Free Time

I have become good friends with my flatmates and cook dinner regularly with them or my international friends...tonight my German friends made dinner....it is a quite heavy meal but since the weather is still cold here it was perfect! With all my international friends I really have an even better perspective on culture than even just touring...i.e. all the authentic home cooked meals :) In day to day leisure time I have been swimming and working out at the gym where I took a five week boxing course last quarter....haha...ulike in the states, I actually ride a bike (not drive my car) to the gym.

What I've been up to

Here is a picture of my cheerleading squad. No cheerleaders are not common in Holland. For a special ten-year anniversary celebration at my University they had a soccer game of the students against teachers. I was recruited to lead a student cheer team we had been practicing for two months for one game. We had a great fight against the teacher's cheer squad the day of the game. Of course we were horribly soaked and cold by the end of the game...but I was really proud of my girls for sticking it out! Now my new social project is throwing an international party at my student house...we have our own bar and there will be around 250 students max that we are allowed in.

Dutch Life

Okay here are some intersting things that I have become accostomed to:
*The Dutch are very blunt and direct
*Dutch Students go home about every weekend
*Shopping for food is common on a daly basis
*Cooking dinner together is normal
*Open food market three times a week (I love this for the best fresh bread!)
*Must bring own bag at the supermarket or pay for one
*Paying rent online and using a hand-held ATM like machine to verify transactions
*Small shops...no large malls (no Albertson's)
*Using a magnetic bracelet to get into the swimming pool and its lockers
*Bicycling EVERYWHERE!!!! (babies learn to hold on in the back at a toddler age)
*"I'll give you a lift" literally means "run and jump on the back of my bike as I cycle away"
*Constant overcast (the few days of sunshine...people ditch school and work to flood the city)
*Spring actually has a smell!
*The gym is crowded at all hours of the day...people really execise!
*The Dutch students buy new clothes on a regualr basis and would never go to class in P.J.'s
*International school has me really learning the meaning of "group work" I never thought I would be actually assigned to be a group with two other people and be expected to do internal investigation of a Restaurant and give sugguestions to solve their customer quota problems....I have really gotten a crash course in people and managing skills

Ireland!

My most recent travel was to Ireland. Nine friends and I took a two hour flight over. It was quite an experience. We spent time in both Dublin and Cork. The good news is that no one got run over by a bus heading from the left side:) I was surprised to hear alot of Eastern European in the streets. Not that much English. The country was beautiful and we visited Trininty University which reminded us all of the Harry Potter movies...very traditional and Historic... their dinning hall and library were a completely different experience than the modern universities I have been to. Unfortunately I was ill with an unusal head cold and only got to explore on a minimal level...but it was beautiful...I do believe that the people live shorter lives due to the constant cold rain and humidity...the pub atmosphere is exactly like you see in the movies...very happy go lucky people with live Celtic music!

Bremen, Germany

For Easter weekend my friend Omar and I had planned to travel travel to different cities in the Netherlands...well....when our friend Farid got into the mix...it turned out a lot differently. We started out at Vesting Bortange, a historic fort made of land and water in the shape of a star. It was more intersting in the arial veiw, since we had rented a vehicle for the day we took another two hours drive to Bremen were we saw the most beautiful architecture I have seen yet. There was a mixture of historic and new. Its obvious the city was bombed in WWII with all of the new buildings. Omar and Farid were excited to see the statue of these four animals who in a children's story, decide to leave the farm and start a band, originated in Bremen. If you hold the Donkey's golden hooves, you can make a wish.

Berlin, Germany

About 80 of us students took a weekend trip to Berlin. This picture is of The Brandenburger Tor. We were lucky enough to visit on a weekend where they had "raypainters" who decorated the square with laizer lights in the form of images. It was really magnificent. We took a charter bus and stayed two nights. The craziest thing I witnessed was at a gas station, the toilets were self-cleaning and by this I mean the seats actually rotated around and were cleaned by a stationary cleaning arm...Then the inside of the bowl was sprayed with deodorant. I saw many sections of the Berlin wall that were heavily protected by other fences...People come along and want their own suveniers. The Jewish memorial in this city is composed of coffin looking cement blocks that take up an entire city block. Those closest to the edge are short and the closer you head towards the center they become larger than 5 meters.

Brussels, Belgium

This is a picture of the Atonium created for the world fair...I cant remember how many millions of times it has been magnified. I really liked this city alot because it was big and lively...clean and historic all at the same time. We took a bus tour of the city and didnt end up exploring on our own as much because the city was so large. In the streets they sold waffles every 10 meters...haha no where else in the world will you see such a thing:) And they were absolutely delicious!!! Something else I have never seen before...every ten meters a beggar. Not like any beggar I have seen in the states...they crouch down onto their knees in the fetal position and hold their hands out in a cupped way with their heads down. Due to their strategic spacing I thought it was a demonstration...and I hadn't seen so many women and children. I was later informed that they were most likely middle eastern or eastern europeans that begged in that way to hide their shame.

Brugget, Belgium

Finally in Belgium!! Of course it is true...the best chocolate is here. We found the cutest chocolate shop. It was run by a family started about 60 years ago. The city was quiet and beautiful. And has a gothic church that belives it holds a cloth with a few drops of Jesus's blood. The sad history of this city is that in 1666 it was hit by the pleg and people were jumping into the river, if one person got it...the entire town became infected...I can't imagine the horror. Here we visited magnificiantly large churches that took 500 years to build! It is just so hard for me to comprehend working on something material that I will never see completed in my lifetime.

Maastricht, NL

The most southern city in The Netherlands. Three of my friends and I rented this car and traveled to Belgium for our week "study break". We spent the first night in Maastricht and slept on a "botel" which you can view pictures of if in the pictures link. My favorite part of this city was going to the point where I could be in three countries at once!!!! One my life-long goals is to go to four corners and break the law in four states at once. I wasn't prepared to be standing in Germany, Holland and Belgium all at once so I had to settle for picking my nose in all three:)