a more warming and lovely Thanksgiving with a group of people that I love and truly cherish. It made me so thankful for everyone in my life, from California to Maryland to Amsterdam to everywhere else in the rest of the world. I feel so blessed ( and I don't use that word much- not much of a religious person!) to have been able to spend Thanksgiving with all of the people in my study abroad group. They have truly become family to me now, which I definitely didn't expect to find when I came abroad.
food and friends
our epic feast
Clair and I!
Sorry Liza, had to put it up
we LOVE thanksgiving!The boys with the one and only Bonny Wassing! Doesn't he look sharp in his bow-tie?


After stuffing ourselves silly with food and drink, we participated in one activity that is only appropriate for Thanksgiving: Karaoke. Most of our posse joined us at a glorious Karaoke bar. Well actually we attended not one but Two different Karaoke bars. The first we re-opened because so many of us were so enthusiastic about karaoke, and then various other Dutchies followed us. They did an intriguing job of the actual Karaoke part. Example A: the song "I'll sing a little prayer for you" or whatever the title is, had these lyrics instead, which I thought were sort of amusing. After this karaoke bar proved to be sub-par, due to their lack of truly groovy tunes, we migrated to Casablanca, another karaoke bar that is well known and loved by people here. (by people I mean the kids in my program...) We boogied and jived to the melodious sounds of tipsy kids of all ages belting out to various tunes from all different genres. It was a truly delightful way to end Thanksgiving.
tee hee.

John Henry and Nori singing their hearts out.just a trio of soul sistazz! Note Jeanine's (girl in middle) turkey hat. A work of art.

Friday was a lazy day for Clair and I. After a rousing night before, we decided to take it easy. We rode by bike (I dinked Clair- she's a great dinkee, fyi!) to Waterlooplein, where we perused through the random assortment of clothing, antiques, and random junk. We also mingled and wandered down a few shopping streets full of thrift stores and stores with other miscellaneous stuff. There's a store called "Knuffels" which translates to "Hugs" that was chock FULL of stuffed animals and other silly trinkets. We ended the afternoon with lounging, Planet Earth and perpetual napping. Friday night another dorm building, Plantage Muidergracht, had a mini fiesta appropriately named "Lekker Studies", aka delicious studies. Someone brought red solo cups (a friend had brought them from California) so we played the traditional American drinking games- flip cup, beirut (beer pong), etc. It was such an American moment: at one point it was the Europeans (A Dutchie and actually an Australian? not sure where guy #2 was from) versus two Americans. The Euros had no freaking clue what beirut was, and the Americans were getting a wee bit too competitive over the rules and regulations. Such a typical American thing to do. I may or may not be guilty of getting overly competitive at some point during the game as well....
It was a lekker night indeed!
Saturday Clair, Steph and I ventured to Sara's Pancake Bakery, where Clair got to taste a yummy Dutch pancake. After we stuffed our faces full (this seems to be a theme for this weekend), we wandered down the street to the Electric LadyLand, otherwise known as the fluorescent art museum. It was basically just a room in this hippy man's basement that was full of fluorescent minerals, paintings, and other random objects. It was small, but actually a really cool museum. The pictures turned out pretty nifty as well, as you will see.

our groovy host and tour guide

This was followed by hot cocoa, and- wait for it- more food. This time it was nachos. Quite a strange dish to pair with warm chocolademelk (warm chocolate milk, literally), but delish nonetheless!
Sadly Clair had to leave early this am (6:00 am!) for the train station. On our walk to the station we saw bikes and the bridges dusted with snow and ice. It was a lovely zero degrees Celsius, or 32 degrees Fahrenheit, and boy was it chilly! brrrrrrrrrrrr! There was sprinklings of snow all weekend, but most of it melted by noon. Still, it is promising to see that there can actually be snow in Amsterdam, in a city that is 10 meters below sea level, a city that should in theory be covered in water. The weather forecast says that there is supposed to be snow Tuesday and Thursday also, which should be fun. I wonder if Dutch professors give out snow days.... I also am wondering about how easy / difficult / dangerous it will be to bike in the snow. Even worse, what will it be like to bike when the snow has melted and re-frozen over, creating a maze of black ice? I'll let you know about the wintery adventures soon!

