One of the best things about living in an international student house, like Blekerslaan, is that we have all different sorts of people from all different sorts of places. That means that people are always cooking things in the kitchen that I have never seen before.
The other night, we decided to have an international dinner where everybody made a traditional dish from their country and we would all eat each other's food. That meant the kitchen ended up looking something like this when there were 50+ people all trying to create an edible masterpiece at the same time...
Then it meant that dinner consisted of people sitting all over the common room, like this...
Basically, it was quite the production to get everybody to eat at the exact same time. Come to find out, we don't seem to have enough dishes for everybody to eat together. Some people had to eat out of frying pans, using chopsticks and drink out of a measuring cup. But it was a really fun dinner!
There were so many different dishes to try that I couldn't even tell you who made what.
Of course, most people who were trying to figure out what to make from their country ended up making something that they've never made before. It seemed like everybody had a really good idea that they really enjoyed eating, but they were just making it up as they went. I decided to make meatloaf for the first time in my life and I just kind of winged it and started smelling spices to decide what I should include.
It all turned out really great, but the consensus was that, the next time we have an international dinner, we should have our moms cook. It's always a lot better that way, and it sure is a lot easier.
Last weekend, I went with a group of people from my house to Amsterdam, the
capital city of the Netherlands. There was a sale on train tickets at
some local stores that were cheap round-trip tickets for trains around the
Netherlands for a Saturday or Sunday. That meant we all had to stock
up.
We decided to go to Amsterdam and, going to Amsterdam pretty much
means that you have to visit the place where Anne Frank and her family went
into hiding during WWI.
The day was really fun overall and we did a lot of sight-seeing and
went to some other museums, but the part of the trip that was the most
significant to me was visiting Anne Frank's house. You're not allowed to
take pictures in the house, so I don't have any to show, but it wouldn't really
do the place justice anyway. Like almost all pictures, they would not be
able to show what the place was really like or the claustrophobic feeling that
you get when walking through.
I read Anne Frank’s diary when I was in 4th grade and wish
I would have read it again more recently.The thing that is really amazing to me about her diary is how, for being
so young, perceptive she was of all that was going on around her.I mean, you obviously cannot ignore the fact
that your country has been taken over by Nazis, but her observations of the
world around her and how she interpreted everything makes her seem older than
she is in her diary.Then the next
section she’d start to sound like a kid again when she described something
else. There was a video of Anne’s dad,
Otto, who was the only family member and person in the hiding space to survive
the concentration camps and he was talking about what it was like to read Anne’s
diary.One of his quotes was “For me, it
was a revelation. There, was revealed a completely different Anne to the child
that I had lost. I had no idea of the depths of her thoughts and feelings.”Here’s the interview…
Otto Frank had decided that he didn’t want the furniture to stay in the
annex where he, his family, and his friend hid for two years until somebody
unknown gave a tip that exposed their hiding spot.So the apartment didn’t have any furniture
but there were tons of pictures, models and quotes to see.
The most lasting impression I have is realizing how tiny and dark the hiding
place was.There were eight people
living there and they couldn’t even open the blinds and had to move around as
little as possible during the day so as not to expose their position.The rooms were dark and felt so isolated from
all that was going on in the city.
The pictures that Anne had hung up in her bedroom were still there and there
were markings on the wall where her parent had kept track of how much Anne and
her older sister Margot had grown since they went into hiding.That part was really sad because it not only
showed how young these girls were that were going through such a tough
experience, but it was also a reminder of how they never grew up any more than
that because they were forced into a concentration camp.
There was another video playing that was really sad.It was an interview with a childhood friend
of Anne’s who say her across the fence at the concentration camp a few days
before Anne died, which was just a few days before the liberation of the
camp.The friend had said that if Anne
had known that her father was still alive, she might have made it until the end
of the war and she was freed.
Anne had said that she wanted to be a writer when she grew up and that she
wanted her diary to be published as a sort of novel detailing the experience of
Jews during the WWII era.It’s strange
to think that, even though Anne didn’t live to see her 16th
birthday, she lives forever through the words of her diary that has been
translated into over 60 different languages. The line to get into the house was
about an hour long, and I’ve been told that it’s always that way.Anne Frank has really touched millions of people
and has authored one of the best-known documentations of the human experience
in WWII.As Otto Frank said:
“We cannot change what happened
anymore. The only thing we can do is to learn from the past and to realize what
discrimination and persecution of innocent people means. I believe that it’s
everyone’s responsibility to fight prejudice.”
