Boyz Street Fun!

My family!

Okay, so I did not forget to write yesterday, but instead decided I should wait an extra day so that I may include details about my first day of classes! I had Psycholinguistics (which I might switch to Cognitive Neuroscience), and Clinical Psychology, both having no more than 25 students. So after attending UCF for 3 years (with classes as large as 400), I feel like I'm back in high school (in regards to class sizes and student body, which is only 700!).

Let me go back to the beginning though. I had a four hour delay in Miami, causing me to miss my connection flight in Madrid (so another four hour delay), allowing me to arrive in Amsterdam at around seven at night. The train ride was fairly easily just 30 minutes (about 8 euro), then a bus ( 1.6 euro) and a good three minute walk to the campus. All the delays caused me to miss an entire day of getting to know students. So I quickly learned that I (along with everyone else new to UCU, exchange or not), has been assigned to a "family," so that during intro-week students have an easier chance becoming friends, since most of the activities are completed with a family. My family consisted of two dads, one mom, about 8 sisters and 2 brothers, along with another "brother" who we adopted (in secret) because he is attending the regular college UU.

The family idea was great, although some people thought otherwise, I feel like I was able to make many friends fairly quickly from over-exposure. And since new students are mixed with the families, I, and I am sure others as well feel less secluded from the full time students. Surprisingly, most exchange students I've met are from California! Some from New York, Boston, Connecticut, Florida, China, South Africa, Mexico, and Germany. Although I feel like the majority are American, which I did not expect (although it's nice to have something in common).

I purchased my first bicycle! So yea, I am officially Dutch. Although my bicycle is not considered "cool," because it is a mountain/BMX bike, and Dutch people like to ride tall bikes with a small platform to have friends sit on the back (which is terrifying and uncomfortable in my opinion). It also says: "Boyz Street Fun," so I think it's for children, but it was cheap (50Euro) compared to the average 125/150 Euro prices! Which I thought was insane, because most bikes are rusty, poorly maintained, and have a 75% chance of being stolen!

It's freezing here. I'm starting to get used to it, but riding a bike in the freezing weather is something I was not prepared for. I can't feel my face every time I ride from the cold weather. Anyways, intro-week was extremely fun; with activities like city tours, bike tours, ice skating, movie night, jazz night, a formal dinner, pub crawl, and a party every night has kept myself and all the other students busy and somewhat sleep deprived. But it has all been very much worth it.

My two classes today briefly went over the class syllabus along with some introduction to the class, so I cannot really compare the difficulty levels yet, although it is very obvious that class participation will happen VERY frequently.

Oh, my roommates are very nice! I have four girls and 2 guys on my floor, with a common area, laundry area, and showers. All but one (from London) are second year full time students, so I hope they will be able to give me more of an insight to the Netherlands and Europe then other exchange students (Like the fact the France is only a 10 hour drive!) My room is HUGE. Imagine a double room in college, but as a single. I have too much room actually, so it makes my walls look so bare. I also have a personal sink/mirror to my left which cannot be seen.

The music room is great as well. They have two drum kits, a piano, keyboard, bass, acoustic/electric guitars, and some little tarbukas. The gym is not as great on campus, sort of like a crappy hotel gym. Off-campus, or technically on the Main campus of the regular college, their is a state-of-the-art gym.

I'm not sure what else to say other than It's amazing here in every way. The campus is beautiful, the city even more so (NOTHING like Florida). Everything is closed on Sundays. Everything is within a 10 minute bike ride. It's freezing. A lot of exchange students are planning to travel on various weekends (I hope I can make the masquerade ball in Venice!). I think I'll leave you off with some pictures for now, and fill in more next week!

INSIDE A FRAT HOUSE!

Main Campus!

Vaarwel!