finals... but here's a short update anyway

Okay, sorry it's been so long since I posted. I'm in the midst of finals, and though they're nowhere near as daunting as Oberlin finals, there is still a bunch of work to do this week so this won't be a long post. I just wanted to give you a quick update, and I'll just let the pictures I have be my explanation of what I've been doing the past 2 weeks.

1. My friends and I went to Hortus Botanicus, the botanical garden a few blocks away from my dorm. They had a butterfly room.



2. We had a party for Sinterklaas on December 5th. Our program directors Hannah and Rudy dressed up as Zwarte Peit. I didn't realize who they actually were until they spoke to me. It was disturbing.



3. Oh yeah, and Hannah's husband dressed up as Sinterklaas.



4. My dad visited for a long weekend (he left this morning). We went to Delft and to the church where Johannes Vermeer is said to be buried.



5. Delft was really pretty, and it DOES have canals (Rachel...).



6. We also stopped in the Hague for an hour... It was not as cool or as pretty as Delft. But there was this cool clock outside central station.



7. Yesterday we went on a canal cruise. It was fun to see the city from the water.



Okay, that's all for the pictures. This morning I took my final exam for my Russia and Europe class, I think it went well... Friday I have a 4,000-5,000 page paper due, and then I'll be basically done with school work. Then my mom gets here on Sunday... I may or may not update again before leaving the city.

So long!

Deltawerken

Yesterday I went on one final excursion with CIEE. This time I actually managed to wake up on my own and made it easily to the bus by 8:15am, so that puts my success rate at waking up for excursions at 1/3. I guess that ratio could possibly give you some idea of my schedule here. Basically, yesterday was the earliest I've been awake (besides catching flights) all semester. Only two days a week do I have to wake up for an early class, and so on most other days I tend to sleep until about 11am, sometimes later on weekends, it's very enjoyable, and I'm not looking forward to next semester when I will definitely need to be a lot more productive than I am required to be here. Anyway, back to the excursion though.

In Dutch class a few days ago, Bonny (my professor) was telling us about a survey that asked Dutch people what they are most proud of regarding their Dutch identity and the society they come from. The thing that came up as what the most Dutch people are proud of (about 70% of the population) was the so called "battle against the water." As I'm sure many of you are somewhat aware, the Netherlands is full of dykes and dams that work to keep the North Sea from flooding the country. Without these dykes and dams, about half of the country would be under water, including Amsterdam, The Hague, and Rotterdam, three of the most important cities in the country. The country has been protected by dykes since the middle ages and maybe even before (I don't know the exact history) but in 1953 there was a major storm that broke past many of the dykes and flooded the coastal area. About 1,800 people were killed during the storm and flood that resulted, the sea level during that disaster was higher than it has ever been recorded in the country prior to or since 1953. After that disaster it became clear that something more was needed to keep the water out, and that is what the Delta Project was.

Shortly after the storm dams began to be constructed throughout teh Zeeland (the area where the damage of 1953 had been the harshest and also the area most vulnerable to the North Sea. The most intense dam that was constructed, and also the one that we visited yesterday, was the Eastern Scheldt dam, which was completed in 1986 and cost about 2.5 billion euros. The entire project, which included 13 different dams cost a total of 6.5 billion euros. I won't try to explain the science behind the dams or how they were able to construct such massive gateways to the North Sea, because although we watched a movie about it and had it explained to us by a guide, I really just dont understand it. Nonetheless, I was extremely impressed by the scientific genius that obviously went into the design and construction of the dams.

We got to walk out onto the main dam and look over at the rushing water, and it was quite a sight. The water was moving so incredibly fast, but we were told that it was a very calm day really. Seeing the strength of the water on a calm day, I can barely imagine what it must be like during a massive storm. The one thing I do know about how the dam works is that the gates are left open until the water level gets to 3m above sea level. At this point a series of 62 huge gates are shut so that no more water can get into the country (that seems like a weird way to put it, but that's essentially what happens). Our guide told us that in the 21 years the dam has been in operation, the gates have only been closed 9 times, and one of those times was just a few weeks ago on November 9th, 2007!

Unfortunately, my camera was out of batteries, so I can't put up a picture of the dam right now. But as soon as I get my hands on someone elses pictures from the day, I'll make sure to post one on here.

On a completely separate note, Shari visited this weekend and we had a splendid time! Also, last night I went to see Taryn's photo exhibition, which was part of her final project for SIT, and it was really great. She's an extremely talented photographer, I expect big things!