This week was my first week of classes, and, call me crazy, I was actually a little bit excited for them to start so I could see what they're all about. Go figure, I had my first class in two and a half months on Monday and the professor never showed up. I was assured by the girl next to me that that this was very unusual and that the Dutch are a very punctual people. Come to find out, the professor emailed us that afternoon and apologized, saying that he read the timetable wrong and was actually preparing for a lecture on Tuesday. That's funny because I thought I was the only one who couldn't figure out how to read the time tables and figure out when and where my classes would be. It made me feel a little bit better that the person running the class didn't have any better of an idea than I did.
Anyway, the place where the class was supposed to be was a beautiful room in the Academy Building called Heymanszaal...
I didn't take the bottom picture, but how cool is it that I actually get to go to school in a building like this!? I feel like such a tourist everywhere I go because I can't help snapping pictures of all of the awesome buildings. Especially things like the castle in The Hague. I've never seen a real castle before, unless you count Disney World, which somehow I don't. It's like a mixture between wanting to be royalty and wanting to go to Hogwarts!
Back on track...I have a seminar group for this class tomorrow so I'll see how it goes then.
I had a 19th Century British/American Literature course yesterday and was surprised to find how similar it seems to be to the other literature course I've had back at CMU. Like at home, professors here generally are very approachable and have friendly relations with their students. Our class was a discussion based class where we do reading assignments and projects and analyze them in class. It seems like a course that I can feel very comfortable in and I really enjoy the topic.
Today was interesting because I had a Hungarian cultural history course. I was surprised to find that there were only five of us in the class. But then I asked the Dutch guy in my class if that was abnormal and he said that he's had classes before in his major where he's the only student in the class. I thought that that sounded more like tutoring than a class but I guess the Hungarian department at RUG is extremely small these days and so it's a very close-knit group. There were two Dutch students in my class who were majoring in Hungarian studies and seemed to have an already close relationship with the professor. I guess the Hungary fanatics have to stick together. The only other two people in my class were actually from Hungary. So not only was I the only one who doesn't speak any Hungarian, I was the only one who didn't already have a rich background on the subject. Nonetheless, it seems like it will be a really fun class. The professor had photocopies of the books we needed and she let us all take them after class to go scan them together. We also apparently have class movie nights where we'll be watching some Hungarian films.
From the classes I've had so far, I'm really excited about this semester. It seems like it's going to be a lot of work but I love the casual and engaging style of teaching and the classes I've picked seem like they'll be really interesting to me.
Of course, now that I've started and have already been assigned a ton of reading and things to do, this whole going to school thing might start to get old. Our department told us we should be doing homework and studying at least 40 hours per week. That seems like it's going to be a lot easier said than done with the allure of all the amazing things in Europe that I still want to see and do.
In addition to organizing Introduction Week, ESN also facilitates a lot of things around Groningen and the Netherlands to get international students exposed to the country. One of the things we did during Introduction Week was climb the Martini Tower, the highest tower in the city. [There's a bunch of pictures of it in the previous photo album post] There was a really tight brick spiral staircase that had 365 steps going up it and an amazing view of the city and the sea once you got to the top.
Anyway, last weekend, I went on a trip with a group from ESN to Den Haag, or The Hague in English.
Here is a link to a plethora of pictures that I took. I was told people wanted lots of pictures so I obliged...
The Hague is the political capital of the Netherlands, although the technical capital is Amsterdam. It's never been a big trading city like a lot of the other parts of the Netherlands are so that has really shaped its history and what it has developed into today. The queen of the Netherlands, Queen Beatrix, lives and works in The Hague, so does the prime minister.
Here's a castle that was built in 1225 and was later used by Napoleon to house troops...
The parliament and the prime minister work in the buildings that are built around the castle.
It's strange to think how old some of these buildings are. Think about it, this castle was built hundreds of years before Christopher Columbus even sailed. The history we study in the US today is so young compared to how old some of the things you can find in other parts of the world are.
And there's a pond next to it that used to be a part of the moat that surrounded the castle. It was frozen over so we got to go out on it and there were tons of people ice skating all day...
We also went to the Escher Museum, who was a Dutch graphic artist...
There's the Peace Palace in The Hague that's huge and home to the international court of justice.
An interesting tidbit I learned from our tour guide had to do with the statues in the city. It seemed like every other person of importance that was deemed statue-worthy was named William, starting with William of Orange. There was a statue of William of Orange in the center square of the city. It faces south to see incoming threats but was turned to the side for a while when another king lived there and wanted to be able to see face to face with the statue when he looked out his window. Anyway, a lot of these Williams were on horses in their statues. Our tour guide told us that the general rule for statues riding a horse is that if the horse's left front leg is up, then that person died a natural death, and if the horse's right front leg is up, then they were murdered. I don't know how far-reaching this rule is, but I thought it was pretty cool.
