Let it SNOW!

I woke up on Monday January 30th, 2012 at 7 am, hopped in the shower, came back to my room, got a glimpse out the window and yelped! BECAUSE THERE WAS SNOW EVERYWHERE. It was so beautiful. I just wanted to run outside, make snow angels, throw snowballs, and sled all day long. Unfortunately I was up at 7 am to get ready for our first day of UCM orientation. 

It was really starting. School that is. The last two weeks had been full of fun, exciting tours, lectures and ways to get acquainted with Maastricht and the fellow Californians but today was the day I was going to meet the rest of my school mates and learn more about the learning process they use at UCM, but more on that later. First, SNOW.

It was freezing, but so exciting

Why yes, I did bike to school in the snow.

Biking in the snow was way less difficult than I imagined. It was so fresh that it wasn't slippery yet and even gave a bit more traction on the slippery cobblestone than normal. The next day, however, was terrifying because the snow had turned to ice and I almost died on several occasions. Keeps life interesting though!

This is the back of my school. Isn't it cute?

The field by my dorm

The side of my dorm the next day

The city center. I really love this picture

More city center

The three day orientation was intense and a bit boring but it was a great way to meet the other exchangers and first year students that were just starting at UCM. Everyone was excited to be finally starting our experience together. UCM is one building near the city center and has about 600 students. Its housed in a 15th century Monastery. The walls are all white, but somehow still seem warm and inviting and it has some great natural light. The main lecture hall is in the old church and its beautiful. It's a really nice building and I like being there. 

In Bruges

After DCL finished, Tiffany, Kathleen and I decided to be spontaneous and we planned a last minute trip to Bruges, Belgium! We decided to leave Saturday afternoon and come back Sunday. It was a very short term but we saw a lot in those few hours. 

It started the night before, where I watched In Bruges with Collin Farrell. Weird movie, but it was a good set up to go and see the town myself. 

We left Saturday afternoon around 1 and got a €15,50 round trip ticket. Great price. It took a little over 2 hours to get from Maastricht, through Belgium and into Bruges. When we got off the train we saw this guy that was from Australia that had been on exchange in Maastricht. We didn't really know him, but we recognized him and he recognized us. Said hi in passing, then the girls and I decided to somehow find our way to the hostel by walking because walking is a great way to get acquainted with a city.

First sight

Our plan was to walk towards the huge tower, because from the movie, I knew that was the main city square and from there we could find our way. 

The Belfort tower

We made it to the center, found a map and were off to our hostel. Bruges is super cute. Cobblestoned streets, brick old buildings, canals, the lot. Also there are horses drawn carriages carrying tourists running around all the time. Made it feel like we were back in time a bit. But it also made the main areas smell like horse poo. Bleck.

Horsey!

We eventually made it to the hostel, cold and starving. We checked in and guess who was there? The Australian! So we officially met. His name is Josh and he happened to be assigned our same room. What a small world it is. After we checked in, we got dinner at the closest place, and it was absolutely terrible, but it was food, and we had to go somewhere close because we were doing a free walking tour at 7. So it was worth it. We also had time to stop and get some belgium specialties from the nearby grocery store.

YUM! Belgium chocolate, beer, and my absolute obsession, Speculoos

Our tour guide was great. Funny and full of life. It was not your conventional tour but it was a great way to see Bruges at night.

Our group plus Josh the Aussie

 Our tour guide made sure to throw in some good movie references like this one!

The hotel where Colin Farell stayed and where the chase scene begins

We also stopped for a beer on the tour and Tiff and Kathleen shared an amazing beer thats made in Bruges. It was so good. After we went back to the hostel and spent way too long trying to get beers open with out a bottle opener. It made for a lot of laughs and a lot of beer everywhere. Also, the heater in our room was leaking a ton of water so the hostel maintenance guy kept coming in to check it out. He happened to also be the bartender and since we were so understanding decided to give us free Jaeger shots. They do love their Jaeger here. It was the start to a very good night. Also, on the tour we met these 5 guys from America/ Canada that were studying abroad in Paris and had rented a car for the weekend and drove to Bruges. They were fun and we had a great time exploring Bruges together. It was so much fun.

