Almost 6 Months

Currently the sun is shinning in a way that makes me want to have a picnic, but unfortunately it is 31 degrees. This Dutch weather is tricking me, I now have the idea that when it is not raining or snowing it should not be freezing. But I will just enjoy the sun coming in the window of my heated unit! My new semester starts on Monday, I am excited to see how my classes turn out! I am currently enrolled in the second level of Dutch, Classics, World Literature in a European Perspective and Intro to Anthropology. I may try and get out of Anthropology to take a History or Philosophy class. It will be fun for everyone to come back to campus and have the bubble return to its normal state of busy students. This past week has been the introduction week for the new students. There are 63 students starting this semester, 24 of them are exchange students. And most of those are American. We seem to have stormed the school.

The second half of my break was also really nice. I had two of my best friends from Santa Cruz stay with me. Julia who is currently in Sweden studying stayed for about a week, and Kristen who just finished a semester in India and is traveling around until she starts her new program in Greece stayed for ten days. Lucky for all of us their visits overlapped!

We had a really nice time having lazy days around Utrecht and catching up on the last half year, and also visiting Dutch cities. (I will post pictures and details from our touristing later this week.) It worked out that they came to the Netherlands the same day I got home from Prague. Their visit kept me nice and busy, so that I did not really rest too much on this break. But I prefer spending time with all the people I missed so much that came to visit!

Also to be fair after Kristen left I did a lot of sleeping for two days, which was amazing.

Other than giving a general update on life, I also wanted to write about a gorgeous exhibition I went to at the Kunsthal in Rotterdam on Wednesday. The current exhibit there is one of Edvard Munch. It does not have his most famous works like The Scream and Madonna, but it has work from every single one of his periods. It was interesting to see the precursors to such well known paintings. It was also incredible to see how drastically he changed. I really liked the woodcuts and the later oil on canvas paintings. A lot of the time there would be blank spaces on the canvas, but I would not realize it when I looked at it from far away. Like in one of the paintings blank spaces made clouds. The colors were also incredible, especially where seemingly random colors made it look more realistic. I know I am gushing, but I just had the best feeling after I went. I went with my friend from this school, Julia. It was really nice going with her because we move through museums the same way, and we were equally excited.

Other than that I got a hair cut, and my hair is pretty short! I really like it. Also I just finished reading The Grapes of Wrath, which I really enjoyed. Apart from being a really good story to say the least, I really enjoyed reading about California. The landscape descriptions made me think of home so much. Also here are some pictures Erin and Shane took in Prague.

Checking Praha Off the List

Puns when in the Czech Republic are inevitable. We stayed at a place called the Czech Inn, I mean even they take part in the fun! Unfortunately I have no photos to post of Prague because I forgot my camera. Which is pretty sad because Prague is a breathtakingly beautiful city. However there is always google and the fact that Erin and Shane took quite a few pictures!

The Czech Republic is probably the most foreign place I have been, if only because the language and currency were so crazy. The language is beautiful to listen to, and some of the sounds impossible for me to figure out! Also pulling 1000 crowns out of an ATM feels very nice since it is only 50 euros!

Our hostel was really cool, it was a short tram ride from downtown. The nice part about that was the restaurants around it were really tasty and pretty cheap since they were not tourist traps. We tired some delicious traditional Czech meals, had amazing pizza and even caviar!

On our first full day in Prague we walked around a Christmas market and we went on a walking tour. It was freezing during the tour but it was nice to see the main sights and know why they were important. It is incredible how well persevered the city is after going through Nazi and Soviet occupation, but from what I learned that was no accident. The people of Prague love their city and did what they could to preserve it.

There is a beautiful clock that was voted the most disappointing tourist attraction in the world. This is because at every hour some of the statues on it become animated and people wait 45 minutes to see it. The little show is nice, but not if you have been waiting for it. On my last day in Prague I saw a protest in front of the clock of people who want to bring the monarchy back. It was pretty funny. My friend from school Annie who is from Prague said that they just do it because they can and they are all just having fun. They were singing old Czech songs and there was a guy who is always walking around Prague with a sign saying that he was tricked at his trial that joined them for the attention.