Fun Dutch words for the day:
lol=fun (not kidding...)
uitstaande=outstanding
gambas=shrimp

Days 91-96

HAPPY HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!

If you all didn't already know, vandaag (today) is thanksgiving! A glorious holiday for giving thanks to the wonderful people and things in your life. It's also a great time to stuff your face with scrumptious Thanksgiving food, from turkey to stuffing to potatoes to pie to EVERYTHING. I hope all of you have the most delightful Thanksgiving plans. Today is going to be an uber exciting day for a few reasons: A. Today is Thanksgiving, so naturally it's going to be awesome. B. I get to miss my Dutch class for our CIEE thanksgiving dinner, which is truly spectacular. C. the marvelous and delightful Clair Miller is going to be in Amsterdam with me for thanksgiving, which I couldn't be more thankful for. D. There's going to be a plethora of food, people, drinks, merriment, and thanks-giving tonight- and that's enough to be excited about as it is. Today I am going to attempt (note: Attempt is the key word here) to make mashed potatoes. The concept sounds simple enough. boil potatoes, mash the potatoes, right? With my luck, they will be a grade-A disaster. Which is why I am going to spend most of my day trying to make some yummy mashed potatoes. Our program is full of big eaters, so I gotta make a TON. We'll see how this goes...

So I've realized that after each blog entry that I write, I always forget some important or particularly funny/amusing story from each entry. Which is why today, in this lovely entry, I will make up for the lost silly events that have transpired over the past few weeks that I have failed to mention previously. I must warn you, the remaining part of this blog will be very random, colloquial (a nice way to put it), and just random. End of story.

I'll start off with my morning today. I had set my alarm to wake up later, by 10:30 or so, so that I could sleep in. But around 8:30 am I hear this "FWAP" noise hit my window, and it sounds sort of wet and squishy. Half asleep and completely confused, I look out my window and see a man with a HUGE sponge attached to the end of the stick, washing my windows. I didn't actually see the man because I typically look like a hot mess in the am- and no one wants to see that! But Strangely, that squishing sound lulled me back to sleep for a few hours. And now my windows are squeaky clean- GREAT SUCCESS. A delightful way to start thanksgiving.

So last tuesday (november 16?) I was biking to Crea Café to do some homework. After I locked up mijn fiets (my bike), I started to walk by the canal to enter the front door. I see about twenty-five people alongside the canal, some with cameras, some without, and I was wondering what all the hoo haa was about. And then I saw the claw. It looked like the Claw from Toy Story at Pizza Planet, where the claw machine/arcade game lowers down and clamps onto one of the squishy alien toys as they all murmer "the clawwwwww........." Except that this claw machine wasn't on a quest for little rubber aliens. Instead, this claw machine was attached to a mini canal/tug boat, and it was fishing at the bottom of the canal for old bikes and other rubbish that had accumulated at the bottom for the past few months. Here are a few pictures of the claw machine picking up garbage from the bottom of the canal.


garbage left over from finding crap on the bottom of the canal.
They do this all around the city every once in awhile, because too frequently people throw their crap, including old or broken down bikes, into the canals. It's pretty gross (hence why you would NEVER want to swim in a canal) but sort of groovy nonetheless.

A few weeks ago (it was a Monday, I think), we all went to tour a squatter's house. It was about to be shut down by the government, but for some reason the people at the squatter's house got the eviction turned around. I actually couldn't understand, and I can't still really recall how they didn't end up getting evicted, but I am quite glad that they did! Three Dutchies showed us around- two ladies and a man- and they have been also squatting there. It was formerly used as a school, an auditorium, and now it's a squatter's location where students and artists alike can come and exhibit their artwork. They even have a mini area for concerts, with a stage, a bar, and everything!

the bar
groovy seating
a view into the rest of the house.

It was cool to see all of this going on. Apparently they have concerts and art exhibitions with cool people and cheap drinks. May have to investigate more into this in the near future...

Ok I hate to also be a debbie downer (wha wha WHAAAAA) but I just checked my calendar and I only have 22 days LEFT in Amsterdam!!! There's so much more to see and to do. There's also SO much homework piling up currently that my last three weeks here will be spent at the library, or at Crea doing work.....super duper. But I do have 22 more days left, which is a decent amount of time, which means that I must live up my last moments here before they all fly by.