Sinterklaas Is Here!

This weekend the Dutch version of Santa Clause came to town. Sinterklaas arrived in the Amsterdam harbor on a boat from Spain this Sunday morning. I don't feel completely qualified to give the history of Sinterklaas, but I'll try to give an idea of the tradition to the best of my knowledge. Basically Sinterklaas comes from Saint Nicholas, and he is the patron saint of children. Similar to Santa Clause, he is said to keep a list of all children and whether or not they have been good or bad over the year. On December 5th Dutch children get gifts from Sinterklaas, in their shoes (?) I think. If a child has been bad over the year, it is said that he will be sent back to Spain! This threat has a lot of historical significance because the Dutch were under Spanish control for many years in the middle ages. So, that is what my knowledge of Sinterklaas is. One main difference that needs to be talked about between Sinterklaas and Santa Clause, is that of their helpers. As all Americans know, Santa Clause is assisted by hundreds and thousands of elves that work for him in the North Pole. Well, Sinterklaas also has helpers, but his helpers are called Zwarte Piets (black petes). Basically Zwarte Piet is usually portrayed by white Dutch people dressed up in complete black face. This would never fly in America, and I think these pictures will illustrate just why that is.

On Sunday some of my friends and I decided to get a taste of Dutch tradition and so we made our way to Dam Square in order to get a look at Sinterklaas and all the Zwarte Piets running around as he made his way through the city (on a white horse of course). I had hear about Zwarte Piet before going to the parade, but I was in no way prepared to encounter the site that awaited me. There were literally hundreds of people dressed up in what looked like clown outfits, with all of their skin entirely blacked out and with wigs as well! They were all running around interacting with the crowds and acting like fools. Some of them were even scaling a building near the square. A spectacle like this would never fly in America and my friends and I were all made slightly uncomfortable by the sight of it. The arguments that I have heard to justify the continued acceptance of this practice really do not satisfy me. I have been told that "it's just a tradition" and it has also been argued that blackface does not have the same negative connotations in this country that it does in America, but I really don't think that makes it okay. It has also been argued that the Dutch do not have the same history of racism that we have in the States, but this is simply a falsehood. The Dutch played a major role in the slave trade, they held colonies around the globe, and they can also proudly claim to be the ancestors of Afrikaans people in South Africa. When the Dutch arrived on the southern point of Africa, they handled themselves in an entirely racist manner and so I think it is simply ignorant to try and argue that the Dutch do not have a racist history. Apparently there have been attempts to try and get this tradition changed, for instance one group has argued for a new tradition in which the Zwarte Piets are painted in all different colors of the rainbow in order to show diversity, but none of these efforts have been succesful at gaining support within the country, so 600 Zwarte Piets were still found running around the streets of Amsterdam this past Sunday. I'll try not to dwell on that though. It was really cool to get to see Sinterklaas, along with some colonists! (and someone is trying to argue the Dutch aren't historically racist). He rode past us on his big white horse and all the little kids got really excited. It is also a Dutch tradition for the Zwarte Piets to hand out peipernoeten (I think I'm spelling that wrong) and so all the little kids (some of whom were dressed up as Zwarte Piet themselves) were standing along the parade route with bags out waiting to recieve their peipernoeten (which is just little ginger snap cookies, they're pretty tasty).

On another note, I went to the Anne Frank House on Tuesday. I was trying to wait out and go with my mom, but they were supposed to cut down the chestnut tree from the garden that Anne wrote about so much in her diary. My friends and I decided on a whim to go check it out before the cut the tree down the next day. It was a good place to visit, it was just sort of amazing to be in all the same places that she describes so well within the diary. So... to those who are coming to visit me, I recommend that you go, but since I don't want to pay another 7,50 euro to go again, I think I will find a cafe nearby and read a book while you explore it. Well, that's all for now, Shari is coming in two days and I'm super excited!

Vienna! (through rain, hail, and snow)

Sorry it's taken me so long to get around to writing this entry. Everytime I sit down at my computer with the intention of writing it, it just seems daunting and like too much to do in the time that I have to be writing it. The case is no different right now, but I figure if I at least get started then the next time I am at my computer, I will be able to finish. I've already written a nine page entry on Vienna in my journal, because that's how much there is to say about it! I'm just going to try and give a general overview of everything that we did while we were there.

