Hello from Middelburg!
Today marks one month since Mom took Thomas and me to the airport in Omaha. Wow. That went by way too fast! I can't believe I've been in Europe for almost a month (it will be exactly 4 weeks on Monday, Feb. 17). I guess there's a saying that goes..."Time flies when you're having fun." And this past month has been a blast. And very, very, very busy.
I know it's been a while since my last post. I apologize for making you wait so long. In between having to write 1,500 word summaries of three chapters for Psychology, an 800-word essay on Romeo and Juliet for Intro to Theatre and Media, and read - A LOT - for all of my classes...I guess I got behind on my blog. A lot has happened since my last post...and I hope I can remember it all so I can write it here.
I've decided a while ago that my housemates are wonderful. There are nine other UCR students living in Bagijnhof 6 with me: Tinia, Lisa, Joy, Nick, Hugo, Emmy, Vejune, Lilia, and Luna. Three times a week we have a house dinner where two of us cook, and then we all eat together. I've cooked a couple times, with the most recent being just this past Thursday. The first time I helped Joy make chicken, rice, and stir-fried peas/carrots. Everyone seemed to like it. For our meal on Thursday, Nick and I made a variation of a recipe that Mom emailed me a while ago, called "Busy Day Casserole" (a.k.a. Mr. Noodles). Because two of my housemates are vegetarian, we decided to use the base ingredients: hamburger, macaroni, spaghetti sauce, and shredded cheese; but instead of mixing it all together, we just cooked everything separately and let everyone mix it on their own plates. That way they could take as much or little of each thing as they liked. Throughout the day my housemates asked me what I planned to cook, and I just replied with, "I'm going to go all 'Midwestern' on you tonight."
They all loved it. And the dessert was a hit, too. Thomas came over and made vanilla pudding from scratch. Though we're lucky he had the right ingredients to make it. Nick and I had gone shopping at Albert Heijn (the grocery store) earlier that day, with the list of ingredients we needed for dinner and dessert. The one item that took us the longest to find was the cornstarch that Thomas needed. Nick is from England, and I'm from America...and well, when you put two people who don't know Dutch very well (if at all) together and send them to a Dutch grocery store...things take longer than usual. After about ten minutes of staring at the different boxes on the shelf (we assumed we were in the correct aisle)...we decided to get something called "allesbinder" (pronounced 'ah-lace-bin-der') and hoped it was the right thing. When we got back to Bagijnhof, I went to Google Translate and checked to see what exactly we just bought. Thankfully, due to our use of context clues, Nick and I had managed to get cornstarch. Woo!
That's basically the most exciting thing that's happened here since my last post. My classes and homework definitely keep me busy, since at UCR they earn their degree in three years instead of four. So they've condensed four years' worth of work into three. Which makes for a lot of reading, writing, and stress, but at least I think I've found a rhythm to my schedule:
Sunday = Church + afternoon homework
Monday = No classes + homework + breaks + house dinner
Tuesday = 3 classes + house dinner
Wednesday = 1 class (that's 4 hours long) + some homework + unproductivity
Thursday = No classes + homework + breaks + house dinner
Friday = 3 classes + relaxing evening/unproductivity
Saturday = sleeping in + afternoon homework + miscellaneous
Oh! Another exciting thing that happened was when Thomas and I went to the Municipality Office to officially register as citizens of Middelburg, as required in our study abroad applications. I think Lindsey had class, so she did not go with us. Anyway, we walked halfway across the city to the Municipality, which conveniently was near the train station. When we decide to travel to other countries, at least we know how to get to the train station now *wink*. The lady at the Municipality was nice, and she said she had worked with students on exchange before. But there was an issue with our birth certificates. She said they lacked something called a "postile stamp" that we should have gotten from the Dutch Embassy. We were never informed that we needed to find the Embassy and get the stamp. We told her that, and she said that technically she couldn't use the birth certificates without the stamp, but she tentatively registered us. The paperwork still isn't complete yet, though, because we don't have our residence permits yet. Thomas' residence permit is in Riswijk (pronounced 'rice-wike'), and Lindsey and I will have to pick ours up in Goes (pronounced 'hoosh') whenever they finally arrive there. So when we actually receive our residence permits, we're supposed to go back to the Municipality and finish the paperwork.
I took some pictures of our walk back from the Municipality. And I have some more pictures of the streets/area by campus. I'll make another post that is just pictures soon.
Until next time,
~Laurie