Annie took me and her friend from Germany around Prague on our last day there. It was fun to see it with a local, and she truly loves her city. We went to an exhibit called "Legends of the Czech." It was primarily geared towards children and told Czech legends about their cultural foundations. A lot of them were quite gory, but I really enjoyed it. There was even a skeleton that showed evidence of post-mortem anti-vampire measures. They were exactly what they people in the novel Dracula did. It was really interesting in perspective of the novel since I read it in one of my classes last semester. After the museum we went to Old Town Square to watch the clock and then we went to get some mulled wine and wait for dark. After dark we went to see Old Town Square again, this time lit up for night. It was beautiful.

On the days I spent with Erin and Shane before they left we explored the main sights. We saw the castle, which was huge. There is an amazing Gothic style cathedral in the middle of it. The coolest part about it is that the construction was completed in the 20th century so some of the statues are men in suits! It is the most uncanny thing because I automatically assume everything is so old! After seeing the castle Erin and I went across the Charles Bridge and rubbed a carving of a saint being martyred for good luck.

We also had some delicious street food. One of the things was these hollow dough rounds covered in almonds and sugar. We also had fantastic sausages on mini bread loaves. I had them two days in a row they were so good!

The best part about Prague was just wandering the city and seeing what we found. Every building looks important because so many of them have incredible architecture or bright colors!

We found some delcious spots on the neighborhood. The place we went to get traditional Czech food had a whole fictionalized back story of the people who founded the place finding artifacts and a diary under the floorboards. They also found a cooking pot full of food that was still good, and they ate it. The diary chronicled the lives of a family that all had horns, and how they became indebted to an evil man. There were pictures of people with horns all around the room as well as a case with the artifacts in it. We went there three nights!

We also went to a really cool wine bar in a park a few blocks from our hostel. We talked with the man who owned it and he explained how they grow their grapes vertically instead of horizontally. He used Erin's Czech-English phrasebook to talk with us and tell us about the place. The wine bar itself was really interesting. It was built into a hill. The room was long and had two picnic bench type of tables on one side. The ceiling had rocks built into it.There was a glass wall dividing the middle of the room and on the other side were the vats with the wine. People who came in all seemed to be from the neighborhood and many brought dogs and babies with them. When I ordered I even tried using a Czech phrase because it felt like such a local place. The people were pretty happy that we were trying to speak Czech.

There were a few varieties available and I really liked one called a Muller, which I had never heard of. We had a really nice time there. It was one of my favorite parts of Prague.

Overall my thoughts of Prague are of a general feeling it gave me, maybe because I currently have no pictures to refer back too and this last month has been so overwhelming. But the general feeling it gave me was one of excitement. Of a society that is so new, but has a strong cultural tradition. And the people were genuinly nice, not because they had to be but in a more realistic way. Not in a smiley way either, just the way they would treat you during interactions was much more genuine than other places I have been.

Prague is a wonderful city.

Haggis Balls

I arrived in Edinburgh at about 10pm, and immediately fell in love with the city. I wandered around with some directions that my very friendly bus driver had written down for me trying to find my hostel, and did not mind being lost at all. The city is dark and gloomy but in the best way. Looking around it is not surprising that writers like JK Rowling and Robert Burns came out of this place. When I finally found my hostel, I also found Erin and Shane! Despite their jet lag we decided to go out for the first of many pints together to begin to catch up on the last few months.

The next day we got up early and attempted to drive out of the city. Ask Erin and Shane and they will tell you: Never Drive in Edinburgh!! It is a terrifying experience. Once we were clear of the city we headed to the Scottish highlands. The drive was gorgeous, full of heaths and snow covered hills and sheep. Pretty much everything you would want out of the highlands, ruins and all! We stopped for lunch in a very adorable town next to the river Spey. Everyone we encountered was very friendly and our lunch was delicious! Once we finally reached Elgin we checked into our new hostel, the Thunderton House. We got our own room and had access to a kitchen and a fairly nice bathroom. After dropping off our luggage we decided to head to the coast since it was so close! We ended up in the beautiful town of Lossiemouth. I realized how much I have missed the smell of the ocean, but none of us missed it enough to attempt jumping into that water. We walked along to the harbor admiring the waves and wondering at anyone attempting to take a boat in that water. After the sun went down we decided to find some food. We ate and an inn and had our first taste of haggis in the form of an appetizer called, much to our amusement, haggis balls. They were pretty tasty, as was the rest of the meal apart from when Erin attempted to eat a mussel. As well as a wonderful dinner we had an amazing cask ale from the pub next door. Overall we were very impressed with the cask ales in Scotland.