I traveled with my friend Scott who is one of my closest friends in Amsterdam. At the same time that we were in Vienna though, some other girls from our program were also there, and I was staying at the same hostel as them (Scott stayed with a friend of his who is studying abroad in Vienna this semester). We had an 8:50am flight out of Amsterdam on Thursday morning, and so our weekend adventure started at around 7:00am when we met up at Scott's place to walk over to Central Station together and catch a train to the airport. Travel went very smoothly and our flight was incredibly fast so we landed in Vienna at our scheduled time despite leaving about 30 minutes late. After we landed we made our way to my hostel so I could check in and put my stuff down. After putting everything down we (now joined by Erika, Lena, Riley, and Amanda, who all go to USC and are on my program as well) made our way to Old Town just so that we could walk around and see the city a little bit. The first thing I noticed about Vienna is that all of the buildings are absolutely beautiful. I felt as though everywhere I turned I saw another architecturally stunning building. Apparently Vienna is quite famous for their coffee, so while in Old Town we went to get some delicious coffee, and we also stopped by Cafe Demel to pick up some royally famous cake. Scott and I shared a chocolate truffle cake, and it was delicious.

As all of us were pretty tired from traveling we decided to spend the night at the bar in our hostel instead of out painting the town red. We spent a few hours drinking and eating in the bar joined by Scott's friend Megan, and then eventually at around 1:00am we all decided to go to bed, making plans to meet up at 10am the next morning to start our first day of touring the city. All of us except for Scott were staying at the same hostel, but since the other 4 girls had booked their room together, they had their own room and I was in a different room with three guys from Australia. I had only briefly introduced myself to these guys earlier in the day, and they weren't in the room when I went to bed, but unfortunately they came back about an hour after I put my head down and they were completely trashed. They proceeded to wake me up by yelling my name very loudly and with a very long "u" sound.... "Ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuth!" When it became apparent that I wasn't going to be able to pretend to be asleep, I sat up in bed and acknowledged that I was not asleep. They then proceeded to strip down to their underwear and make me take pictures of them posing in their underwear. One of them also began banging his head into the METAL lockers in the room. Basically they made complete fools of theirselves, but after about 15 minutes they realized how obnoxious they were being and went to bed... I didn't fall asleep for another hour, so it was not a good first night sleeping wise, but I guess that's what happens sometimes when you stay in youth hostels. On Friday morning I woke up and cleared out of the room before my lovely roomates regained consciousness.

My main reason for really wanting to visit Vienna over other European cities was because I wanted to get a chance to see the building that my grandfather lived in when he was growing up in Vienna. The entire weekend I found myself imagining what the city might have been like in the 1930's when my grandpa was here. On Friday morning the first place we visited was Weimarer Strasse 22, my grandpa's old address. I google mapped the location the night before and figured out what train to take. It ended up being only 2 metro stops from where Megan lived, so it was really easy to get to. I took a bunch of pictures of the outside of the building, but I didn't know the apartment number and even if I had, I don't think I would have been bold enough to actually ring the door bell and ask to go inside. At one point however, someone did leave the building and my friends and I caught the door and walked into the entrance hallway for a few minutes. It was really great to get to see the whole neighborhood, and I was strangely reminded of the upper west side. There are more pictures on facebook (link in the previous post) if you want to see more of what I'm talking about here.

After leaving Weimarer Strasse, we all made our way a short bus ride outside of Vienna into the mountains and vinyards surrounding the city. A bus took us to the top of some mountain, from which we could see the entire city of Vienna laid out in front of us. We snapped many pictures before retreating from the cold into a restaurant/hotel that was located on top of the mountain. Just about 5 minutes after we had taken our seats at the restaurant, it started to hail outside! Luckily we had looked at the weather forecast before leaving Amsterdam and so I had my winter coat and a hat and gloves to keep me warm, nevertheless, we were expecting snow, not hail. After some snacks we braved the cold again in order to take a short hike through the nearby vinyards and to experience some more spectacular views of Vienna, albeit at the expense of our warmth.

The rest of our day was spent at the Albertina Art Museum, which had a huge collection of famous artists from the last two-three centuries. And later that night we went to a restaurant called Centimenter VII which gets it's name because it usually serves food "by the centimeter."
We were joined by a bunch of Megan's roomates and friends that were visiting at the same time, so all together there were 12 of us out to dinner. We had the entire basement of the restaurant to ourselves. Our hosts ordered a "wagon" and a "sword" as the main course... There was no way to predict what was about to be served to us. Basically we were given a whole lot of meats, potatoes, pastas, etc. and the whole table served theirselves. It was quite the interesting dining experience, but after one plate I couldn't eat anymore because it was so filling.

