Below are the 6 most recent journal entries recorded in mjvanoosten's LiveJournal:

Sunday, April 23rd, 2006
8:27 pm	Groningen-Termunten EGEA Weekend First of all, lots of new pictures up: http://community.webshots.com/user/blackrhombus27 A little over a week ago on Friday, April 14, I turned in my final paper for my master's class. The paper was a study on Amsterdam and whether or not its deprived neighborhoods could be classified as ghettos in the American sense. Long paper short, the answer was no. With the paper handed in on Friday, it was time for my spring break, the week off inbetween the two quarters. The handing in of the paper was quickly followed by a hurried but admirable pack job for another weekend trip with EGEA. If you don't remember them, they are the European Geography Association and are the same crazy group I went on the Gouda trip with. This weekend trip was like Gouda but more intimate because it was only for the EGEA officers (which I am one of) so it was ten people as opposed to 40. We piled into a big university vehicle church van type thing and headed north for an easter weekend in Termunten, a tiny village 20km away from Groningen in the most northeastern, most desolate part of the Netherlands. We decided to take the scenic roads the way up there so we could cross the Afsluitdijk close to sunset. This is the famous 32km (20mi) dike that connects the two fingers of the Netherlands. Its completion created the huge lake Ijsselmeer on one side and blocked off the North Sea on the other. It was quite a sight especially at sunset. There were some nice photos taken. Once the sun went down, there was another highlight as it was a full moon that night and it was one of those huge, low in the sky, blood red moons. It looked incredible but didn't like my camera. Also worth metioning, I had my first McDonalds experience in Europe on the ride up. To the surprise of the other internationals, I hadn't eaten "Mickey D's" for years in the states (GASP!). I ordered a chicken sandwich meal and a burger. The burger, fries and coke tasted the same as in America but a Chicken sandwich...upon inspection: bun - check, chicken patty - check, lettuce - check, mayonaise - check, taco sauce - ? That's right, McDonald's chicken sandwiches come with taco sause on them over here I guess. Strange... So we finally arrived at our humble vacation home Termunten village destination at 11.00pm and upon opening the van doors we were immediately hit with a mixture of gorgeous sea air and earthy farm smells (ie. shit). Faint "baahs" of sheep everywhere. The north sea was a few hundred meters away and one could see the dikes looming under the light of the full moon. After settling in, we had a few beers, talked for a while and played some group chirades type games. We walked up the dikes and looked out across the sea at some larger, brightly lit german cities on the other side then calling it a night at around 2am. That's pretty early for all of us but it had been a busy day. The next morning, Casper and I woke up a bit earlier than the rest to get a small run in before breakfast. We had planned on running along the dikes but we were surprised to see that the dikes were used as sheep lands by day, sheeps everywhere. All the baby lambs were just born too and we found out out the mothers were fairly protective... Scared to not inflict upon ourselves death by sheep mawling we chose to run on the road that followed along side the dikes. Also aiding in our decision was the fact that there was sheep crap all over the dikes and we wouldn't have been able to do the "Berliner Blick" while running. So no dike running North Sea views but our bodies and our only pairs of shoes were safe. After a late and lazy breakfast breakfast of sandwiches and juice around 11.00, we piled in the van again and drove to Groningen. The city has a population of around 180,000 and is the hub of far north holland. We mostly just walked all around the old city center the whole time. The architecture was again nice and since it was Saturday, the marketplace was filled with stands. I didn't buy anything but it made for great "windowshopping" not to mention some free tasting. Around 3.30 or 4, we got in the van and headed to the city of Delfzijl, which lies is inbetween Groningen and Termunten. Delfzijl has some great urban planning history and made for a educational tour. It was a city built very quickly in the 1970s in anticipation of hordes of people and business. It went down as the greatest planning failure of the netherlands and hardly anything came to it. The city now stands as a very industrial, semi-ghost town. Pretty interesting place. We had a few beers at a local cafe around 5 to get things started. We came home around 6 and made some sweet and sour chicken and rice for dinner. We continued drinking and playing games. Yadda-yadda-yadda, we went to bed at 4am. Everyone got up at 11, no running this morning... The couple we were renting the house from lived next door and offered to give us a tour of the surrounding area. After breakfast we walked all along the dikes for a few hours, taking in the sea and all the unique wildlife this