The next day we went to Loch Ness, which I was pretty excited about. We also took a look at the castle Urquhart. Sadly there were no signs of Nessie, she must have been sleeping that day. The lake was absolutely incredible though. I never realized how beautiful it would be in person. On our way home we stopped in a town to check out some Pict ruins. It ended up being another gorgeous coastal town where we also got to see an old Pictish well. To get to the well we had to knock on the door of a house to get a key. It was a little odd at first but in the end the woman was very nice. It was lucky we had Shane around though because he could fill us in on all the history behind the Picts, which I did not really know at all. After heading back to Elgin we stopped off at a Cashmere factory and then went for dinner.

The next morning we woke up and headed out to check out some of the famous Speyside Whiskey. We took a tour of Glenfarcals' whiskey distillery. I had no idea how complicated making whiskey is. I also did not realize that even changing the water source changes all the character of the whiskey, so the amount of water in the river even effects whiskey production. At the end of our tour we were able to sample 10 year old, 15 year old and 25 year old whiskeys as well as one brand called 105. The distillery is a family owned business and has been run by the same family for the entirety of its existence. After our tour it was on to Edinburgh. On the drive home we saw a red deer, many pheasants (in fact it is quite common to see pheasants as road kill!) highland sheep and highland cattle! Once back into the city though we checked into our amazing bed and breakfast! The place was adorable and they even gave us all our own fuzzy robes to use! We went for dinner at a pub down the street which was pretty delicious. I had a steak pie that I loved.

The next morning we had an amazing breakfast and met some other Americans staying in B&B. Afterwards we went out to see the city, and I got us more than a little lost. In the end we got there and were at the castle in time to see them fire the cannon. We got to see the Stone of Destiny and the Crown Jewels. We also got to enjoy the beautiful view from the castle. After the castle we went to find the statue of Greyfriar's Bobby. Then we wandered in to the Natural History museum and saw and exhibit on lighthouses and some ancient Roman and Pictish artifacts.

After we were done sightseeing we ate an amazing dinner in a pub called The Last Drop, which had a symbol of a hangman's noose on it. We spent New Year's eve tasting delicious cask ales in various pubs, including a few of Robbie Burns' favorites! And at midnight we watched fireworks go off above the castle. Then we made the long trek back to our B&B to pick up our stuff and head to the airport for our VERY early flight to Amsterdam. On our way back through the city we met many friendly people and we even came across a fox running across the road! It was a wonderful Scottish Hogmanay!

A Real White Christmas

I feel like I have been running around nonstop since about the beginning of December, so I apologize for the massive lapse in blogs. In the beginning of December there was snow and finals. I am satisfied with the way my classes went this semester. It was hard to study some days on a snow covered campus, it was absolutely beautiful. Now that it is back to rain all the time I really miss the snow. During the snowy time I checked some new Dutch talents off my list. I can now bike in the snow and ice, very slowly of course, and I went ice skating!

After finals were over and I had caught up on some sleep I went with my friend Laura to her town of Raalte. It is a town much like Hollister, so I felt right at home. One of the nights I was there we went to ice skate on a rink that they made on a field. I borrowed her mom's skates and we skated in very slow circles for about two hours. We also took a hot chocolate break! It was really fun, but it was also interesting to see that everyone there owned their own skates and have clearly been skating since about the time they learned to bike. I am not sure I will ever be able to truly fit in with the Dutch because of their aptitude for activities that require excellent balance.