The next day we were back to touring, but first we allowed ourselves to sleep in until 11am. We met up at about one and made our way over to the Naschmarkt, which is an outdoor market that sells tons of different foods that all looked absolutely delicious. These dragon fruits were just one of the many food items on display. They also sold warm spiced wine that we all made sure to try, especially since it was just about freezing during the time that we were there. It only got colder as the day went on, and it also started to rain. The cold and the rain was not a good combination, so we tried to avoid being outside as much as possible. But unfortunately the trams were not agreeing with us this day because they kept getting re-routed and making us walk further than we should have had to in order to get to the places we wanted to go. Our next stop after the Naschmarkt was Belvedere Palace which is also an art museum. The building was beautiful as are most all buildings in Vienna and the collection included a bunch of Gustav Klimt pieces that were really awesome.

That night we decided to take advantage of cheap standing room tickets at the Opera and so we paid 2 Euros to go see the opera Arabella at the National Opera House. None of us are really big opera buffs, and it was a 3 hour long show, so we showed up a little bit late and only watched the second half. Unfortunately in the area we were standing none of the monitors were displaying the words in English... It was all in German, and since none of us had ever been to the opera before, we didn't know that all we had to do was press a button to see the English, so we didn't really understand most of the plot, but it was still fun to watch and to listen to. It made me think of all the vocal majors at Oberlin... I wonder if they'll ever end up somewhere like Vienna. I'm sure some of them will. After the opera we went to the most expensive night club I've ever gone to in my life. It cost 13 Euro just to get in and then the cheapest drink on the menu was over 3 Euro... It was NOT my kind of place, nor Scott or Megan's, but our friends were enjoying it, so we made the most of it and even snuck in some of our own sodas from the street vendor outside. The music was good, but it definitely wasn't worht the amount of money that it cost to get in.

The next day was our last day of touring, and it also happened to be the first snow fall of the year for Vienna. I woke up at around 9:30 and left my hostel to find myself covered in fluffy white snow flakes as I walked the one block to the metro station. It was extremely beautiful, despite how wet and cold it made me, and it was definitely really different from the weather I've been expereincing in Amsterdam. In comparison to Oberlin, Amsterdam weather is actually quite nice. It's been in the 40's lately, and it's not supposed to get all that much colder in the time that I'm here. It sucks when it rains and I still have to bike everywhere, but otherwise it's been quite pleasant. But back to Vienna. It was our last day touring the city so we decided to go to the Schonbrunn Palace, which is where the seat of the Habsburg Empire was located. We got a guided audio tour of the palace which took us through the main offices, dining rooms, bed rooms, and other important rooms of the royal family. Schonbrunn Palace is a beautiful building, made even more beautiful by the fact that it was covered with fresh white snow at the time we were there.

After the palace, we went back to Megan's apartment to cook ourselves dinner, and then Megan, Scott, and I went to see the National Orchestra (again, only 6 Euro for standing room). The orchestra was playing Tchaikovsky and it was really cool to get to go see it. Again, it made me think about all the Con students at Oberlin and how this must be what they aspire to. After the orchestra we went back to Megan's apartment to hang out for a while until Scott and I had to make our way to the airport. Our flight wasn't until 6:30am, but because of the public transport schedules we had to take the last train that night and sleep in the airport. Unfortunately we ended up missing the last train because of a mishap with reading the German train schedules, and we ended up taking a cab and getting to the airport at around 2am. We spent the night on a cold marble floor, until 4:30am when we were allowed to check in and go through security. Everytime I sat down in the time between when we checked in and when we boarded the plane, I fell fast asleep and Scott would have to wake me up everytime we had to move somewhere else. When I finally sat down on the plane, I again fell asleep immediately and preceeded to stay asleep until we touched down two hours later in Amsterdam... It was a great flight.

Well, that's all for my Vienna post, finally! This past week I've been pretty lazy, just going to classes and relaxing. Last night my friends and I went out to a club that was playing "steaming soul" and 60's and 70's hits, so that was pretty fun. Then today we went to Foam, the photography museum in Amsterdam, which is probably my favorite museum that I've been to in the city. After going to Foam, Natalie, Mike, and I left our bikes by the museum and just walked around the city for a few hours. I think since we are always on our bikes and are always riding toward set destinations we don't really look around at the wonderful city that we live in as much as we really should. So it was nice this afternoon to be off our bikes and just exploring and appreciating the place that we live.