One lovely and sweet thing that I have seen not once, but at least TWICE here this week is couples holding hands while biking. I don't know what the duck it is, but I find it utterly sweet and adorable. I even saw two men, with a child on each of their bikes, and the KIDS were holding hands as the men (assuming they are together) biked side by side. One of the sweetest family moments I've seen here. Once again, it cements my love for people. It also proves that there are the best people to watch and observe in Amsterdam. I am really going to miss that after December.

fun Dutch words:

ik feetstend = I am partying
verrast=surprising
When I searched for "turkey" in my Dutch translator, it came up with Turkije, ie the country
aardappel=potato
pompoen=pumpkin

Have a wonderful day today everyone- celebrate lots, give thanks to those you love, and enjoy life!!

Days 86-90

Hoi!

Sorry I haven't written much in a long time- I have just been so busy and stressed with homework, school, life, etc etc etc. You know how it goes. But here's a mini recap of what's been going on in my life!

On Tuesday I got to see the midnight premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (part 1). I know everyone's probably already seen it by now, but it was fun because it came out in the Netherlands before it premiered in either London OR the United States. So we got to see the movie before anyone else. A big group of us all dressed up ( I did not dress up, but did draw a dark mark on my arm and did carry a wand into the theater....no big deal.) There were kids dressed up as Luna Lovegood, Bellatrix, Harry, Hermoine, Moaning Myrtle, Dobby, Winky, Voldemort's homeboy (not actually Voldemort, but his homie...), and a few other miscellaneous wizards/creatures. We got to the theater very early, about thirty minutes before. In America, if you don't get to the midnight premiere at least an hour before, you won't get a ticket. It's as simple as that. However, when we got there, there was NO line, and no one dressed up. We were the only ones in the Amsterdam area (that I could see) that dressed up for this glorious occasion. We got a plethora of strange looks from other Dutch children and adults alike, but whatever. It's Harry Potter for pete's sake!! But it was an absolutely stellar movie overall. I was a bit disappointed that they omitted certain parts of the book from the movie and added some new scenes to the film, but it was still a great film. And it reaffirms my devoted love and adoration for Harry Potter. It was great that most of my friends are all major Harry Potter nerds also. GREAT SUCCESS.
However, we did see the movie in English, but with Dutch subtitles. The subtitles were actually hilarious to read throughout the movie. They change all of the names of the characters from English/JK Rowling's Wizard language into Dutch. For example, Dumbledore in Dutch is Perkamentus.... didn't get that. I can't think of any other examples, but it was quite unusual! They also found a way to translate the spells into Dutch.
FUN FACT: the spells are not real English- they are fictitious and fabricated by JK Rowling. However, this shows that the Dutch really must do things in their own way, just to be different and unique. Such a Dutch thing to do.

Thursday night, after my three-hour-long Dutch language class, I biked a few blocks down the street and went to Gay Night Out with a bunch of other International kids. The first bar had musical bingo, where they played a variety of tunes like Cher, Whitney Houston, Katy Perry, The Pointer Sisters, and pretty much every song from the Zoolander soundtrack, and if you got all of the songs on your bingo card then you won a gift card to some restaurant. I sadly didn't win, but it was groovy to just dance and be silly after a long week of classes. There were about four different bars that we were all going to, but I was very lame and only went to two because I was uber sleepy. Oh well.

I just was checking the weather forecast and it is supposed to SNOW this weekend!!! I hope it does. I would love to see a snow-covered Amsterdam. It will be quite difficult and potentially dangerous to bike in the snow, but it's always worth a try!

Next Thursday is Thanksgiving, which I am assuming that all of you already know. I am sad that I won't be able to be home for this holiday, which is my favorite time to be with the family and with friends. But my program is hosting a big potluck dinner with the program and various professors. I am bringing mashed potatoes, which are delicious (lekker), and easy to make. They are also one of the only things I could make since I don't have an oven. Another reason I am excited for Thanksgiving is because my lovely and beautiful friend Clair Miller is coming to visit me for thanksgiving!!!!! She is coming this Thursday afternoon and staying with me for the weekend. It will be so nice to have someone else from home visit me, especially around the holidays.

