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

The Bells, The Bells, The Bells

Today has been a long one, we moved into our UCU housing this morning so I am in my official room for the rest of the year! It is a cross between and apartment and a suite. There are 8 single rooms, a living room with 3 couches, a fridge, a hot plate, and a microwave. There is one bathroom and one shower for every two rooms. There are tons of windows in all the rooms so I am going to enjoy the natural light while I can! I so far only have one roommate, she is Dutch and seems very nice.After dropping stuff off in my room I headed over for our final summer school activity, climbing the Dom Tower with our professors. It was amazing, it is the old bell tower for the church in Utrecht. It used to be part of the church but half the church fell down in a tornado hundreds of years ago. They decided not to clean up the church in the end. The tower has almost 500 steps and amazing panoramic views. Today was a beautiful day - in the 80s - and very clear so we could see all the way to Amsterdam! The bell man also played the bells for us while we were up there because it was 1230, which was incredible. There were some trials though,

for instance we did not get here in time to get bedding and they do not supply us with dishes or hangers or other things useful to people who flew here from 9 time

zones. Getting here also involved walking our luggage here from the bus stop and then speed-walking 20 mins to get to our tour on time. We are about to set off on a bike ride along the canal to get some Dutch pancakes :) This weekend promises to be sunny and full of biking. Oh also the entrance to my apartment is virtually hidden and very hard to find, but I really like the apartment.

Anise Sprinkles

I realized that I have been pretty much keeping a travel journal on here and not really informing you guys about Dutch culture. So before I go to sleep here are some quick things I have learned in the last week or so.

-According to my Professor running red lights on bikes is a national sport. Every time I am stopped at a red light, mind you one SPECIFICALLY for bikes, Dutch people zoom by me I feel like a fool.

-They have liability insurance to cover accidents on their bikes or if they walk through a glass door as well as car and home insurance.

-They insult using words for diseases and the worst one you can use is cancer.

-They are not to nationalistic until it comes to soccer, Queen's Day, and Remembrance Day.

-They love anise flavored things, you can even buy anise flavored warm milk. When someone has a baby they eat anise sprinkles on pieces of hard bread. They are blue and white for a boy or pink and white for a girl.

-The sky here is HUGE, there is nothing breaking the horizon once you leave the city center.

Bear in mind these are generalizations and I will give more details about them as I move in with Dutch people (on Friday!!!!).

Here is a picture of the building I live in now. I was really hoping for thunder today so I could watch the storm from my 13th floor apartment.

I will upload photos of Delft in the next day or so.

Goodnight blog reader whomever you may be.

Maura the Explora - Utrecht Edition

The last two

days I have done a good amount of exploring in Utrecht. Part of it was for an assignment. For my Dutch culture class we had to head into a Turkish and Moroccan neighborhood called Lombok and observe the differences from downtown. It was really fun to explore all the fruit stands and Turkish bakeries. I got a giant loaf of bread for less than 2 Euro! And I have been devouring it. I also treated myself to some baklava. Today I went exploring the central area with Sarah and Nicki. We went to the market that happens a few times a week and made complete touristy fools of ourselves with our cameras. There was so

much there. My personal favorites were the cheese stands because many of them had free samples! But there were also candy sta

lls, spice stalls, and much more. After trying Surinamese food for the first time ever and getting some fresh squeezed orange juice Sarah and I decided to try and find a grocery shop museum. On our way there we ended up at the Domkerk. The Domkerk is a giant Church in a central location of Utrecht. The Domtower is visible in much of the city and is an icon of Utrecht. We found a garden located within the boundaries of the church that was completely gorgeous. It was also full of punk/goth people h

aving professional photographers follow them around. In the courtyard next door there were booths full of goth gear, it appeared to be a sort of hang out or convention. After stopping for directions and some more wandering we finally f

ound it. By museum they meant that it is a candy store that look like an old style grocery shop. I decided to buy some nougat while I was there, which is pretty tasty. I even [sort of] was able to order in Dutch! The woman working in the shop was very sweet and even let me photograph her. After that we got walked back to our bikes and rode home. On the way we got separated, and lost. I have been here for a week and I still get lost all the time. However, I am much better about figuring out the general direction I need to be going. On the way home I stopped in Wilhelmina park for a while to relax by the water and update my journal. Apart from it being nice to get some alone time it is a great place to people watch. There was some sort of event going on with live music and booths. I can't believe it has already been a week, so much has happened so it feels like so long ago that I landed. At the same time it really flew by.