My time here feels like it is closely approaching it's end. I leave this city in exactly 5 weeks from today, but before that happens I will be getting visits from Shari, Michelle, my dad, and my mom, so there is much to look forward to. Unfortunately, also in those 5 weeks I will have to write two 15 page papers, and take two final exams, but that will all come and go easily... I hope.

Until next time, feel free to email me or just comment and say hi.

-Ruth

long update coming, but for now, pictures!

I was going to update about my weekend trip to Vienna tonight, but I'm a bit too tired. I spent the night in the airport last night in order to be able to make it to my 6:30am flight back to Amsterdam because public transport in Vienna doesnt run past 12:30am and the first train would have been too late to get us to the airport on time. Scott and I slept on a cold marble floor, and as a result, I'm still pretty exhausted and there's far too much to say to do so in a short entry, so the Vienna entry will follow in the next few days, but I was industrious enough to make a facebook album, so here is the link to pictures of Vienna:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2026256&l=08fc5&id=4302935

Also, I realize I still haven't added a link for more picture of Maastricht and Aachen, so here's that:

http://oberlin.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2025988&l=e7557&id=4302935

Enjoy the pictures!

Maastricht and Aachen!

This weekend my program organized a trip that took me outside of Amsterdam for the first time since I've been in The Netherlands. As some of you may know if you've been keeping up with my blog, I missed the bus for the last excursion that our group had planned and ended up missing an opportunity to visit Gouda (where the cheese comes from) and Rotterdam, one of the most metropolitan cities in the country. This time I made sure to set my alarm and I checked it many times to make sure it was set correctly (not pm instead of am, etc.). I also made plans to meet my friends outside of our dorm and bike over to the bus together and told them if I wasn't there to ring my buzzer and make sure I woke up and didn't miss the bus again. Well, needless to say... I overslept again! I really don't know why this keeps happening. I'm sure that my alarm was set, I've never overslept or been late to any of my classes this semester, so I really don't know why this keeps happening on days when I need to catch a bus. Anyway, good thing I made those plans with my friends because at 8:40am I woke up to my obnoxious buzzer, realized what time it was, promptly dressed, grabbed my bag and headed outside. We made the bus on time, and so by 9:30am I found myself staring out the window at the Dutch countryside.

The drive to Maastricht was a bit more than two hours and upon arrival we were greeted with a large buffet lunch that we all were more than ready to enjoy, especially since I had overslept and therefore not had time to eat breakfast. After our meal we were met by two tour guides who split up our group and took us on a walking tour of the city of Maastricht. First let me say a little about our tour guide. I didn't catch her name, but she was one crazy lady. She was probably in her mid-late sixties, with hair that was sitting completely still above her head. She was also wearing bright blue eye shadow that was magnified through her powerful glasses. She spoke a mile a minute and gave us some of the most absurd details and information that I've ever heard on a historical tour. Anyway, it was still a fun tour and she was definitely entertaining to listen to.

The city is full of old architecture, a lot of which is made of stone from a local quarry that is now a series of underground tunnels that we were able to explore the next day. One of the highlights of the tour was these sculptures that were located in the main square of the city. The subjects of the sculpture are taking part in the Dutch version of Carnival. Another highlight on the tour is shown in the third picture. This is a picture of what our tour guide called "shit houses." Apparently, many years ago, before the invention of indoor plumbing, people who lived along the canals and the rivers in Maastricht would have their bathrooms built over the canal so that when they did their business, it would just got right into the canal and then float away. Throughout the course of the tour there must have been at least 5 different shit houses pointed out to us by our guide.

After our tour of Maastricht, we had a bit of free time to go shopping in the city and have a cup of coffee. I ended up buying myself some tea and a flannel shirt, which I am currently wearing and which I have decided is my new favorite article of clothing, it's extremely comfortable and comforting to wear and I've worn it every day since I purchased it. When we finished shopping we met up with the
rest of the group and got back on our bus in order to make our way to Drielandenpoint, which is the spot in Europe where The Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium meet. Here's a picture of three of us all standing in different countries!

This place is basically a big tourist trap, but since we didn't get there until it was dark, there was no one else around. We had dinner at a restaurant right next to the point where the countries meet (on the Dutch side I think). The restaurant was this place where they basically put out a bunch of vegetables and meats and pancake batter and eggs out and then you can cook yourself dinner... It was weird to be cooking for ourselves at a restaurant, but we all had fun making fun creations. In one of my trips to the cooking station I made myself a pannekoeken with mushrooms and onions that was absolutely delicious... I'm pretty proud of myself for that one.