little-inhabited part of Holland attracts, and also stopped in a nature center for a coffee/tea break. After walking the dikes near Termunten, we hopped in the van and followed the couple to the German border which was not too far but took a while on the small one lane roads. It was Easter sunday and the weather was fair so there were more people on the roads than usual, families going on day trips to the sea, picnic-ing, and whatnot. Well, everytime there was an oncoming car, our van had to come to a stop half way off the road and into the ditch to allow the car to pass. A tad time consuming. We did a little more nature walking just over the Germany border then headed back to Termunten. Along the way, we stopped at an art gallery of a popular local artist and chilled there for a while. The group of us came back and ate a macaroni chili meal for dinner then went back out to the dikes for some more walking only in the opposite direction we had walked before and this is where my camera unexpectedly ran out of batteries so my last picture is just of some deer type wildlife we spotted on the way. There was a huge pumping station in Termunten was poked around as well. Slight amounts of water are pushed through the dikes over time due to the pressure of the sea so the level of the water inland needs to be regulated by these pumping stations that pump the water back out to the sea. The Dutch and their hydro technologies... We walked back through the village instead of the dikes and stopped in the one bar in town for a drink. There happened to be a lot of locals there for a sunday night because it was cards night; they were playing a game like Bridge but a little different. We had a drink and talked to the locals for a bit then walked another the final 10 minutes to the house at about 9pm and started drinking. It ended up being quite a night. I think we were dancing until 5am. This is quite a fun bunch of people. We all woke up at close to 1pm the next day, painted some easter eggs, had a nice breakfast, cleaned the house, and headed back to Utrecht around 2.30. On the way home, we stopped at a national forest reserve for a small picnic rest and there were evergreens everywhere. Very up north, Minnesota/Michigan-ish which is very unusual for the netherlands. However, the water in the lake was more of a tropical lagoon deep blue rather than a brown which coupled with the pine trees was a strange clash to say the least. I kicked a football around with Casper and Kino, ate some food, layed on the beach for a bit, and then we left. Got back into Utrecht around 6pm on Monday, another successful EGEA weekend. Whew... On tuesday, a Finnish friend of mine and I went on a 110km (70mi) bike ride to Gouda, some of it's surrounding area and back, a really nice ride. On wednesday, Aga the polish girl, Casper and I had been planning on doing a recreational bike trip to Amsterdam for the day because it is only about 2 hours by slow biking away but the weather was crappy so we walked about Utrecht for a while and did some shopping. That night, I had some friends over to watch a movie and Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas was decided up which happens to be one crazy film. I was one of only a couple who liked it, but that is what always seems to happen. Thursday I packed up again, destination: Brussels, Belgium. More on that fine trip very soon.... (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 28th, 2006
12:47 am	Finally, London...and grades Hello to everyone again. I just had my final exam in my master's class monday morning so things have been rather hectic since coming back from London last week. It is much tougher to take 4 days off here than I could have ever imagined; the geography course loads (especially my master's course) are serious. I will try to keep the events in chronilogical order: Wednesday, March 15 I had class at 9 until 11 then had to make some copies of a whole bunch of reading that was due when I got back. I came home and proceded to pack very quickly because, as usual, I hadn't really started and I was leaving in a few hours. It reminded me of my pack job before coming over here (right mom and dad?) just on a smaller scale. A bus ride to the train station and subsequent running to catch the train, I made it just barely. So I was off to Rotterdam and then a switch in trains then over to Hook of Holland (Hoek van Holland) where my Stena Line Ferry was leaving to Harwich, England. The boat itself was more impressive than I thought it would be. However, I really needed a bed on it though; it had already been a busy day. After a jet propelled, 50 mph ride on this huge thing, I arrived in Harwich and still had a hour and a half train ride to London. Lots of travel yes, and I have been debating whether it was better doing the ferry or flying and I think I will still say ferry, if anything for the unique experience. When I arrived in London, I realized my wonderful packing job was missing all the directions to my hostel so it was "fun" walking around london at 10pm and trying to find it. Well, I got there and was quite tired. I bought a map, hopped on the internet, planned my day