After my stay with Laura I went to my friend Shira's house in Amsterdam to spend Christmas there. Shira is my introweek sister (from the family's they put us in during orientation) and her family has adopted me. When I arrived in Amsterdam Shira met at the station and we took a ferry across to Amsterdam Noord where she lives. She drew me a bath and then left to go Christmas shopping. After a wonderful bath I got to sit around and read and drink tea for a few hours until everyone got home. The next day was Christmas Eve and Shira's dad got Shira her sister and I tickets to the ballet because he plays in the Orchestra at the opera. We saw a matinee of Sleeping Beauty. The costumes and music were beautiful and it made me really miss the days when we would go to San Francisco to see the Nutcracker ballet. That night we went to Zaandam to stay at Shira's mom Julie's house. We had a quiet dinner and made cookies and watched movies.

When we got up on Christmas morning there we fresh coffee and a stocking with my name on it! After exchanging gifts we put on Christmas Carols and spent the rest of the day cooking a delicious Christmas feast. We made turkey, two kinds of stuffing, gravy, stuffed vegetables, cranberry sauce and salad. A few friends of Shira's family came over and there was a nice group of people in the end. Frequently throughout the evening people would sit down at the piano and start playing Christmas Carols and people would start to sing. It was so nice being in such a musical happy place. And guess what?? It even snowed a little Christmas Day!!

The next day we went back to Amsteram Noord and made another Christmas feast, this one centered around a Lamb roast. Our friend from school Julia who also could not go home for Christmas joined us as well. All in all it was a beautiful Christmas and even though I was not home with my family, I did not get lonely because I was taken in by such a wonderful family!

After Christmas I went off to meet Erin and Shane in Edinburgh which I will write about in another blog.

Thanksgiving and Snow!

First of all since I am bursting with excitement, there was actual snow today!!! Snow that stuck to the ground and I cannot get over how excited I am. This picture is once again the view from my room, you guys must be getting sick of it! Also I took it at night which is why it looks weird.

It started snowing while I was in the IND office picking up my resident permit with my friend Julia. Then when we walked outside it started snowing, which is the second time since Saturday. But to our delight we noticed the flakes sticking to the ground. By the time we were done with some other errands Utrecht was starting to take on a white and sparkly feel. Bikes parked all along the streets were covered in a soft dusting of snow, and so were the bike paths. By the time we got home to campus it looked adorable. It is blanketed in about an inch of snow all over. I have my fingers crossed that the snow keeps coming during the night so we can have a snowball fight tomorrow! However the first snow was just as exciting. After a wonderful night on Friday, I woke up Saturday to snow falling outside my window. I immediately jumped up and grabbed my sweatshirt to run outside. I ran across campus to my friend's unit and rang her doorbell. Skipping and jumping up and down with excitement. All my friends from the Netherlands and the East Coast are very amused by my continual excitement of the snow.

I just mentioned that Friday was wonderful, and I will now explain why. On Friday a few Americans and I decided to show our friends what American Thanksgiving is like, despite the fact that dinning hall provided one Wednesday. The thing was we had already planned this Thanksgiving. We asked people to bring food, that way we wouldn't have to do all the cooking. But no one really knew what to bring so two of us biked to the grocery store to get busy. I found an American store where I could get pumpkin pie filling and evaporated milk for pumpkin pie. We also got marshmallows for yams. In the end we made two chickens, roasted vegetables, yams with marshmallows, rice, carrots and we had bread and salad of course. The crust we bought for the pie came in square pieces, since it was not actually intended for pie. So I sort of quilted together a pie crust, inside a cake pan. In the end the pie was delicious and everyone, especially a few skeptical Brits, was in love with the pie. We all had pretty small slices because seventeen people ended up coming! It ended up including 5 Americans, 4 Dutch, 2 British, 1 Argentinean, 2 Italians, 1 Swede, 1 Australian and 1 Brazilian. Of course those are loose national descriptions because 2 of the Americans have European parents and one of the Dutch girls has American Parents. And the mixed nationality goes for a lot of the others too. It was just so fun to have a home cooked meal, to cook with other people while everyone else is sitting around chatting and after the dinner to just sit and talk over coffee for hours. I was really surprised by how nice the whole evening was. It was pretty unconventional though, seeing as how the Americans were outnumbered, we had no turkey and we made our pie in a cake pan. Oh also the pie was accompanied by stroopwafel ice-cream, just to Dutchify it a little bit.