After dinner we piled back on the bus in order to make our way to Aachen, Germany where we spent the night. I think the only reason we went there was to say we had spent the night in Germany because we had no planned events in the city and the next morning we all got back into the bus and drove back to the outskirts of Maastricht for our next event. After we checked into the hotel and put all our stuff down we decided to check out the German night life. After walking for probably a mile or so we found a pretty lit up street with a few bars on it and so we picked a place and sat at an outdoor table (even though it was pretty cold). Apparently in Germany they like to put random things in their beers, like banana syrup, or coca cola... Needless to say I ordered a Colaweizen (that's probably spelled wrong). It was basically just a beer with a bit of coca cola in it, it sounds gross, but it actually tasted pretty good. The weirdest part was the foam on top, which was like a mix between soda and beer foam, it was odd.

The next morning we went to visit the caves in St. Pietersberg, which is located on the main mountain outside of Maastricht and has a really nice view of the city. The caves used to be a stone quarry, but have for a long time just been a tourist attraction in Maastricht. We had a guided tour through them, but at one point in order to give us an idea of what it would be like to get lost down there, our guide took away our lanterns and had us walk about 100 or so feet in complete darkness in order to get back to our only light source. It got pitch black in there, and it was pretty scary. We had to hold hands and trace the wall in order to find our way. It's crazy to think about, because our guide also told us stories about how people had gotten lost down there and ended up dying because they weren't able to get out. Jews also used these caves as hiding places during World War Two.

Continuing on the WWII theme, after leaving the caves we made our way to our next stop which was the Margratan Cemetery, a United States WWII cemetery located in The Netherlands. The cemetery is home to around 8,000 American men (and 4 women) who lost their lives in Europe during WWII. It was a really well organized cemetery. The first thing you see is a display that outlines the military strategies and actions taken by the Allied forces in the last years of the war and details many of the main battles that a number of the men burried in the cemetery were involved in when they lost their lives. One thing that was really interesting is that a number of the graves have fresh flowers on them, despite the fact that the families of these men still live in the United States. Our guide told us that it has become customary for local Dutch families to adopt one of the graves and care for it as if the soldier were a part of their own family because they are so thankful to the US forces for liberating the area almost a full year before the end of the war. I took a picture of this one headstone because I noticed that the person had died on June 10th, my birthday. When I looked more closely, I noticed the name and realized that I was looking at the grave of one of the 4 women in the entire cemetery, even more reason to have a picture of this particular headstone.

I have many more pictures from this weekend, I'm planning on making a facebook album, so when that's done, I'll make sure to put a link up here for non-facebook users to be able to take a look. That's all for now. I'm going to Vienna on Thursday, so my next post will be a fun filled Austrian adventure (though I hear it's already below freezing there, so it may be a quite cold adventure as well). Thanks for reading!

unofficial fall break and picture updates

This past week was my unofficial fall break (conveniently the same week as Oberlin's fall break). I say unofficial because classes are not officially cancelled, but most professors choose to cancel class in order to give students a break, or time to prepare for a midterm, or they actually schedule the midterm for that week. Luckily, all but one of my classes all week were cancelled and I only had one paper due. I made sure to finish my paper by Tuesday and I skipped my one class on Thursday in order to ensure that I could spend as much time as possible with Rachel for the 5 days that she was here. It was a very nice week and I took advantage of Rachel being here to actually force myself to visit some of the museums that I've been meaning to get to for a few weeks now.

Over the course of the week we played lots of scrabble and set and also managed to visit The Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art which is currently home to an extensive Andy Warhol exhibit. We also went to Foam, which is a photography museum in Amsterdam that currently has an exhibit dedicated to Amsterdam photographers and portraits. Both exhibits were really awesome and both were also extremely well done and laid out extremely well, etc.

The rest of the week was spent relaxing, visiting markets, watching movies, eating pancakes, and riding bikes, some of my favorite activities in Amsterdam and the world. But in now for some pictures that I've been meaning to put up for a while.

This is a picture of the carnival that was set up in The Dam for some time. Unfortunately I wasn't organized to get myself over there and actually go on any of the rides, but I heard they were ridiculously overpriced anyway... The next picture is from the Albert Cuyp market as are the few following it. Next is a picture of some awesome graffiti that I bike past pretty frequently. Then there are some pictures are of an amazing sunset from last weekend. Natalie took this picture from my window and I really love it. I took the second one on the way home from the market. There's also one from Scott and my romantic candlelit dinner last Monday night. Then some pictures from my week with Rachel, scrabble and many failed attempts to take a good picture of ourselves together. And finally, here are Alanna and Kellan all dressed up for the Halloween party that my dorm threw last night. (Much to Rachel and my dismay given that we had to wake up at 6:30am this morning and the party didn't end until 3am). It's too complicated to try and get the captions to go next to all the pictures, but I'm sure you can all figure out what's what.

