for thursday, then fell asleep in a heartbeat not caring at all about the other 7 people I was sharing the small bunked room with. That's good hostel living. Thursday I started my day buying a London Underground (Tube) day pass for only 4.90 pounds (one of the few great deals of pricey London). From there, I went to the Tower of London to start my day with some serious touristy action. Tower of London was a bit on that exorbitant side (12p student price) but it did include a well done guided tour by the Beefeaters and a lot of other things to do: museums, crown jewels, and all the historic buildings. I spent much more time in there then I had expected I would so it was kind of worth it. However, most of it was outside which was not aided by the 35 degree, drizzly weather. From the Tower of London, I hopped the tube's circle line and headed over a few stops west to Blackfriars Station and started walking to the Tate Modern Art Museum. On the way over I met Claudette, a 9th grade English teacher from Texas looking for the same place and we became good tourist company. To get to the Tate we had to cross the very cool Millenium Bridge over the Thames River. The Tate Modern was a great place and free as many museums in London are (the only other good deals besides the Tube). There was some famous stuff in there by many of the more interesting artists of modern times like Dali, Man Ray, Calder, Marcel Duchamp, Picasso, Pollock. My favorite work there was by Rene Magritte. Sorry, I couldn't take pictures of inside but check this stuff out sometime. After the Tate, we ate at a pub for dinner. Had fish and chips and Abbott Ale, a great combo. Then I went with Claudette to meet up with a friend of her's and three of us went to an Arthur Miller play at the Old Vic called Resurrection Blues. It was very satiric and the comedy was pitch black. It was directed by Robert Altman so that explains some things. I don't know if I completely liked it, but it definitely had my interest the whole way through, a very strange production. After the play, I met up with a certain John Kallal, one of my friends and Armadillo bandmates from Madison who happened to be in London for two weeks on his honeymoon with his new wife Lorrie. The weather had gotten a bit nicer and we shared a few beers under a clear night and talked for a long while, a very peaceful and congenial way to end the night. I went home at after midnight and passed out due to exhaustion again. Friday I met up with Claudette at Waterloo Station and we decided to hit up the west side of central London. We saw the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben first. I wish I had been able to see them again at night but didn't have enough time. Still quite a sight. We did a tour of Westminster Abbey and walked through all of it. The architecture was amazing and there were so many tombs of famous people, from 16th century English royalties to writers like Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickens and TS Elliot, it was actually a pretty interesting place. We then went to the Tate Britain Art Museum. It still had some modern work but it's majority was older and was still a good walk through (and free). Harrods wasn't too far by way of the tube so we made a quick stop there. That place is fancy and HUGE! And you think wal mart has everything... After this, I said bye to Claudette and went back to the Hostel to meet up with Jaclyn, a high school friend, and her friend Amy who are both studying abroad a few hours north of London. We had some quick turkish food down the street and then headed into the city near to see...Mary Poppins! I know Mary Poppins may sound lame but it is the best theater production I have ever seen and easily lived up to its rave reviews. If any of you reading this ever get to London, see if it is still around. After the play we said bye to Amy because she was going back up to school. Then extremely tired again, go to bed early despite it being St. Patrick's Day. How tired was I? Not even one Guinness! Saturday I thought I had been on my feet a lot thursday and friday...damn, I think my feet are still feeling Saturday. Jaclyn and I went on an all out tour de foot of west London and back. First, we saw Buckingham palace and then walked across Hyde Park which took well over an hour in itself. From there, we tubed it over to the near-by Notting Hill area and found the Portabella Street Market (as recommended by John) and walked almost the entirety of that. The market was great and there was a lot of browsing due to the immensity of interesting little things to look and shop for in the huge street market. After walking that, we caught a train to Abbey Road and after walking down the street for over a half hour looking for the famous Beatles crossing, we found out that the cross walk was only five minutes from the station and we had completely missed it under our noses. So we went back and fought off traffic to get some pictures walking the famous crosswalk. You literally have to fight off traffic. It is a very busy street with no lights and the breaks in traffic are few so you just had to jump out quick, get a picture