I have been pretty homesick this weekend, most likely due to a combination of stress, lack of sleep, and an abundance of work that I will have until literally the day I come back to the States, which is December 17th. It has also made me more homesick when people are talking about going home for the thanksgiving break, and sadly there is no Thanksgiving break in the Netherlands since they don't celebrate this holiday (duh). But it has been nice to talk to people from home. It has relieved my homesickness a tad. But it just also makes me more excited to come home and see everyone in less than a month!

Funny Dutch words:
poep=poop (sorry, I am five years old. but it was a vocab word for my class)
snieuw=snow

Days 83-85

Happy Holidays!

You might wonder, why happy holidays? It's too soon for Thanksgiving or Christmas, and even for Hannukah. What holiday am I referring to?
The answer is SINTERKLAAS! Sinterklaas is the Dutch equivalent to Christmas. It is the holiday that the little Dutch children look forward to the most. Sint Nicholaas (ie Santa) wears robes and a big red pope's hat. The legend goes that Sint Nicholaas comes from Spain. Every year in the middle of November, Sint Nicholaas travels to the Netherlands by steamboat from Madrid (FUN FACT: Madrid has no port, and is completely surrounded by land.) and arrives in the Netherlands on his white horse (schimmel) and his Black Pieters, or Zwarte Pieten to give the children toys and treats from then until December 5, when he returns back to Spain. Little children leave their shoes by their fireplace or their front door, and the Black Pieters are supposed to come down the chimney and leave little treats in the shoes. This year Sinterklaas occured on this past Sunday November 14, and he arrived on his steamboat down the canal right by where I live! Now what the controversial issue is is the Zwarte Pieten. According to tradition, they are called "Black Pieters" because their faces are black. Their faces are black (apparently) because they always go down the chimneys and are always covered in soot. However, it is not black actors portraying the Pietes, but it is white Dutch citizens that don black face. When I first got to the Netherlands, I was honestly shocked and slightly horrified about the black face. If this stunt was ever pulled in the United States, the NAACP and basically every American citizen would be all over their butts! So all over the city there have been Dutch people, donned in ruffly costumes, black face, and bright red lipstick, running and roller skating all throughout the city. The ironic thing is that the Dutch think that this is a totally acceptable tradition. The Dutch are so pragmatic, socially sensitive, and accepting of prostution, drug addicts, squatters, gay marriages, etc, etc, yet they don't see any racism with the black face. It is preposterous to me. Even some of the little children will dress up as Zwarte Pieten and wear black face as well! Maybe I am not looking through the correct cultural lens when assessing the Dutch situation, but it is a very interesting and highly controversial subject, especially when discussing among the international and non-Dutch students.

Zwarte Pieten
Sint Nicholaas coming down the canal by Steamboat with his boat chock-full of Pietes
Sint Nicholaas himself!
two children excited for Sinterklaas. Note the irony here.

On a lighter note, our program is doing a secret santa type thing with Sinterklaas. Our celebration is on December 6, so technically the day after Sint Nicholaas goes back to Madrid. But I will share more info on this when the date arrives.

The rest of my weekend was quite eventful and full of many different cultural events, all spanning over the cultural spectrum. On Friday night I got to go see Ratatat, a New York based electronic/alternative music duo. They combine synthesizers with guitar, bass, and drums. The music is primarily intrumental, with occasional vocal clips. I wasn't expecting anything incredible when I bought the tickets. However, I was completely blown away by their music. It was honestly one of the best live shows I've ever seen. It was a small crowd, but still just an epic show- great sound, cool lights, great vibe. Here is one of the only pictures that I got of the show.
I've always been saying here that there are very few genuinely creepy Dutch people. Well, I was proven completely wrong at Ratatat on Friday. It seems as if every single creeper in a two-mile radius was at Paradiso seeing Ratatat. So many weird, awkward men trying to dance, touch, and creep on the girls. So that was a down side. But aside from the weirdos, the show was absolutely AMAZING!! If anyone ever has the chance to see them live, DO IT. It is completely worth your while, money, and time.
Here are some YouTube links to some of their songs:

"Loud Pipes"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64liF2VuLxI
"Mirando"-one of my favorites, even though all of them are stellar.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk8qcGOtBFw