I just realized looking out my window that it's raining. Luckily this is the first time it's rained in at least a week.

a fabulous weekend

Yesterday most of my friends hoped on a plane to Istanbul for the week, but before they left we had a fun weekend together. My friend Scott (who actually doesn't leave for Istanbul until Thursday) had two friends visiting, one of them is studying in Barcelona and the other in Vienna, and since it was Scott's birthday this weekend they decided to come visit. Scott's birthday was on friday and my other friend Owen's birthday was on Monday, so we spent the whole weekend partying in celebration of them both being one year older. On friday night we went out to dinner at this awesome chinese restaurant which Scott's parents were nice enough to treat us to (via their credit card) and then we hung out at Scott and Owen's apartment for a while before going out dancing at You II which is a mixed gay and lesbian club. As Yitka mentioned in her blog, they (unlike most clubs in Amsterdam) actually had a DJ who was playing some really good music and not just mundane techno, and we all enjoyed ourselves so much that we stayed there dancing until 3am.

On Saturday I went to the Albert Cuyp market again with Mike and Natalie. None of us bought anything, but I took some pictures that I wanted to share with you all. This first one is an in motion shot taken while riding down Kerkstraat (I was pretty impressed with myself for the accomplishment of pulling my camera out of my pocket, turning it on, taking this picture, turning it off, and putting it back into my zipped up pocket). We didn't actually end up getting to the market until about 4:30 and they pack up and close most of the stalls around 5, so we weren't there for too long, but we looked at a bunch of things and decided that we would come back when they return from Istanbul and do some real shopping.

After the market we ate at Maoz, which I don't think I've mentioned yet, and therefore I will tell you all about it. Maoz is a vegetarian falafel restaurant chain that was started here in Amsterdam but now has locations in cities all over Europe and also in New York. The way it works is, you get a falafel sandwhich with just the falafel and the pita bread, and then you can go to their salad bar that has numerous toppings and delicious sauces. The best part is, you can go back to the salad bar as many times as you want! I don't even think I want to mention how many times I've been to Maoz in the past week, but it really is wonderful, and also wonderfully cheap!

Yesterday after writing my paper and seeing my friends off to the airport, Scott and I (the only two of our group who are around right now) decided to make ourselves a feast in my kitchen. We headed over to Albert Heijn to pick up all our ingredients and then back to my place to start the preparations. We made a delicious meal of chicken fajitas, with onions and peppers and garlic, and we also had some beans to put inside them, as well as cheese and salsa. Then lit candles and drank pineapple juice out of wine glasses and had a very romantic candle lit dinner. It was pretty fun. Afterwards we watched a movie in my room before calling it a night.

In about twenty minutes I'm heading over to meet Scott at the Jewish Historical Museum which is just a few blocks away from my dorm. And after that I'm getting on a train out to Schiphol to go meet Rachel!

Hmm... I was going to upload lots of pictures right now, but it's being particularly slow at the moment, so I'll just do a big picture update next time I've got some time to spare.

haircuts and ani difranco

I just got a haircut on Monday and I promised my mother that I would post a picture on my blog. So, here are some pictures. Disregard the wierd faces I'm making. It feels weird to take a picture of myself, so I usually make a face so that I feel less awkward.

Last night I went to see Ani DiFranco live at Melkweg and it was amazing. She was soooo goood. I went with Yitka and a fe other people from her program. She played a two hour set, and even though I didn't know all the songs because I only have 3 of her numerous albums, it was still so good. Yitka and I parted ways knowing that we were both going home to have a night full of continued listening.

In other news, I just got back from my last class before our unofficial midterms break/fall break. I say unofficial because the break is not actually scheduled and professors do not have to give their students the week off, but most of them do so that students will have time to study or write their midterm papers. For international students however, it is the most popular time to travel and so in the next few days most of my friends are taking off for a variety of European destinations including: Denmark, Italy, Turkey, etc. etc. etc. I'm not going anywhere next week though, because Rachel is coming to visit me on Tuesday!