snapped, and prepare to be honked madly at. And we did this about ten times, it was fun. And there were serveral other people there too doing the same thing. It must really piss off the residents there. After our Beatles fun, we took the tube to Baker Street Station and from there, walked all the way into the city passing through Oxford Street, Oxford Circus, Bond Street, and Picadilly Circus. This was quite a hike also. Back in the hostel, we met two girls from Syracuse and they came out to dinner with us. Dinner became quite an ordeal as I found out the hard way that London operates on a much different time frame than I am used to. First, we headed to the east side to a pub we were planning on eating at, the famous Cheshire Cheese and found out it was booked out for the night. No problem, there are a million good pubs in the area...then we find out most pubs on the East side aren't even open on the weekends. Huh? London? So it is about 7.30 or so when we hop on the tube to the more touristy west side to find a good pub. We are all starving and I wanted my Guiness that I missed the night before. We procede to find pub after pub stops serving food at 8pm. Huh? So we finally settle on whatever was open which ended up being this Scottish steakhouse. It didn't have the pub atmosphere we were looking for but the food was good. For me fish and Chips, Guinness... We didn't get done eating until 10 and most bars in London close at 11 but luckily we found one open later so we made a "late night" of it and stayed there until after midnight. Oooo! Tube back to the hostel, tired, bed time. Sunday I said goodbye to Jaclyn in the morning and still had half the day before I had to leave. I decided to go to Trafalgar Square and go to the National Gallery, another free art museum. There was a lot of good stuff in this one. Monet, van Gogh, Rembrant, etc. My favorite painting was Hans Holbein's The Ambassadors. I still can't believe it was painted in the first half of the 16th Century. After another long but enjoyable museum walkthrough, I stopped in this little local cafe for a late lunch and headed back to the hostel. I packed up and the reverse journey commenced. I landed on Holland soil very very tired at midnight. There, I found out that only the night train was running to Utrecht by then and it was going to make an entire Hoek van Holland-Rotterdam-Den Haag-Amsterdam-Utrecht loop with other stops inbetween. Utrecht was the last stop... A normally 1 hour train ride now 3. I got into Utrecht Central Station after 3am. Went to bed after 4am and had my master's seminar at 9 that morning. So there she blows. Your everday crazy, slapdash, four day trip to London. That Monday, I got grades back for both my exams of a few weeks ago and the results were fantastic. My hard work really paid off. After not passing my first test in my bachelors class, I had a better idea of how to prepare for this very different style of learning/testing here and adapted to it. The second test, the score I just got back, was a 8.8, the second highest grade in the class of 200 people. I also got my first master's exam grade back as well and passed it with a 6.0. With almost half the class not passing it, I was very happy, and the 6.0 gave me a little breathing room on the final exam I just took today. I think I did ok on it although, I must say, I still had quite a travel hangover and was tired all week so I hope my studying for the test does not prove to be too hampered when I get my grade back. Now, I only have class one day a week for the last three weeks as attention has focused on the theoretical papers I have due for each of my classes at the end of the term. So there isn't too much let up yet. I do however love papers and thrive on them so combined with the good exam grades, the outlook is more pleasant. I cannot wait for spring break. VO (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, March 9th, 2006
1:04 am	Whew, things are getting busy around here. Hello everyone again, time for another installment. I am being severely bludgeoned in the head by my classes right now! Hey, it feels kind of good. Two weeks ago, I took my first exam here. It was for my Regions in Development bachelors class. I had no idea what to expect and I thought I studied quite a bit for it then sitting in the chair, looking at the questions, I was a little perplexed, then kind of frustrated, then really pissed off. The test covered only four lectures. And also...25 essays/articles of reading. And I did the readings (though I somewhat crammed near the end) and I went to the lectures and payed close attention and I thought, I got this pretty covered. I didn't have all the readings down pat but I figured I had all the concepts down and understood what was going on. Then I sat down, and the test was mulitple choice and short answer and filled with questions like "in such and such section of so-and-so's article, he lists five solutions, name all five" and there were no points awarded for getting 4 out of the 5. yeah... A little heavy on the memorization if you ask me. Could I have studied more? Yes. Was I completely caught off guard however? Yes. Coming from