Intro Week Madness

So it is the first sunny day in about a week and I am inside writing this blog because intro week wore me out so much. It was indescribable in some ways, but it really made me feel at home here. Initially I had some worry about being the only California exchange student here for a year but now all that is gone because I have seen how amazing "the bubble" is. On Monday we were assigned our "families." I was the only exchange student in my family, but there were lots of people with international backgrounds. One German guy, a Romanian girl, and all my parents have international backgrounds. We played typical ice breaker games and then sat around getting to know each other. Every day we had various activities like sports day or the fox hunt. And they took us out dancing every night. So by now everyone is exhausted.

In between all the fun I also met with my tutor and found out my classes. I am taking an Art History class called Contours and Colors, International Journalism, Beginning Dutch, and Gothic Literature. It should be a fun semester. Going back to the semester system will definitely be odd but we start on Monday so I will be able to report back on how the classes look by Wednesday.

I have had a few amusing mishaps over the week, and have come out of it a little banged up. On sports day we competed in various sports like football, lacrosse, obstacle courses, bike relay races, and tug of war with other families. While I was practicing going through the inflatable obstacle course a hook on the back of my bra that can connect the straps caught onto the net and made a hole in the back of my shirt. I was completely stuck and had to get my friend Shira to unhook me, it was pretty amusing in the end. The next day, Thursday, we had the fox hunt. Basically we had to go on a scavenger hunt around the city in pouring rain to "save" the UCSA chair. At the various stations we were given assignments and one of them was to do a skit on our family and involve a stranger. While we were sitting at some tables under some umbrellas planning it out it started raining really hard and one of the umbrellas moved a little bit and dumped water all over me. Which was a little shocking at first and then very funny. Yesterday was the Committee trail so we could sign up for various clubs,

I signed up for LitCom, UCTV, a magazine called Scope, TripCo, HumanitarianCo, and DJCO. We'll see how many I stick with but it should be fun.

A little bit about UCU. UCU is a liberal arts and sciences university within the greater Utrecht University. The ability to take classes outside of your major department is actually pretty rare, so a lot of people at this school have very diverse interests. The school only has about 7-800 people in it, and they all live on campus. The reason it is know as the bubble is because since everyone lives on campus, goes to class on campus, eats on campus, and even goes to the campus bar on weekends you don't really leave that often. So far it feels like all the good parts of high school with college aged people. The upside about such a small school is you get to know everyone very fast, and so far people are super friendly. Also the class sizes are very small, for instance I have a 8 person class which means I HAVE to keep up with the reading. My unit is almost full now, 7 of the 9 rooms are full which is nice. Sorry for this rambly flood of information but I really don't know how to explain everything all at once, especially because I waited over a week to do it. Long story short I am falling in love with this school just as much as I have been with this country. OH and I get to put sprinkles on my bread at breakfast everyday, how cool is that?!?! Since I did not take pictures intro week, I let others do the work, here is a long promised kayaking photo as well as some from the Utrecht Cenrtaal Museum.

So happy starting out (it's about 8:30 pm in that picture, can you believe how bright it is?)

Viking ship from 1007

Amazing gelato, blood orange and strawberry :) Also I ordered in Dutch