That night we also went to Scheveningen which is a sub-district of
the city and a famous seaside resort. We were able to watch the sun go
down on the sea...
Although the day was freezing cold and I lost feeling in my feet, it was a great day! The Hague was beautiful and I'm really glad that I got to see it. I have to say though, it was still really nice coming back to Groningen because I love it here already and it's starting to feel familiar and like home.
There seems to be a fairly large population of international students studying in Groningen between RUG and Hanze University. There are several international student houses throughout the city, and some of them have over 300 people in them. There are also quite a few international students who live in private accommodations throughout the city. From my causal observation of the people who I've encountered, I'd say the vast majority of them are from other European countries. This seems to have a lot to do with the program a lot of the European countries take part in where they have incentives for students to study abroad in other countries. A lot of the European students are part of the International Exchange, Erasmus Student Network [ESN] that promotes international relationships between schools all over Europe.
The reason I'm explaining all of this is to lead to the obvious fact that there was a significant number of international students who arrived in Groningen the first couple of days of February. There are still many international students from around the world that have been here for the past semester or even longer, but, for all of the new students, ESN organized an introduction week. The intention of the week was to help students get acquainted to the city and Dutch culture, as well as to help facilitate friend groups both within the international community, and with other Dutch students.
For those of us who chose to participate, we got randomly assigned into a group with students from all over the world and two guides. Both of my guides happened to be Dutch, but a lot of groups had international students who had already been here for at least a semester as guides. We also teamed up with two other groups because our leaders were all friends. There were many aspects of the introduction week including things like a city tour, a sports day, salsa dancing lessons, Dutch language lessons, and a movie night. However, one of the main focuses of the week seemed to be a crash course in how Dutch students spend their weekends. We received a very healthy dose of the Groningen nightlife, and, I have to say, I am rather impressed with the stamina that the Dutch students seem to show when they go out with their friends.
We were told that we could go out to a different bar in Groningen every night that we are here and still not hit all of the bars in the city. It's easy enough to believe, but that is not to say that there aren't some people who seem to have accepted that challenge however. With a lower drinking age in Europe, going out at night seems to be a very natural part of the culture for Dutch university students. This seems to be pretty standard for most of the international students as well, with one key difference- the Dutch stay out all night. A lot of the places don't close until around 7:00 or 8:00 in the morning and there are many people who stay out just as long. From what I understand though, this doesn't seem to be the case in any other countries that people I've talked to have come from, but it seems to be the norm where we are now; the result being our Dutch guides trying to drag jet-lagged foreigners around way past their bedtimes through the city the day after they arrived. A lot of people did give it a good solid try, but there's a catch: when one stays out all night, they must also factor in the next day for recuperation. The effect of this for the majority of the Introduction Week participants was a long week of late nights and sleeping in.
This was all a lot of fun and Groningen is a very energetic city in this regards because such a huge percentage of its population is students. There's very little car traffic at night so the city is beautifully quiet and peaceful and it's a lot of fun to go wandering from place to place with friends. The biking does not stop at night and it's pretty entertaining watching some people trying to find where they left their bike and pedal home after a long night out.
The music that was played at all of the places that we went was often really familiar. A big chunk of the songs are from the United States and it was really surprising to me how people from all over the world seem to know the music so well. One night there was a band that was playing 1970s and 1980s classic rock and almost everybody seemed to know more of the songs than I did. There were also a few songs played in different languages but here was the one song that always seemed to excite everybody present...
The interesting thing about this song is that it's in Portuguese, which there is not exactly a flourishing language in the Netherlands. However, everybody seems to know the words to the song, or more like the sound of the words to the song. The song even comes equipped with some hand movements that go along with the lyrics. I actually talked to some people who speak Portuguese and they explained to me what the lyrics really mean. I'm not sure, though, how many people who actually sing along with it know exactly what it means. It is pretty catchy though...
One of the things that impressed me the most about going out here, was the big difference between how some people go out back in the US. First, girls actually wore clothes. The purpose of dressing up didn't seem to be to put on just enough clothes that you wouldn't get blurred out if you were on TV. Girls looked cute but it was perfectly acceptable to wear jeans, and nice boots or a top that you weren't falling out of. People seemed to be logical enough to figure out that they needed to get to their destination without dying from exposure on the way there. Call me a prude, but it was refreshing not having to see way more of people than I'd ever want to.