Madison's human geography department, the land of writing papers and doing projects (aka things I am good at I think), this test really shook me. And maybe for the better, eh? So I got what would be the equivilent of a C- on it, a 5.2 out of 10, a 5.5 being passing here. So I was close and it was a fair grade and I accept it but it bothers me because my grades transfer back to Madison and I only get one chance to adapt to the very different ways here. So I am studying a ton this week because we have our 2nd and final test next week and I just want to kill on it. It's not all concepts and bigger pictures, it's very very close reading - Ok, got it. I am going to waste these people next time. I am far too competitive to get bad grades in geography classes. I will have far less excuses this next time around. Sorry for the rant. It is kind of eating at me still but in a way I think it is kind of fun now, like it is game time or something. I like this pressure and this chance to throw my much improved score in my teachers' faces. That sounds somewhat cruel but my game face is on. The library has been my home as of late, spending about 6 hours a day there. Thankfully the library here, which is across the street from me, may be the greatest library I will ever walk into in my lifetime and certainly the nicest building on campus. It is brand new and cost 100 million Euro. It sounds rediculous but I think it was worth it. The Dutch are usually pretty cheap people and like to complain about prices but no one can deny that it is a great building. Looking through my camera, I don't have any pics of it for some reason; already taking these places for granted I guess. I mean it's the building across the street from me, I don't think about picking up my camera for it even when I see these large architectual group tours going through it several times a day. But here's a good website for some pics of it until I get all touristy and get my camera on it: http://www.archined.nl/oem/reportages/ubu/ubu.html Alright, so I am also done waxing affectionate about my library. Back to exam stuff! Just last monday I had my first test in my masters class. I am at least glad I took my other one first because I was a little more prepared for this one. I am generally more interested in this class (Divided Cities, Shared Neighborhoods) and kept up with the reading better because I like it more and also because I really have to; there is so much of it. Our collection of reading for this course is in this master copy book that we have to borrow and make copies of on our own so the school can step around copyright things. This master copy is a three ring binder with 5 inches of readings in it. And that is just for our two tests. Another 600 pages of reading for our final paper. Ouch. The professors really like you to read here. And keep in mind that the quarter system makes these classes only a little over 2 months long. I only have two classes but one might say they are just a bit intensive. The test was much longer (3 hrs) and covered far more material and it still had some very picky questions. Despite all this, I felt the masters test went better. It was generally more writing based so I was a little happier. I won't find out how I did for another week though so we'll see then if I am happier about it still. Because really, I have no clue how this will be graded and I have little to compare it to because it was more writing based than my other exam. Also, it is a master's class, and maybe they are bigger meanies grading. I hope not and after talking to many people in the class after the exam, I feel satisfied with my effort. I am really learning a lot in these classes and reading much more than I did at Madison. With so many differences in the teaching styles here, I feel I am tapping into a new part of my brain when it comes to learning and that is exciting to me. I am very glad to be immersed like this. Finding friends and getting comfortable with the city came fairly easy to me but with these classes I feel as though I was thrown into a maze. I am just now finding my way out and its been a tremendous learning experience to say the least. So, I don't know if any of that was exciting or not but I will leave you all with some points of interest. A while back, a bunch of my friends planned a big night out for this thursday. It is called a pub crawl and needless to say, we have routed out a map to various pubs across the old city and will manage to spend some time in all of them before the night is up. Should be great time and a nice little breather after all this studying and a good thing to get out of the system before the weekend hits. Because this weekend it's back to the library for countless hours. Then, after a my test on monday and few days of solid reading for my masters class, I will be packing my bags (bag) and heading to london for a long weekend, wednesday night through sunday. Pictures will be taken so don't worry. Besides some normal touristy things, I will be seeing the stage version of Mary Poppins on friday night. Theater can be cool and I heard this one is a must see so I am going to catch it with a few friends while I am there. I even heard they have a scene where the actors are attached to cables and do tap dancing numbers on the ceilings and walk all over the walls. That sounds pretty fun to me. Friday night also happens to be St. Patrick's Day and I am just guessing that some irish partying spirit will have made its way over to London as well... That's enough for now. I hope I didn't come off too pissy, because I am actually kind of excited for all this studying and learning in front of me (I can't wait to destroy my class on monday's exam!) Also, pub crawl and london are on the horizon so I am in a very good mood right now. Bye Matthew van Oosten (Comment on this)