The next morning we got up, checked out of the hostel and went to go exploring!

First things first, we went to go climb the Belfort tower to see the view but it was closed cause it was Sunday, so instead we went and got Belgium waffles. I got one with Speculoos paste on top. BEST IDEA EVER. Oh man. I still dream about it sometimes.

Heaven

We wandered around and saw some cute sites and looked for bottle openers as a souvenir so we would never forget our struggles of trying to get 6 beers open with no opener. 

Never forget.

Our last stop was the huge church. The Michelangelo piece, Madonna and Child, is displayed here, which is the only Michelangelo piece to leave Italy while he was still alive. It was quite the statue. Marble statues never cease to amaze me in their detail and perfectness. The church was beautiful too. Huge stained glass windows, details upon details. Incredible.

The Madonna and Child

After we headed back to the train station and got back to Maastricht around 7:30. It was a great weekend filled with tons of memories.

Goodbye Bruges! You were so great.

Pieces From the Final Week of DCL

After we got back from Delft we had the weekend off. I got settled in more and Maastricht really started to feel like home. The second week of our orientation was more classroom based. We had a long lectures on culture and started the language course. These are some highlights from the week,

Monday: Started the language course! Learned how to say some exciting things like:

     Ik ben Jenny. Ik kom uit California. Mijn geboortedatum is 22 Mart 1991. and the alphabet and numbers... and thats all I really remember now haha. But it was fun. After we took a bus to The American World War II Memorial and Cemetery. It was freezing and depressing and it hailed on us as we were waiting for the bus back, but it was a cool stop none the less.

Lots of names of lost soldiers

America? I thought we were in the Netherlands...

It stopped raining and the sun came out for a brief second

That night we went to this little movie theater to watch The Black Book. A great dutch World War II movie. You should watch it, really. It was very inspiring, but I hate war and it put me in a weird mood. The movie theater was so cute, and it had a bar in it, not like the big industrial movie theaters at home.

The bar in the theater

The theater. It was so tiny!

The itty bitty screen

Tuesday: We had more language this morning. We began to learn the clock system, which is complicated because they say things like its 10 before half before the next hour. So 9:20 is tien voor half tien. Which to me makes no sense. We also listened to the best song ever. It was very simple dutch and Allison and I loved it. Got stuck in my head for the rest of the week. Afterwards we went across the river to Ceramique Square, which is dedicated to the Maastricht Treaty that was signed in 1992 and started the Euro.

The walking bridge over the river

Ceramique square is also where the public library is. Its huge and beautiful and has a really cool miniature model of what maastricht used to look like in the 18th century. 

Adorable

A museum in Maastricht

Tuesday night we went back to the same movie theater to watch The Storm. Which is another Dutch film about the storm that hit in the 1950s and broke all the dams in the south west and it flooded and lots of people died. It was the slowest movie ever but I had no idea how bad the flood was so it was cool to learn about.

Wednesday: We learned more language, then in the afternoon it was off to Brussels! We left around 1 and took a private bus to the European Commissions. We had a lecture there about it. It was alright. I still don't understand the European Union completely, but it helped.

What it looks like inside

Then we had some time off in Brussels before we had a shmancy dinner, so obviously we went to hang out with the Mannekin-Pis and eat Belgian waffles. Nom.

Gettin Friendly

The dinner was pretty great. Had some tasty fish. After we went to Delirium to get some Beer and we played a fun game where you have an identity on your head and you have to try and figure out who you were. I had absolutely no clue who I was, even when I gave up and found out. Some model or something. The funny thing was that Medi (our group leader) and I both picked Britney Spears for the people next to us. Made for some great laughs. 