When people would dance, it was also very different than I'm used to seeing. Granted, I don't get out much, but my one, rather traumatizing, experience at Wayside would constitute evidence enough to say that the sleazyness of that establishment does not seem to be the norm over here. Rather, people are capable of dancing without rubbing themselves up against the stranger next to them and can merely dance to have fun with their friends, not just to creep people out. I have to say, I much prefer this type of dancing, but, I suppose, to each their own.
All in all, it was a lot of fun getting to know Groningen as a city. I have never lived in a city before and the Introduction Week was a great way to get a feel for the place!
One thing that I've been told since I got here is that I need to get a
bike to ride. It's a decent size city and the main mode of
transportation is bikes. In fact, they say there are more bikes than
people in the
Here's a picture of our bike shed for our house.
Netherlands. I've never lived in any kind of a city
before so I think that Groningen seems very large but it has less than
200,000 people in it. I think part of the reason it seems so big though
is that, different from many of our cities back home, there aren't a
ton of really tall buildings. Rather, though densely populated, the
city seems to spread out more than up.
The point in explaining all of this is to explain the significance of a bike in getting around the city. People use their bikes to get to and from work, school, the stores, the parties and even for moving large furniture around....
If you are buying something large, say a couch, you can use one of these bike contraptions to get it home. Of course, I think I would be terrified to even attempt such a crazy endeavor. In case you can't tell from the picture, the box is on the front of the bike and hopefully you can see over whatever it is you're carrying.
There are shops that sell bikes but the recommended solution is to find them used online. I went to a Facebook page call "For Sale in Groningen" and found a ton of used bikes for sale. The problem with buying online is that you then have to go find these people to retrieve the bike. After trying to message several people, I found somebody who was willing to meet to try to sell their bike. The happened to live in another international student house so I was going to meet them there. When trying to give directions, the best this person could offer was "it's easy to find, it's in the south of the city." I found some better directions online, but I still struggle a bit with this because a lot of the websites come up in Dutch. I didn't know exactly who I was looking for because their name on Facebook was a combination of letters, numbers, and some other kinds of symbols, and their picture was some animated rat thingy with its intestines hanging out. But I really wanted this bike so I could stop looking and it seemed like a good deal at the time.
I wandered off to the south of the city and, after about two hours of trying to get extra directions knowing the very minimal amount of words in Dutch that I do, I knew I was in the right neighborhood. I had also fallen off the bottom end of my map, so I hoped that was a good sign. When I finally found the place, I really didn't have a choice but to buy the bike, I had already come so far and I needed to go really far north to get to a meeting place in an hour. Plus, due to excessive wandering, I felt bad because I was a bit late meeting the guy with the bike.
The good news is that the bike came with a tire lock, lights and a bell. The bad news that I soon found out was that the back brakes didn't work and it only had one gear. The gear that the bike is apparently permanently in is the one that makes you feel like you're constantly climbing up a mountain. It might not be that bad, maybe I just need to practice more on it, but I have to say, for a country that's so incredibly flat, it seems rather difficult to peddle on this bike.
I think that I need to work up my bike stamina, and get used to the feeling of riding a bike, because it's been a while. There are 2 ways that this might happen, my legs might feel sore for the next 5 months, or I will soon develop some seriously toned legs and my butt will stop hurting when I ride my bike. I'm obviously hoping for the latter because the former is getting old.
Now that I have this bike, I'm working on trying to figure out all of the rule for the road. I know that the front and back lights are required to be on at night so people can see you. There's a bell on my bike that is what you're supposed to ring when you're passing people, but I doubt I'll be trying any of that anytime soon. It seems some people also give hand signals when they're going to turn. There are bike locks built into a lot of the bikes that lock the back wheel in place. This enables you to park your bike pretty much anywhere without having to actually hook it up to something. There's also a back shelf sort of thing over the back tire that things could be hooked to. It seems to be often used to hold passengers who sit precariously perched atop it. So far, I have not been that daring.
On campus at home I'm pretty accustomed to wandering out in front of moving vehicles and feeling relatively safe about my chances of survival. Here, I'm not so sure on that yet. I see some signs, some of which are for cars and some are for bikes, but I'm not sure if they're always acknowledged by all travelers. A Dutch guy told me that walkers have the right of way but there doesn't always seem to be a clear indication of that when cars come speeding by. From my point of view, it seems that everybody just continues on at intersections and hopes for the best. So far so good for me but I'm still working on adjusting to the everything-will-fit-together-just-fine-and-we'll-avoid-running-into-each-other-if-we-all-pay-attention idea. It can be kind of intimidating riding my bike around but I think I'm catching on. The culture of it all just seems to be "don't do anything to crazy when commuting, and nobody will get hurt." Nobody seems to get bent out of shape if they do have to wait for somebody to cut in front of them; everybody just seems to go with the flow.