Sinterklaas

First of all the picture is about a month old, but I just thought the tree was pretty. It is the one right outside my window. It is now bare, which is appropriate considering it is supposed to SNOW this week!!!

Okay, on the the main even, Sinterklaas. So a much more entertaining way to learn about Sinterklaas would probably be to read the David Sedaris story "Six to Eight Black Men." So I really suggest you do that, or you can just youtube it and listen to him read it.

Anyways here goes my explanation. Sinterklaas is the Dutch version of Santa. He is a Turkish Bishop who lives in Madrid with his friends, the Piets. The Piets used to be his slaves, but now they are just his friends. There is some controversy about the fact they are black so now the story is that they are covered in chimney soot. Apparently one year on their way to Holland Sint and the Piets sailed through a rainbow and all of them were different colors. However, it is not uncommon to see people in blackface dressed as Piets around now.

Sinterklaas arrives on a boat from Spain in an event that is televised nationally. There is a Sinterklaas news show every night at 7 leading up to the day. Every year there is some doubt whether he will make it in time because the Piets mess things up. All the Piets have different roles, there is Listening Piet who hangs out around rooftops all year making sure the children are good. But there is also navigation Piet who never fails to get them lost each year. The city the "real" Sinterklaas comes into is changed each year, but on the same day helper Sinterklaases go through each city. All my Dutch friends have assured me that they were always able to tell the difference between the real Sinterklaas and the fake ones.

After Sinterklaas comes into the country Dutch children leave their shoes by the fire place, but now more often the radiator, and sing Sinterklaas songs before bed. They also often leave him a poem and a bowl of water and a carrot for the horse. Some mornings they will wake up to find candy in their shoes! I have already gotten candy in my shoes twice!! Once in Eindhoven and then also in my unit on Monday night. On Monday Sint and Piet even left us a poem. All of this continues until December 5, which is the feast day of Sinterklaas (St. Nicholas). On Sinterklaas, Sinterklaas shows up in the afternoon with a bag of gifts. Some families actually hire a Sinterklaas to show up, and others distract the kids while a giant pile of gifts gets left outside the door. If you are bad though, you get taken back to Spain. Apparently Sinterklaas and Piet used to beat bad children, but now they only pretend to.

For the adults December 5 is also very nice. Families exchange gifts, make eachother something that has to do with that person. It can be something teasing them about their personality or something nice and they also write each other poems. Groups of friends also do this, it is much like a Secret Santa. I am doing this with a group of people on campus, maybe half of whom are actually Dutch.

Sinterklaas season has been really fun because all the Dutch students are so enthusiastic about spreading the love of Sinterklaas. They even found out where the real Sinterklaas was coming this year for us. I could not go because of rehearsal, but some of my friends went and brought me a Sinterklaas beard and hat! There are also sweets that are typical of Sinterklaas season. Mostly pepernoten, which are like mini gingersnap cookies.

Long story short Sinterklaas season is really fun and exciting. It definitely makes up for the lack of Thanksgiving season. It also makes Christmas just about the Christmas story and family instead of gift giving.

It's been funny to explain Santa to Dutch people when they ask. They are completely baffled by the fact he lives on the North Pole and that he just knows if children have been good and bad. Its made for some amusing conversations. I've also had to explain Thanksgiving a few times lately, which has been a little amusing. They made a delicious Thanksgiving dinner in dinning hall tonight. They had turkey, cranberry sauce, gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans and really deluxe ice cream cakes for dessert! I did not know it was happening and it was a really nice surprise! So not to worry, I still had Thanksgiving, all the way over in Europe. I will actually get two, because I am making dinner with some friends on Friday. Not on Thursday because we are going to a concert!

Anyways to finish this thing off,

I am thankful for the chance to live in another country (even if it means being away from so many people I love for such a long time).

I am also thankful that I have found such great friends here to keep me company and take me in during the holiday season. I feel really blessed. I also miss everyone back in the states and my friends spread out all over the world right now! So I hope where ever you are that you have a wonderful Thanksgiving full of good food and even better people.