Friday, February 24th, 2006
4:47 pm	Gouda was gouda, pictures, and other things Pictures are in, and there are plenty more to come. Still waiting for people to send me a bunch... http://community.webshots.com/user/blackrhombus27 As I was telling my mom a few days ago, the "G" in dutch is pronounced more with a throaty "H" sound so it sounds more like "Hhowduh" here. And people don't even know what you are talking about when you say "Gooda". Sorry for the further dutch lessons but its just kind of funny. I won't get started with van Gogh... But I digress, myself and the rest of the European Geography Association (EGEA) Utrecht chapter traveled to Gouda last weekend and rented this large house on a lake outside of Gouda. It was one of those big group houses with two rooms full of bunk beds then a large dining/partying room and also a big kitchen capable of producing enough food for the 45 or so people there as well. We arrived at the house Friday around 6 pm and the leaders immediately got dinner going and also showed everyone where the certain beverages were... They made us stampot which is a traditional Dutch dish. It is like mashed potatoes with carrots, cabbage, spinnach and bacon mixed into it with a gravy on top and sausage on the side. I love ethnic food but I also love meat and potatoes kind of stuff as well so stampot combines these nicely. Needless to say, I liked it and ate a whole plate of it. As the dutch say, it builds a good layer for a night of drinking and carrousing. Good thing. The party started right after dinner/dishes were finished. As the night went on, I learned a few Danish songs and drinking games from my good Danish friends Casper and Jonas. I also picked up some more dutch ones from my friend Geert as well. Then there was a lot of dancing. I had some fun trying to salsa with a spanish girl named Maria and a Polish girl named Aga. Then Casper, Geert and I jumped into the lake at around 2 am. It was hovering around freezing at the time. Interestingly enough, I found out a few days later that there was a Polar Plunge in Madison the same day but it was canceled due to those very cold temps. Well I must have telopathically felt that and was driven to get my polar plunge in. However, instead of raising any money, I think we just got some shaking heads and a ton of laughs. So after going to bed around 4.30 am or so, we woke up at 10, made some sandwiches for breakfast and made some extras to eat in the city for lunch. We went on a long nature walk around the lake to the city which took about an hour. It was a great though, the area of Holland Gouda is in is below sea level and as you can guess, completely waterlogged. The homes in the area were all on islands basically because they had a moats around their them or the lake was their backyard. Many homes had small bridges over the water about 8 feet long or so in order for the cars to get to the driveways. Also, there were no fences or anything, just house-yard-water. Very strange area. Once we arrived in Gouda, things got a bit more city-like as Gouda has a population of 100,00 or so. It has one main city square and since we went on a saturday, the market on the square was bustling . I didn't buy any cheese but I did get some stroopwafels which are two wafel-like cookies pressed together with carmel or syrup inbetween. Tasty. We got a guided tour of the city and walked a ton. We went up a massive working windmill in the city and the wind was blowing hard so it was lurching and all the parts were flying and the flour was flowing. We heard of stories of crazy people catching one of the sails and riding it all the way around. If you could see the size and height of this thing and how fast the sails were going...it made me a bit queezy thinking about someone going for a ride. After the tour, we got some free time in the city but we were all tired of walking and Geert, Casper, and I went to the nearest pub to sit for a a little while. Our idea was a popular one as many joined us. I ordered my first coke in a pub... At 6, we took a bus back to the house thankfully and got dinner going again. They made us some pasta with a chili meat kind of sauce. I don't think it was Dutch, but it was still very good. And then we started partying again. This time, it was the EGEA leaders who created a large drinking competition. Myself, Casper, Geert, and another Dutch girl named Krista formed team No Future. A little play on majoring in Geography. Don't worry folks, geography is in the midst