In My Room At Last

After three very, very, long days, I am finally in my room. I will post later more detail about orientation, but right now I am just so wiped out that I don't have the energy to give a full report.

In the meantime, my room is decent. I have a single with my own bathroom and kitchen (aka, an electric stove, and a non-functional microwave). The interesting part of that, is that I am living in a shipping container. Yep, I said it. A shipping container. My dorm, Stavangerweg (don't ask me to pronounce it, I can't), is made up of shipping containers stacked on top of each other. My "dorm" consists of blocks of these shipping containers, stacked three tall. Luckily I'm on the first floor, so I didn't have to lug my suitcases up stairs. My room is probably three times the size of my single in haines, which is pretty nice, but the downside is that my dorm (so far at least) doesn't appear to be super social, so it feels a bit isolating. Also, most of the Americans on my program are living in other dorms, with only ten of us here...which eventually shouldn't be a huge deal since this international student housing, but right now until I meet other people it feels a bit isolating.

Stavangerweg is also pretty far from the rest of the dorms, though I'll admit far is relative in Amsterdam. Situated to the north-west of Amsterdam, the houthavens dorms are located on the water, of what turns into the North Sea. Supposedly we have our own pub, that has 1 euro beer on Wednesdays, but I can't even think about leaving my room right now. More on orientation, beer, and my first terrifying bike ride next time!

The First Excursion

After finally getting a few hours of sleep last night, my parents and I set off to find a place to eat lunch, and walk around for a while, doing a little bit of shopping.

As such, here are really my first impressions of Amsterdam. We walked from our hotel to Dam Square, which among other things, felt like a macabre version of Covent Garden. The square was much more open than Covent Garden, but there were a bunch of creepy mimes...creepier than usual, because they were all scary looking, holding scythes or wearing scary masks. (Though there was one that looked like a blue Incan warrior). I wish I had gotten better pictures of them, but I am sort of scared of mimes, after one tried to hit my friends and I when I was 10 with one of his props. (Long story). There is clearly some cultural thing I'm missing here.

We spent some time wandering in the de Biienkorf department store, which was rather similar in layout and architecture to John Lewis in London, so that was a little unnerving. I did have my first experience with Dutch coffee, in that it is not as watered down as American coffee. I have to say, I quite enjoyed it. Adding to my list of things to do: drink lots more coffee (knowing me, this really shouldn't be a problem).

I am also quite amazed by the variety of food that I've come across already. Just in our travels today, we walked by Thai, Chinese, Argentinean, American (New York pizza!), Mexican, Italian, Spanish, and of course, Dutch. Since we didn't walk all that far, I was impressed.

My parents and I ended up getting dinner with a friend of mine from high school, who happens to be in Amsterdam for a few days for her study abroad program, along with her roommate. We ate at a dutch restaurant that was very good, but I suspect a tourist trap, as the menus were written in five different languages. Still, trying to eat somewhere where the menus were all in dutch would just stress my mother out, so I suppose it all worked out in the end.

This will most likely be my last post for a few days - orientation starts tomorrow, and I'll be in a hostel for 2 nights until I am allowed in to my dorm. Wish me luck!

What Time Zone Am I in Now?

Well, it is 5:44am in Amsterdam, and I've managed to sleep maybe 3 hours tonight. Of course, this is largely my own fault - upon getting to the hotel this morning around 9am, I promptly crashed and slept until 5:30pm. This is what happens when I don't sleep very much two nights in a row, fly a red eye on which I can't sleep, and spend time in three cities in just as many days. (Los Angeles/Kinnelon/Amsterdam) Still, jet lag is never a fun thing.

But to backtrack: for those of you who don't already know, I am studying abroad in Amsterdam this semester. My orientation starts at noon on Monday, but my parents insisted on flying out with me a few days early to "get me settled." Considering that I don't even get to move into my dorm until Wednesday, I'm not really sure how this works, but I'm not going to question it.

Since I slept pretty much all of yesterday, I don't have many exciting revelations yet...except that apparently taxis here can drive in the tram lane if they have a special license. Consider it a sort of super car pool lane. It was a little unsettling, I have to admit, if only because my Mother was sitting next to me worried that we were going to get run over by a tram.

As I have nothing else fun to impart, here are my (current) goals for my semester;

1) Try to use dutch as much as possible (as I learn it), and don't simply speak English. (Entirely possible since a large portion of the population speaks English). This could be amusing, since I can't even begin to try to pronounce my dorm address.

2) Rent/buy a bike, and actually use it to get around. While I have an aversion to bikes (and am terrified of the idea of biking in traffic), it will save me a lot of money not having to use public transportation. Also, it really is one of the most practical options.

3) Stay dry/warm.