Jet lag...

I can't sleep...figures. I decided to write this instead:

Top Ten things you need to know about NL2010!

10. This semester brought to you by Calvin College.

9. We are studying at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, which has 20,000 students (now 20,016 including us). Fun fact: the motto is gewoon bijzonder (simply special). Hmm.

8. We = sixteen Calvin students. Many are engineering students. I am not.

7. We start class on Monday. Yikes.

6. Our group is headed by our fearless leader, Prof. Aay, and his wife. They have boldly chosen to live in the same interesting apartment complex that we have (more on that later).

5. We have one class that only our group will take, taught by Prof. Aay. I have to go look on the Calvin website now to find its full title...aah yes:
"Toward Environmental Sustainability in the Netherlands: Historical Perspectives and Contemporary Practices"
I will let you know what that means when I find out.

4. Yesterday we moved into Uilenstede (OWL-len-sted-eh, sort of). It is basically a giant student housing complex with multiple buildings that have multiple staircases and multiple ways of getting lost. I will post pictures soon as I find my way around.

3. Here at Uilenstede, I have a room to myself! We all do, actually, on the student front. They are complete with personal bathroom, small TV, and balcony. They are not complete with personal kitchen (there's a communal one down the hall), much wall decor, or universal furniture. Seriously, every room I've seen has different chairs in it, and I know at least one person who lucked out and got a giant TV. Speaking of TV's...

2. The English channels I have found so far are Animal Planet, MTV, and Comedy Central. Three cheers for Animal Cops!

1. This will be an adventure! Thank you to anyone who reads this, for following along with my semester. I hope to keep you updated often, with lots of pictures. Until then, tot ziens!

I'm here!

We traveled in a little plane. We sat in Chicago. Then we traveled in a bigger plane:


















And we made it! Yesterday was mostly signing forms for our rooms, getting into our rooms, grocery shopping at Super deBoer, and, for me, sleeping. But today, after rising bright and early (not!), we followed Prof. Aay to the VU campus and got a bit of a tour.
After that, some of us pulled out our newly-loaded OV-chipkaarten and went to explore downtown:


















Some neighborhoods were shopping districts with tons of people. Others were kind of...

...interesting.






















We got out of there and finally found a delicious pancake house!


















Okay, so the sign isn't in Dutch, but it was still tasty!
Sarah and I:


















Paul and Adam:


















Anna and Bonnie:


















Chris and Ed:


















And I even had a tasty cappuccino:
























Then the sun began to set


















and we made our way back to Uilenstede, which is where we live. Not a bad day!
So that's it for my first blog post, hope you enjoyed it! More to come soon!