of a great revival. I am proud to be apart of the future of geography despite being asked the question by most people I meet. So on and so forth, No Future won the competition. Are you proud of me mom and dad? Well, I met so many more great people in this weekend bonding experience and still got to tour another Dutch city in the process so I've got no complaints. We packed our bags and left for Utrecht at 1 pm on sunday. It was a good thing because I still had a lot of work to do for the masters class I am taking. You read correctly, I am in a master's class here and it's very exciting. Madison's Geography school is one of the best in America so I guess I am Universiteit Utrecht's little guinea pig experiment. Everyone in the class is over 23 and here's this 20 year old American walking in. There is a lot of pressure to do well, but I am up for the challenge. It feels good to have some serious work amongst all this play and all my other Madison friends here feel a bit underchallenged themselves so I like this situation. How does young Matthew face up to the seasoned Dutch master's kids? We'll find out... Also, this Saturday the 25th of Feb, I begin my Dutch language course. I am excited for this as well because I really want to start doing something with the language. While everyone speaks English very well here, I still feel dumb saying "please speak english" in English when any interaction with the Dutch happens. They are very understanding people and used to internationals coming here in which English is the only language connection. I have Dutch roommates so hopefully after a few weeks, I will feel more comfortable in telling them to only speak to me in Dutch so I have better immersion. On Sunday, I was planning on heading to South Holland for their big carnival celebration. The carnival in the south is kind of like their Holloween; everyone dresses really crazy and then acts equally crazy. But I am not sure if I will go yet. I have an all day field to The Hague on Monday and an exam Tues in my other class and I am a little sick so I don't think Sunday is looking good. A little more patience would do my body good. There are so many things to do, so many places to visit, so many people to see. Enjoy the pics everyone, Matthew (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, February 13th, 2006
8:51 pm	hello to everyone, relatives and friends Since this is my first post, I won't try to get too specific because all my experiences in a week and a half here would take just as long to read about. So I will begin with overview things. So far Utrecht has been incredible. It has even exceeded my expectations. Utrecht lies in the center of Holland and has a population of about 250,000 with a student population of 50,000. It has been almost entirely cloudy with temperatures hovering around freezing, 0 degrees celsius that is, and warmer when the sun actually decides to come out. Despite the ugly sounding weather, the city maintains its beauty and I can only imagine what it will be like in the spring and summer when the sun is out a lot. There is one main canal that runs through the city and along it are countless restaurants, shops, and bars. Bustle by day, warm ambiance by night. And unlike Amsterdam's (many and still gorgeous) canals, the Oudergracht canal in Utrecht is about 4 meters below street level so there are restaurants underneath the street that literally have patios right on the canal. They are tunnel-like and very cozy inside. Still a bit too cold to eat outside though. I kind of make this sound like the center of the city. It may be the most beautiful, but Utrecht is still a big place with many other incredible places to go. I live on the far eastern side on the city at the new campus. The new campus is heap of crazy achitecture and nuveau stylings while the other campus is in the city center housed in 17th century buildings. This clashing seems pretty Dutch. The city center and the outer campus are only a 15-20 min bike ride away from eachother. I live in a two floor apt with a guy and a girl, both Dutch. We have no living room but all three of the bedrooms are pretty big. My flatmates are very nice and have helped me with many things. They are however older, Maarten 26, and Marion 25, and kind of have their own things going on often so I haven't actually gone out with them much, we just talk a lot over meals or in random places in the house because of the no living room thing. There have been countless opportunities to meet people though and I am already making some great friends. So far they have mostly been international students but I am starting to know some more Dutch people as well now. I am apart of European Geography Association (EGEA) Utrecht which is through my faculty of Geosciences and also I am apart of the ESN international student network here. We have tons of events always planned and with the people I know already, I could do something every night of the week if I so desired. With classes in full swing now, things have settled down a little bit but the first week was pretty crazy. In doing everything possible for a bit, I was able to meet a lot of people and got to