On Saturday night a few of us engaged in yet another cultural activity. This time it was ballet. It was the Ballet Preljocaj from the Bolshoi Theatre. They are a Russian Ballet company who performed in Amsterdam for a week. They combined beautiful ballet with electronic music, along with other crazy stuff. I wish I could've taken pictures of it, but sadly they don't allow cameras in the theatre :(

The piece was called "A Thousand Years of Peace". I'm not sure what it was about, but it could've involved themes of gender roles, violence, and world peace. I'm not sure, but the whole show was pretty trippy with the cool light effects and electronic music. At one point all of the dancers had a book in each hand and one in their mouth and danced for FIFTEEN minutes with a book in their mouth, doing complicated danced moves non-stop. At one point there were dancers in a bubble of saran wrap, tons of different flags from different countries, and even two baby lambs were brought on stage! Such a random show, but a beautiful and brilliant performance nonetheless.

This week is chock-full of work, school, more work, and other random activities.
FUN FACT: the 7th Harry Potter movie comes out in the Netherlands before London OR the United States. Jealous much?

FUN FACT: A girl in my Dutch class named her dog Febo de Lekkerste. if you don't recall, Febo is a late-night munchie spot where you can get fried snacks out of this vending machine thing. A very funny name for a dog.

funny Dutch words:
moeten=should
moetje=child out of wedlock (rationale behind this word: a child out of wedlock is called a 'moetje' because the parents SHOULD'VE or SHOULD get married with their kid. amusing concept.)
hand=hand
schoen=shoe
handschoen=glove (literally: hand shoe)
vuilnisbak=trash can
hond=dog
vuilnisbakkenhond=mixed breed dog (slang)

Days 75-82: Dijon imports, Museumnacht, and more!

Bonjour from the Dam!

These past few days have been super busy. This past weekend (Thurs-Sunday) Caroline Riina and her lovely friend Hannah came from Dijon, France to stay with me in Amsterdam for a few days. We went to the Van Gogh Museum, the I Amsterdam sign, the Anne Frank Huis, Waterlooplein, and to MuseumNacht, among various other adventures.

Caroline and Hannah at the "m" in i amsterdam

They even had their first Dutch pancakes- a real treat to be able to document.
remnants of our pancakes.

Museum Nacht was this past Saturday, and all of the museums in Amsterdam were open until late (around 2am for most of them) and with your ticket you could access all of them for free! They had their exhibits, plus food, drinks, and good music. At the Hermitage Museum, where they have an Alexander the Great exhibition currently, we made it just in time for the "Larp your heart out" event. For those of you who do not know what LARP-ing is, it means "Live Action Role Play". So there were people dressed as Alexander, his ladies, and various other people from Alexander's time, dead and alive. They were interacting with the museum visitors. My friend Becca was even attempting to negotiate with Alexander himself!
We also went to the FOAM (museum for photography), the Botanical Gardens (where they were selling bugs for people to eat...intriguing), and the NEMO. At the NEMO, the science museum, they had everything from kid's games to a sex education exhibit (where Caroline and I could try out the tongues box where you "french kiss"! see picture below for explanation.)
note: did not intentionally make a creepy/pervy face in this.

We also got to just sit outside on the roof and see all of the city lit up. It was, and still is, a magnificent view of Amsterdam.

The view of the city from the roof of the NEMO.

Overall it was a stellar weekend. Pretty good weather, good friends, good activities!

However, this week has been stressful with papers, presentations, Dutch classes, and the like. Not to mention that today there has been the WORST weather since I've arrived! 40 degrees fahrenheit, freezing rain, gusts of wind that are so powerful that they will literally knock you off your bike. Or the wind will be blowing directly toward you, so even if you are pedaling as fast as you can, you aren't moving forward at all. Quite a challenge.

This weekend/week have been great successes in the Dutch language category (NOT including the class itself.) I have been able to communicate with various strangers only in Dutch. They were basic questions, like "where would you like to sit?" (café) or "who is the last person in line?" (filling up tram cards), or "how many siblings do you have?" I have been (somewhat) coherent in my Dutch speaking capabilities, which was very fun!