Keep Calm and Carry On

Much to the exasperation or envy or many of my friends I went to London last weekend! My friend Sarah and I caught one of those beautiful discount airline flights Thursday evening from the Dutch city of Eindhoven to head to London with the plan of seeing Harry Potter. We ended up not being able to see it Thursday, we didn't get tickets fast enough. So instead we explored the area around our hostel, which was off of the London Bridge tube stop for any one who is wondering. We decided to make it an early night though so we could get up and go in the morning!

After a delicious breakfast of toast, fruit and cereal provided by the hostel we went on one of the New Europe free walking tours. Luckily for us out guide was an actual Londoner, so he knew some funny anecdotes about some famous places. We saw Buckingham Palace, and this time I actually saw the changing of the guards. We then walked to St. James and after we went down Pall Mall, to Trafalgar Square and made our way on to Parliament and Westminster Abbey. Our tour ended with the story of Guy Fawkes. It was fun since I ended up seeing most of the main sites I missed on my last tour of London!

After that Sarah and I decided to head to Camden for lunch! After getting some delicious sandwiches involving goat cheese we explored record shops and other funky places for a while. After we had gotten our fill of Camden we went to go find Platform 9 & 3/4 in true spirit of the weekend. Sadly though they are currently renovating part of King's Cross Station and it is blocked off. Or at least that is what we think...

By the time we walked out of Kings Cross (around 4:30) it was already dark! So we decided to grab some coffee and just walk around and explore. We ended up at St. Paul's and walked across the Millennium Bridge to the Globe and the Tate Modern. After that we decided to go see how much the London Eye would cost - almost 20 pounds! eek! So we decided to walk around the Christmas fair that was happening around the area. It was really nice, and it was fun to hear familiar Christmas carols.

Then we grabbed a quick dinner and went to pick up our stuff from our hostel! We were seeing Harry Potter at midnight and had a 7am flight so we went straight from the movie to the air port! We saw the movie in Leicester Square which was pretty exciting! The movie was fantastic and all of you should see it :) After the movie it was so cool to walk out into the streets of London, since parts of the movie were shot there! We then caught a night bus and made the surprisingly long journey to Stansted airport.

After convincing the man in Eindhoven airport to let me back in the country despite my lack of residence permit (grrrr College Hall grrr) Sarah and I were in Eindhoven with some time to kill. A fire in Utrecht Central Station had prevented our friend we were staying with from getting there the day before. So he was still in Utrecht waiting for his brother to pick him up since no trains were running. Sarah and I wandered into a cafe and had some wonderful coffee. After which we explored downtown. Eindhoven is cute, it is certainly not very pretty, but it has a nice atmosphere. It is the town Phillips electronics' headquarters is located it. So even the football team is named after Phillips electronics (PSV)After our friend Erwin and his dad picked us upwe spent a really nice day at Erwin's house. Where there were non-dorm showers, constant fresh coffee and a home cooked meal. I am not sure if the Dutch students understand how wonderful it is when they take us home for the weekend. While I do love UCU and consider it home, there is something irreplaceable about home cooked food and a family atmosphere. After dinner we watched a movie, and then we watched a PSV v Ajax football match. Ajax is the Amsterdam team and there is a pretty big North-South rivalry in the country so everyone was pretty involved in the game. It ended up being 0-0, so a pretty stressful but unexciting game. Although at the very end one of the players bit another one, which was very weird. After the football game we all put our shoes in front of the radiator and sang a Sinterklaas song. The next morning we all had a chocolate S in our shoes!( I will explain all the wonderful Sinterklaas traditions soon I promise! ) After singing songs Erwin took us to see some of the Eindhoven night life. We ended up trying mango beer which was served in a half of a coconut. I was not really a fan, it tasted mostly like mango juice. But the night was really nice, and going to sleep after almost 40 hours awake felt wonderful!

It was a really nice weekend, and coming back to UC felt wonderful! Especially since Sinterklaas also came to my unit last night. So this means I must explain Sinterklaas tomorrow!