know the city better as well. I have acclimated nicely I think, and already biking around sometimes it kind of feels like "my" city. Speaking of bikes, they are just everywhere here. Some say there are more per capita in Utrecht than anywhere else in the world. Well, I don't know for sure, but I do know that in The Netherlands there is over one bike per person and when I toured Amsterdam, there wasn't nearly the wash of bikes Utrecht has so it might be true. And I thought madison was pretty good about their biking but it nothing compared to here. I think it is just incredible. And when the weather is not so nice for biking, I hop on the bus and its almost as convenient. But the buses do stop at 1.30 am so if I were to go out on the town at night by bus that would mean a short night, a pricey cab ride, or a long walk home. So everyone bikes. So many activities revolve around drinking here and it is just kind of normal. It is nothing special, it just is what it is. Utrecht is a very educated city and people are mature, safe, and responsible, they just like to drink and have fun. People do drink more here than in Madison but it is more relaxed as no one has to worry about drinking ages or tickets or cramming into a house party just to drink some beer. I love how the dutch aren't blind to what people do and do their best to accommodate it and make it safer. I think another example of this is marijuana. The Dutch rarely smoke. I even want to say less than America and definitely less than certain parts of Europe. And yet it's "legal" here and no where else? I don't know if these policies would ever work in America due to fact that the idea of marijuana is so different to us due to years and years of illegality. But it is certainly very interesting to think about. Weed was more prevalent in Amsterdam but I might liken it to the fact that there are far more tourists there and a decent percentage of them thinking it is so cool to be able to do something that is illegal back home. I haven't had it here yet but probably someday. Utrecht is known for its incredible bars and nightlife and that's what most Dutch people I have met around here like better. Just put me in the very Dutch-like "whatever" category. Somehow there is even a special ordinance in Utrecht that allows bars to be open until 4 am while every other city's bars around the country close at 2 or 3. Clubs or discos are another story, the earliest I have seen them close was at 4, (yeah, I was there...) but most of them will go to 6 or 7. Now, I have compared Utrecht to Amsterdam a few times because as of yet that is the only other dutch city I have visited. I went this past saturday, and walked around the city for the whole day and it was quite eye opening in a number of ways. At first glance it is a bit more touristy than Utrecht but when you get away from the city center, there is a lot to be desired. It too is beautiful and has canals and old architecture everywhere. It is also more diverse and alternative than seemingly more chic Utrecht. It feels a bit otherworldly due to the countless clash of new buildings and old buildings, tourists and natives, commercial centers and party centers, the museum square and the red light district. All are so close to each other in Amsterdam. We were walking through the red light district, (De Wallen as the Dutch say) which means "the walls", and on one side you see girls in the windows, the other side you see a popular night club with a huge line outside. You see a very nice looking pub right next to a "coffee shop" or a restaurant next to a sex shop. Very interesting place to say the least. It certainly isn't as seedy as it is made out to be. Just verrry different. And to the Dutch, it is all perfectly normal. Do what you want as long as is doesn't interfere with me.... Amsterdam is only a 30 min train ride away and it is somewhere I would love to visit several more times. Amsterdam is a lot of fun, but it is not the college town Utrecht is. I feel quite lucky to have made this decision without having known little more than fact that the university was in the netherlands, its education was respected, and that I could take classes towards my major in english. Everything I am experiencing is going above and beyond and I have already met so many people here that hope to keep in close touch with. Some of my plans for the week include going bowling, then to the bars, and then to the international student valentines day party at a disco on tuesday night, having a private dinner party with some new friends at a house on thursday, then I pack my bags and go to Gouda for a weekend of cheese, travels, and partying with EGEA, the geoscience people. We seem to be a much tighter group than the other faculties. Everyone else is pretty jealous. Go geography! Well, sorry this ended up being pretty long still. But if you're reading this, thanks. and thanks for your support as well. Cheers, or as we say it here, Proost! Matthew van Oosten ps, many photos coming soon, I can't get them to work on here yet. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, February 5th, 2006
3:31 pm	Test Testing (1 Comment |Comment on this)