While the weather has been stinky here today, I did receive a FANTASTIC letter from the one and only Sienna Beckman! It was such a great way to wake up and to get this letter. I apologize to everyone for being so TERRIBLE at writing postcards (current # of postcards sent=0. sorry.)
But I do miss you all so darn much.
Here is a picture that Sienna sent me of the whole gang playing the TRAIN GAME!!!! Which no one here in my program or in the Netherlands for that matter understands. Thank you again Sienna for the letter, the photo AND the temporary tattoos!! I will wear them at the most appropriate time, just for you ;)
taken from my phone. This photo (along with the postcard about the two fall shows at Oxy) is stuck to my wall right above my bed. LOVE to Sienna, Zoe, Alyson, Aylia, Tristan, and Eric. (and to everyone else, obviously.)

After my Dutch class tonight (6:30-9:30, ugh) I am FREE from classes until Monday- huzzah! Friday night I am going to see Ratatat live (SO. EXCITED.) and then perhaps I will get to see a cool ballet performance on Saturday night (ballet + dubstep/electronic music=bliss).

Either way, I am looking forward to this weekend!

Funny Dutch words:

lawaaierig (la-VAI-er-ig)=noisy (ps. very hard word to pronounce!)
geboren en getogen=born and raised
zand=sand (so simple, right?)
huis=home
dier=animal
huisdier=pet (literal: house animal)
knuffelen=to cuddle, snuggle

Dag!!

Days 69-74

So I left off last time (Last thursday, to be exact) saying that I was going to an English tea room. Well, I did, and it was so fabulously English! Betty's is in a quaint town of Harrogate, with some groovy shopping. Their main "site to see" is Betty's Tea Room, a classy three-story restaurant with floral print and classy English patrons everywhere. They even came around with a delicious cake trolley, chock-full of different types of cakes, tarts, and other yummy sweets. I opted for the Yorkshire rarebit with bacon, which is essentially bread under a layer of baked cheese and Worcestershire sauce, paired with chutney. I went for the caramelized onion and tomato chutneys, but they had a ton of others. Those Brits love their chutney!
Camilla and I outside of the tea room
Rarebit (partially eaten already, was too impatient to wait to take a pic!) with (clockwise): bacon, a bit of caramelized onion chutney, tomato chutney. NOM
cake trolley. Wish they had one at school.
the outside of the tea room.

After some wandering around Harrogate, we went back to good ol' Leeds. Camilla and I saw The Social Network, the movie about the creation of Facebook, that night. It was actually a well-done movie, and it was cool to see how Facebook, something that basically everyone that I know, and probably everyone who reads this, knows about or obsesses about constantly. Nice way to end Thursday.

On Friday Camilla gave me a tour of Leeds, where we went to the Corn Exchange, which has a cool restaurant and some shops inside, and we also went to the shopping area and walked around for awhile. I also tried roasted chesnuts for the first time. A great chilly day treat!



Camilla also took me to this trendy sushi place on top of a cool Leeds department store called Yo! Sushi (yes, the ! is included in the actual title of the restaurant). It was a rotating sushi bar with bright colors and all you can drink green tea.


The destruction we did on the sushi plates. So tasty.

That night we all went out to one of the University bars on campus to an event called "Fruity", which is a weekly tradition for Leeds students. They turn their Uni (short for university, fyi) terrace/restaurant into a bar/club for the night. Everyone was dressed in costumes which was a pleasant surprise to see, since none of the Dutch know what the heck Halloween is.

I flew back to the Netherlands on Saturday after a fantastic stay with Camilla and her lovely posh British roommates. I made it back just in time for more Halloween festivities with my CIEE crew. We gallivanted around the Dam, went to Paradiso for some boogying, etc etc.

Now, I am back to school work and the school routine. It was nice to have a mini break from classes and school! Also, I only have 1 and a half months left here. THAT'S IT. It is already November. I have finals in the beginning of December. I can't even fathom leaving this place. I feel as if I have just gotten into a good routine, and I will be so disoriented when I have to be removed from my Dutch bubble and when I plop right back into the American lifestyle. I'm not sure how I'll react to it.

I had classes all day today, and so now I am VRIJ (FREE) for the weekend- huzzah!
Tomorrow my good friend Caroline Riina and her friend will be staying with me in AMSTERDAM for the weekend. I am so excited to see her since it feels like I haven't seen her beautiful face in years (that could even be true, it's been so long since I've seen her!). Will blog more about it later!

Much love to all back in the States.

funny Dutch words:
air mattress=luchtbed (literally: air bed)

Dooi!!