I woke up to a phone call from my brother, Andrew, at 7am on Tuesday morning in America, and I am now, finally, going to bed at 10:28pm in Holland. So I have been (mostly) awake for over thirty hours straight. That being said, I am very tired so I will have to keep this short.
The plane rides here were not my favorite plane rides ever, although they weren’t terrible. We took three planes and had two layovers—one in Chicago and one in Dublin—in order to get us to Amsterdam so it made for a really long day.
When we got to the final airport in Amsterdam, our bags were the first to arrive at baggage claim so we were out of there very quickly. Two of the students, whom we had already met in America—Maik and Katrien—and one other that we hadn’t met yet, Niels, were there to greet us along with Sarah who had arrived before us. Everyone made fun of how much luggage “a girl my size” (using hand gestures to show my height) could have possibly brought. I will have to talk about packing at a different time.
We stopped at a place in the airport for drinks. They boys all got tall Heinekens and the girls got non-alcoholic juices. Mine was called a “Strawberry Smooth” and it was surprisingly sour. After this we all piled in a van with our luggage and headed to our place in Velp. I already love our place. It is a very large home with many rooms and we should have over twenty international students eventually. We were the first, I think, but later we also met some students from India. Sadly, I don’t remember their names, the names are all so foreign to me (literally) and hard for me to pronounce correctly so for the name to stick in my head I think it’s going to take a lot of work.
We walked around Velp and purchased a few groceries, shower stuff, and a blow dryer. Sarah and I have quite the list for what else we need to go out and buy. While we were shopping I noticed a lot of people smiling at us while we spoke English with Katrien. It must be as exciting for some of the Dutch people to see some Americans being shown around a grocery store as I would find seeing some Europeans being show around a Cub Foods back home or something. I also tried saying the few Dutch phrases I know with Katrien and she helped me with pronunciation and more informal was to say things. I can already pick out a few key words that give me a small idea about what they talk about with they are speaking Dutch with each other. Katrien also took Sarah and me to a little snack bar where I tried a Kroket and Sarah had some meatball kind of thing. Katrien told me what I had was a very Dutch item that they have a lot a parties but she also warned that asking what’s in it is like asking what is in a hotdog in America—so don’t do it. I don’t even know how to explain the flavor. It’s different, but I really liked it.
Then we came back to our house and Maik and Niels said they could cook for us and they came back after an hour and took us to their place and we had some delicious homemade pizza. My toppings were: sauce, beef, chicken, mushrooms, spinach, pineapple, and cheese with some kind of seasoning. It was DELICIOUS!
We were all very tired and I started falling asleep at the table. They took us home eventually and after a much needed shower, I am in bed and writing this. I can go into more details about our place, my packing, and other things I may have missed another time. I am going to try to wake up at 8:30am tomorrow and just kill the jetlag immediately. We will see how that goes.
One last thing I wanted to mention: There is a slanted ceiling above my bed and I am going to keep track of how many times I hit my head on it. I was at 1 when I started writing this, but will end this blog entry at 2.
The plane rides here were not my favorite plane rides ever, although they weren’t terrible. We took three planes and had two layovers—one in Chicago and one in Dublin—in order to get us to Amsterdam so it made for a really long day.
When we got to the final airport in Amsterdam, our bags were the first to arrive at baggage claim so we were out of there very quickly. Two of the students, whom we had already met in America—Maik and Katrien—and one other that we hadn’t met yet, Niels, were there to greet us along with Sarah who had arrived before us. Everyone made fun of how much luggage “a girl my size” (using hand gestures to show my height) could have possibly brought. I will have to talk about packing at a different time.
We stopped at a place in the airport for drinks. They boys all got tall Heinekens and the girls got non-alcoholic juices. Mine was called a “Strawberry Smooth” and it was surprisingly sour. After this we all piled in a van with our luggage and headed to our place in Velp. I already love our place. It is a very large home with many rooms and we should have over twenty international students eventually. We were the first, I think, but later we also met some students from India. Sadly, I don’t remember their names, the names are all so foreign to me (literally) and hard for me to pronounce correctly so for the name to stick in my head I think it’s going to take a lot of work.
We walked around Velp and purchased a few groceries, shower stuff, and a blow dryer. Sarah and I have quite the list for what else we need to go out and buy. While we were shopping I noticed a lot of people smiling at us while we spoke English with Katrien. It must be as exciting for some of the Dutch people to see some Americans being shown around a grocery store as I would find seeing some Europeans being show around a Cub Foods back home or something. I also tried saying the few Dutch phrases I know with Katrien and she helped me with pronunciation and more informal was to say things. I can already pick out a few key words that give me a small idea about what they talk about with they are speaking Dutch with each other. Katrien also took Sarah and me to a little snack bar where I tried a Kroket and Sarah had some meatball kind of thing. Katrien told me what I had was a very Dutch item that they have a lot a parties but she also warned that asking what’s in it is like asking what is in a hotdog in America—so don’t do it. I don’t even know how to explain the flavor. It’s different, but I really liked it.
Then we came back to our house and Maik and Niels said they could cook for us and they came back after an hour and took us to their place and we had some delicious homemade pizza. My toppings were: sauce, beef, chicken, mushrooms, spinach, pineapple, and cheese with some kind of seasoning. It was DELICIOUS!
We were all very tired and I started falling asleep at the table. They took us home eventually and after a much needed shower, I am in bed and writing this. I can go into more details about our place, my packing, and other things I may have missed another time. I am going to try to wake up at 8:30am tomorrow and just kill the jetlag immediately. We will see how that goes.
One last thing I wanted to mention: There is a slanted ceiling above my bed and I am going to keep track of how many times I hit my head on it. I was at 1 when I started writing this, but will end this blog entry at 2.
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