Fun times in Brussels

Thursday and Friday were more Culture Lectures and Language. We listened to some really great Dutch music videos. Hilarious. and didn't really learn much more language. We had an exam at the end but I think it went pretty well. I was sad that the introduction was over but excited to meet the new people that were beginning to show up! It was a great program to get oriented with our new home, even if it was a struggle to get through sometimes.

Next: Bruges!

The Greatest Day in Delft

Delft was such a great day! We left Amsterdam early Friday morning and everyone napped on the train to Delft. We got off the train and went straight to the UNESCO campus in Delft to have a lecture on Water issues in the Netherlands. And let me tell you, they have a lot of water issues. It was such an interesting lecture. I loved it. But I'm pretty sure I was the only one, haha. Everyone else was exhausted and not super interested in the sciencey good stuff. But environmental issues are right up my interested alley. Most of the Netherlands is below sea level and they use lots of complex systems, like windmills, canals, and dams, to make sure their cities don't drown. UNESCO was so cool too. A campus full of people obsessed with water from all over the world. I loved it so much.

After the lecture we went to the city centre. So cute. I also had 3 cups of coffee, so I was ready to go. I had so much energy, oh man. But it made for a great day.

Delft City Center

Cute canals and Delfts own leaning tower

We then split up and went to get some lunch. Khang (fellow traveler) had researched Delft before and looked for a place to get lunch. He found one with amazing reviews so some of us followed him and we went off to find it. Best idea ever to follow Khang because he took me to a place where I had the best sandwich of my entire life. I was literally obsessed with it. The three guys I was eating with were making fun of me for being so into it. Let me try to explain the amazing-ness. It had so so so many different flavors, yet somehow they all worked together. The bread, for starters, was amazing. So rich and toasty, yet soft and flavorful. There was a bed of arugula (my favorite lettuce type thing), and then this super good veggie lentil patty, sweet and sour sauce as a spread, dates, figs, red currants and pine nuts. Every bite was new and different and exciting and I never wanted the sandwich to end. 

Obsessed.

After we parted ways with my favorite restaurant in the world, we headed to the Delft Blue Tile Museum. On our way there I really wanted chocolate and by some stroke of luck I was searching in my bag and found leftover chocolate from the night before that I thought I had already eaten. Just another reason why it was the best day ever.

The Delft Tile Museum was really interesting. I had no idea how they were made, just thought they were beautiful. Heres the process: 1. make the shape (vase, plate, tile, etc) out of this cool plaster ceramic stuff. 2. Paint it with black paint. 3. Put it in the oven, which turns the black paint blue because theres some sort of cobalt something in the paint. 4. Glaze. 

The process in a nutshell

The official Trademark (theres about a bazillion knock offs)

After we learned all about the tiles, we got to paint our own! It was so much fun. Hard work to stay focused and not mess up, but super cool.

The group

It was really fun to experiment with different brush angles and depths of color, even though it was all black.

My tile before the fire

And the finished product!

I'm really happy with how it turned out. Great keepsake from the best day ever. I loved Delft and everything we did there so much. Great way to end our first full week :]

Study Trip to Amsterdam

Our intensive 2 week Dutch Culture and Language(DCL) orientation program included a 3 day study trip to Amsterdam! We left suuuuuuper early wednesday morning. The trip started as a struggle for Allison and me. We slept through our 3 alarms and almost missed our group taxi to the train station. We were really smart and didn't pack the night before, so we got dressed and packed in about 5 minutes. Struggles. By some stroke of luck we made it on time and got on the train. Everyone napped all the way there. Our group leader, Medi, told me later that she started to dread the trip at that moment because she thought to herself, oh man, these guys are going to be no fun. Good thing we proved her otherwise!

First stop was our hotel to put away our stuff. They had the two cutest puppies EVER. Definitely got my animal fix. They didn't photograph well, but still adorable.

Just look at those eyes! awww

Then we went to our first Amsterdam Lecture: Dutch Art of the Golden Age. We walked there and saw lots of cool things along the way like...

houses that like to lean

and the Rijksmuseum

Looks cold doesn't it? At the time I thought it was very cold, but in retrospect it was warm! I wish it could be that temperature again. Oh winter...