Flying Grape Soda

So for once this is coming online hot off the press so to speak. Having working electricity in my room is doing wonders for my productivity at night. Tonight a group of us UC kids signed up for a canoe trip through the canals of Utrecht. The price included boats, guides, a snack, and a drink. The description said we would be stopping at a cafe...key word stop. When we arrived we met another Californian but also people from Russia, Ukraine, Germany and England. There were about 100 people there, or at least far too many for a kayaking trip. When they said canoes apparently they meant kayaks. I partnered up with a girl named Alana who goes to Berkeley. We were at the front of the pack and floated around for a while in a huge floatila waiting for everyone to get in boats. Then we all set off. Once we started to get into residential neighborhoods it was gorgeous, but on the way in there were many willow tress that Alana and I got pretty excited about. While we were first setting out a moth decided to fly down my shirt, which was very amusing for the boys in the next kayak over while I freaked out trying to get it out of my shirt. After it was gone we returned to the tricky business of paddling in a giant group. About an hour after setting out we came to the promised cafe, where women were handing sodas to people in kayaks who had pulled to the side of the canal. We along with most of the group didn't get the memo soon enough and floated by too fast so they threw us our drinks. My boatmate had not realized what was going on and was hit in the face by a grape soda, she hates grape soda. After the initial pain it was fairly amusing to joke about. They were also throwing us packs of stroopwafels but the general inertia of the group had pushed us too far away. Some of our apartment mates shared their stroopwafels with us, a kind of very popular Dutch dessert. After that we kayaked through the canals in the city center passing by gardens of homes along the canal as well as houses and cafes along the canal. The farther we went the more the group spread out which was much nicer. It was an amazing way to see the city, especially because I am just getting my bearings there. I am really enjoying exploring and finding out how to get around because I really did not have that experience in Santa Cruz since I had already spent so much time there. As twilight set in we went deeper into the city, passing under bridges lit by blue light or from below the water. We could also see bikes that had fallen on the wrong side of the fence along the canal and were hanging by their chain. However by the time it was actually dark I was ready to go home. We were pretty soaked and in the end kayaked for about 3 hours. The night overall was ridiculously amusing between the bug, the grape soda, and the general bumper boats that went on. After we got back on shore we walked back home and all warmed up with some delicious tea, all in all a fantastic night. I didn't bring my camera along because I was worried about it getting soaked so I posted a better picture of my bike. The other one is the entrance to Wilhelmina park, named for the Queen of the Netherlands during WWII and part of my bike ride to school. Other people had cameras so when I get ahold of canal pictures I will share them.

Red Lights, Canals, and Bikes Oh My!

The last two days have been incredibly eventful!

Sunday I went to Amsterdam for the first time apart from the airport of course! I went into the city in a group of twelve other students. We split off into smaller groups and the group I was with decided to go on a canal tour which was a lot of fun. It also got us oriented in the city. After that we met back up with everyone else and grabbed dinner. We later decided to roam around the Red Light District. It was very strange to see them in their boxes on display but it was definitely an experience. Next time I go to Amsterdam I think I will bike in along the Vecht river, it's supposed to be gorgeous.

On Monday we were supposed to start class but to our confusion no one had told us where we were supposed to go. A group of us decided to go to the summer school office in the morning and find out. It turns out it was a huge mistake and they didn't know that we had not been told where to go. So at first only four of us showed up to class but everyone else trickled in as the morning went on. Our class has three parts: Language, Culture & History, and Seminar. During seminar we discuss things while the other part is more of a lecture. So far it's pretty interesting. The best part about Monday was that I bought my bike! During our lunch break I went with another student in the program to get our bikes! It is used and a little rusty in some spots but I am totally in love with it! Riding around Utrecht on my bike is by far my favorite thing I have done. After class there was a movie free to summer school students at a theatre and then we ran some errands before heading home. At about 8:30 I headed out to explore the city with the other girl who got her bike. We rode into the center of the city and just explored canals and bike paths around the center. At about 10 we stopped and ate some amazing cheesecake. It was melt in your mouth wonderful. It was just getting dark at 10 so we rode home and hit the books.

Today I had my first experience of riding my bike in the rain, which was not that bad. The weather is fairly warm and its fun to see the rain on the canals while I ride by them. I am sure I will have a different opinion of the rain once the novelty wears off, but for today it was nice!

I also had my first language class today and I forgot how hard it is learning a new language at the very beginning when you are figuring out how to move your mouth for the new words. Its a little hilarious speaking Dutch though.

My bike is the one on the outside! I will take a better picture later

The cheesecake had passion fruit on top it was so amazing

if you look through this bride you can see a ton of other bridges...supposedly seven. I took this during our canal cruise

Me and Cherry in front of the Amsterdam train station

David buying one of the ridiculous vending machine hamburgers.

Hello Utrecht

It has been a long 24 hours since we touched down in the Netherlands. I met up with 3 other students in the program during my flights and we stuck together to find our way to the summer school office. We ended up taking the train from Amsterdam where we sat in first class [oops] and had a very nice ticket man explain our mistake to us, but he let us stay there. After arriving in Utrecht we split a cab with another student we ran into to the summer school office. When we arrived we had no idea where to go and wandered around for a while until a student from Montreal who was looking for the office too flagged us down. It turns out our information was wrong and the office didn't open until 12. So we grabbed some food at a bakery and sat down on the cobblestones outside. Everyone started to show up so we quickly got to know the other UC kids. After they finally opened they gave us keys directions and bedding that is completly ridiculous. We jumped on a bus to our apartments just as it started raining. After much trial and error we found our building. We are on the 12th floor in an apartment that is suspended over the ground [the picture above is a view looking down]. Strangely enough there are sheep in the field next to us. We cleaned up and headed back out to buy groceries and things we forgot such as towels. After coming home for a quick nap we headed back out. So far Utrecht is really gorgeous city with pretty friendly people.

Countdown

Ever since we dropped Julia off at the airport for her European adventure in Sweden on Sunday I have been in a constant frenzy. Seeing her leave made my imminent departure all too real. I have absolutely no idea what constitutes sensible clothing and what is irrational to pack. On top of that I am trying to make sure everything here is tied up and saying goodbye to everyone. Anyways the city I am moving to is called Utrecht. I am going to the University College Utrecht there, UCU is a smaller part of Utrecht University. It is 2/3 Dutch and 1/3 international. Apparently the Utrecht province has the best castles in the Netherlands! Anyways I have a list of things I want to do while I am in the Netherlands

1. Ice skate on a frozen canal

2. Go to a soccer game

3. Go to the flower market

I also might check out Wadlopen...a Dutch activity that involves mudflat walking.