Alright, that's all for now.

parties, animals, picnics, van gogh, frisbee, and middle school throwbacks

That long title is just to give a short outline of everything that I feel I need to talk about within this post. Since it's been almost a week since my last post, a lot has been going on, namely: parties, animals, picnics, van gogh, frisbee, and middle school throwbacks. That doesn't really make sense by itself though, so let met explain each of these things and in so doing I think I will be able to give you all a somewhat clear picture of what I've been up to for the past week.

PARTIES:
On Tuesday night my friend Alanna and I decided to host a small get together of friends. I volunteered my room as the location, and we created a facebook event inviting everyone we know here (which was only about 20-something people) and we assumed that maybe ten or less of those people would actually show up since we didn't think of this idea until late Monday night. Well, as it happens almost everyone that we invited did show up, and many people brought friends as well. This picture is early in the night when only about 12 people were there, but this doesn't even begin to describe how many people came by the end of the night. At one point there must have been about 25 people within my room and another 10 outside in the kitchen area, it was crazy. I don't plan on hosting anymore parties this semester, but I enjoyed the night and later after everyone had left Alanna helped me clean up so that wasn't too painful either.

ANIMALS:
On Friday my friend Scott and I took advantage of a free trip to the zoo organized by his RA's. The Artis Zoo is located just around the corner from my dorm, so it's extremely convenient, and although I did go to the zoo once quite briefly, I hadn't gotten the opportunity to walk around at all and see all the animals. So when Scott asked if I wanted to go, I jumped at the opportunity. We walked around the zoo for a few hours and saw loads of animals including: baboons, lions, jaguars, elephants, llamas, gorillas, etc. etc. They also have an aquarium within the zoo so we went in there and saw lots of beautiful colorful fish. And then before we left we made sure to catch the penguin feeding and the seal feeding. We both really wanted to see the lion feeding, but apparently Friday is the only day of the week that they don't feed the lions. Unfortunately I didn't bring my camera with me, so I don't have any pictures to share.

PICNICS:
After leaving the zoo Scott and I headed back to my block to meet up with Alanna for a picnic dinner. I don't know if I've talked about the weather here in Amsterdam yet on this page, but I'll say a little bit now. For the most part the past month and a half has been full of overcast and rainy days with a periodic beautiful sunny day every few weeks or so. But this past week the weather has been entirely un-Amsterdamish. As I think back over the last week, I don't think it's rained once, and almost everyday has been sunny and around 65 degrees, it's glorious. It still gets really cold at night and layering is definitely required, but the days have been really beautiful and I've spent most of the weekend outside picnicing, writing, reading, and playing scrabble by the canal. So, as a result of the continued beautiful weather, the three of us decided to walk over to the nearby park and had a nice little picnic with a wonderful pasta-salad concoction made by Alanna, and a nice bacquette with brie and mozerella, it was a delicious meal.

VAN GOGH:
On Friday nights the Van Gogh museum opens up until 10pm and they have a bar and a dj and sometimes some live music as well. With our student museum cards we get into most museums in Amsterdam for no charge, so this Friday I went with a bunch of friends to the Van Gogh museum. I'm slightly ashamed to say, I haven't yet been taking advantage of all the wonderful museums in Amsterdam, but, I plan to visit many more, especially when I have visitors, so don't worry, I will see them all before I leave Europe. After having a drink at the bar when we got to the museum, we all started wandering around the galleries. There are some really amazing pieces in the museum, but unfortunately we only had about an hour to walk around before the museum closed, so I'm going to have to return for another visit, especially to see the current exhibit on Barcelona that is up right now.

FRISBEE:
This is a short one, but yesterday I threw a frisbee around with my friends Scott and Eric out in the park near our dorm and it was really awesome. It reminded me of Oberlin and playing frisbee with Adam out on North Quad when it finally gets warm in the spring.

MIDDLE SCHOOL THROWBACKS:
So, instead of going out to a bar or a club last night, my friends Scott and Eric and I decided to spend the night in Scott's apartment playing a bunch of random games and having a few beers. We had decided on this course of action because we were all pretty tired and didn't feel like staying out too late or anything like that. Well, after attempting to leave and go to sleep at 2:30am, we started listening to a series of wonderful middle school throwback songs. We spent the next two hours listening to everything from What If God Was One Of Us? by Joan Osbourne to Father of Mine by Everclear, and everything inbetween, it was extremely fun and I can't wait to download all of those songs and make myself one of the greatest mixes in history.

Well,that's all my main points, so in other news: I've rearranged my room yet again AND Scott put my tapestry up for me! It looks amazing, and I think my room decorations are finally complete. Here is a picture so you can all appreciate it as much as I do.