The Lecture was pretty interesting. I learned a lot about Rembrandt and art from the Netherlands during their Golden Age, the 17th century. However, the lecturer talked painfully slow. He wasn't very good at english, but sitting there, all I wanted him to do was get his idea across and move on. It didn't help that I had 3 cups of coffee and was super jittery either. 

Well, he gave us an assignment. Find a picture in the Rijksmuseum that should have been included in his lecture and write an essay about why and how it is still relevant to the dutch today. First we stopped for some lunch, where I had amazing tomato soup with pesto in it. YUM. Then we started out hunt. It was fun walking around the museum and looking at all the different paintings with more of a purpose. I wish we had more time there.

Andy Warhol of Queen Beatrice

Rembrandt self portrait. This man was so talented.

Super famous Rembrandt painting, the night watch. Its huge! The guys are bigger than life size. Impressed.

Afterwards we walked in the cold misty rain to the Anne Frank House. Interesting and very informative, but very sad. Teared up a few times. Her story is more impressionable when hearing it from people that knew and helped her.

The house where Anne Frank stayed in hiding before being moved to Aushcwitz has been turned into a museum. Each room has a new purpose of explaining how the Frank family lived in hiding and what happened afterwards. There are a lot of tv's set up with interviews of people that helped the family out. Lots of new perspectives. I enjoyed it.

Afterwards we were free to do whatever. Everyone napped, I showered and journaled. Then we got some dinner and made plans for the rest of the night. I had a truly Amsterdam-ian night. We walked through the Red Light District. I hated it. It was so depressing, I have no need or desire to ever return to that district. The rest of Amsterdam is great though.

Day 2!

We were supposed to start our day off with a canal cruise, but we just missed the first boat, so instead we started by taking lots of pictures with the I amsterdam sign. Yay tourism!

Huddling together in the rain

The canal tour was cool. Great way to see Amsterdam. I love all the canals going through the city. It makes every turn gorgeous.

Love the house style too!

We stopped by this souvenir shop where they had a model of how cheese is made, and since I'm an expert I was able to explain to everyone how it really works. Thanks Stacy!

This is me trying to explain Cheese making, you can see their enthusiasm, haha :]

After, we went to our second lecture: The Dutch and World War II. The lecturer was more interesting, but he didn't tell us anything we hadn't heard before so it was kind of difficult to stay focused through the entire thing.

Then we went to the Jewish history museum. We didn't have enough time there, but it had a lot of really interesting sections. I really liked this one part where they had all these videos of Jewish people talking about specific traditions. I liked learning about the ones I wasn't very familiar with like Roshashana. 

This was my favorite display though. Allison and I are obsessed with this store. It's basically the Dutch version of Target. We even have a song we sing every time we go, or pass by, or talk about it.

Love the Hema!

For dinner we went to Walk to Wok. So good. You got to choose your noodle combination. Like what toppings, what noodles, what sauce, and then they whipped up the stir fry real fast. I wish we had one in Maastricht, but then again, thats all I would eat, so maybe its good they dont. Afterwards, Allison and I did a little shopping, I was in desperate need of a belt and she only packed one shirt. Good thing we were both successful in finding what we needed.

This is where we stayed, Rembrandtplein. Which means Rembrandt square, so it makes sense that there is a giant statue of Rembrant in the square.

We weren't going to go out this night cause everyone was so tired and we had to be up early to go to Delft the next day, but we decided this was the last time we would ever all be in Amsterdam together so we bucked up and went clubbin. First we went to a salsa club, it was fun for a minute, then we noticed all the old creepers, so we left and went next door where the real fun started. We danced for hours. It was great. Only thing I hate about clubs here is that you are allowed to smoke indoors. BLECK. I always come home smelling like an ash tray. Have to do laundry and shower so much more often because of that. But what can you do? 

Amsterdam was fun. I love our group of people. It was super rushed and packed, but it was a good way t get introduced to the capital of my new home.

Next: Deflt!