exams week

28  October - 4 November

exams - can anything positive be said about them besides "at least i passed"?

after such a wonderful time in italy and visiting in london i really had to buckle down and get through a few days of serious school work.
i had a paper and an exam on monday so the rest of the weekend after traveling back from London was dedicated to those two. for the paper i had a stellar group that i've been working with all term and so that came together well. the exam was for dutch and it was oral. i was extremely nervous. even after visiting family i struggle with pronunciation and forming whole sentences on my own. for part of the exam there is a prepared 2 minute dialogue with another person. my partner was from Austria so he had a better grasp as Dutch is close to German in grammar. we had practiced our dialogue and had it down to  a few seconds so that was reassuring. for the second part of the exam the professor would ask us about 5 questions based on the chapters we had covered. i thought this would be more of a rapid fire question time but i have the best prof in the school. when we got in and sat down he asked about my visit to family and made a conversation about it. i hardly realized it was part of the exam! he did his best to put us at ease and while testing us not make it seem like he was against us. over all the test went well which was a huge relief!
however, there was no time to take it easy as i still had an accounting final the next day. so it was straight home to begin studying for that. in the evening i took a study break to enjoy a pancake dinner with my good girl friends then back to the grindstone!
the next day my test went well and to treat myself, i enjoyed a coffee date with my friend from the concert. that evening, with all my finals finished, i thought i might bring a study snack to my friends who still weren't finished. so i made my way over to their places and made sure they were happily fed.
the next day was quiet. our group received feedback on our paper and i had coffee with friends B, F, and W. (sounds like i'm on sesame street and have letters for friends.) but other than that i had borrowed The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy from a friend and if you know me, you'll know that once i have a book in my hand not much else will get done.
so thursday was also spent largely with my head burrowed in the book until the evening. by now all my friends had finished their exams as well so we got together at a friends to celebrate. after some time in her tiny room, we made our way to this great place named Fiddlers where we could chat longer. it was fun to see everyone after their trips and to catch up on what adventures they had been on. after hearing from everyone it was time to head home. but in the case of B and i it was time to head back to her place to make some late night food and watch star wars.
the next day was also a good time. in the afternoon i set off with F, W, and A to walk to the market. my bike brakes had broken at this point and i needed to get them repaired so walking it was for me. we picked up groceries for the week and then proceeded to make a yummy dinner out of what we had gotten. there was a large gathering of friends that evening as well so we joined in for the evening.
it was a fine time and a great ending to the week. the rest of the weekend was quiet and spent catching up on emails, sermons from home, and of course reading. 

just another day in the life

1-4 october

i think i have finally settled into a sort of routine here. trying accomplish homework, spending time with new friends, biking to run errands all done with a deep love for this city. 

this week wasn't too eventful.
monday was just taking care of errands and getting the chance to skype my coffee girl! unfortunately her mic or something wasn't working so i couldn't hear her but she could hear what i was saying and type out responses. it made for an odd kind of conversation but i was so glad to finally get to talk to her! after talking to her for about an hour i also got the chance to speak to ej! it was wonderful to see his face and to hear what he has been up to. only 3 months until i get to see him again!
tuesday and wednesday were simply classes and tackling homework. wednesday night headed over to K's house for dinner and then went out with the girls to grab some dessert. we couldn't find any open gelato places so we cruised by the grocery store and picked up a carton of ice cream and a sort of pie that as the box described "smiling from under a blanket of crumbly goodness" or something of the sort. after yummy desserts we all snuggled down to watch The Emperor's New Groove.
thursday morning i grabbed coffee with my good friend that i went to the concert with and met with my group to tackle another of our many papers. That night was a big night out but not too big because the next day we were headed to BRUSSELS!

nose to the grindstone

17-20 september

week two of classes! 

what could be more exciting! 

however that is the reason that i fly across the ocean for this whole grand adventure. 

so work i must. 

i ended up dropping a couple of classes because i was *way* over the recommended credit load. 

so my week looks like this

~monday~

dutch - 16.30-18.00

~tuesday~

dutch -12.15-13.00

ctrl, alt, del - 13.00-14.30

cost accounting - 15.30-16.15

~wednesday~

ctrl, alt, del - 8.45-12.45

~thursday~

cost accounting - 14.45-16.15

into to dutch culture - 16.30-18.00

you may notice that friday is missing. oh how very observant of you! i do not have classes on friday which is great because it gives me the chance to be caught up on homework.....or to travel and have some fun. same thing right? 

this last week i was able to skype with ej which was a great hour. i had a big presentation due tuesday that was worth 15% of my grade but our group rocked it. wednesday night i enjoyed mushroom soup at a friends house and went to a lecture after. thursday night was an incredibly fun time at a friends apartment just chilling and just having a ton of fun. 

it's fun when there is a network of people you can just call up and say 'hey what do you want to do?' knowing that whatever happens will be a good time :) 

it was certainly true of thursday night and i'm sure it will be for many more evenings!

class??

10-13 september

the last two weeks felt like a total vacation but on monday morning reality hit hard. 

i only had one class on monday but i was also coming down with some sort of cold. ya know the lovely running nose and hacking cough. not one to back down i went to my dutch class and learned to tell people, "Ik heet lindsey" or "Ik ben mevrow VD" and ask them "Hoe heet jij?/Wie bent u?" the best part was trying to go around the room asking people with a tissue clutched in my hand to use every 10 seconds. 

thank goodness that was my only class of the day so i proceeded to go home and drink 40 cups of tea with honey in an effort to feel a little better. 

the next day i went to the lecture for a class i had just picked on the day of registration. it was titled "Ctrl, Alt, Delete: The Digital Society" 

should be interesting. 

the first day was spent telling us about what the module consisted of and then going into some preliminary information on the cyberworld. the whole school is very international and there were plenty of opinions that were voiced throughout the class. i look forward to hearing more of the discussions that play out - i'm way out of my element in this field but hopefully i can learn lots of new viewpoints and information. 

from there was Cost Accounting. this class is immediately after the class for Financial Accounting {which i took last year at SPU so didn't need} and has many of the same students with the same teacher. it was the first day and many of the people had never been in accounting besides the financial acct. class they had just sat through so we covered the basics. 

after that i was done for the day so i headed to the store to pick up some ingredients for a home remedy i wanted to try, grapes, and chicken soup. i skipped on the big party that was going on in an effort to get some extra sleep.

wednesday started early at 8:45 with a 4 hour class for Ctrl, Alt, Del which was rather interesting as we discussed the digital revolution and all the mountains of work we will have to do for this part of the module. {my group had a 30 source paper and a 30 min presentation due next week!} but once we got to actually looking at the material it was rather interesting and fun to learn more about the world that we are living in. 

my only other class for that day was Dutch and we simply practiced more about our names and asked "Waar kom jij vamdaan?" {Ik kom uit de V.S.} we also listened to a dialoge in the book. two of the characters give their last names as Dikstra and de Vries. :) that was all i had to do that day and simply filled up on chicken soup and read my book for our group paper. 

thursday is the last day of the week i have class. i start with Multicultural Consumer Behavior {which i am trying to decide if i should drop. i am taking 37 credits and they recommend 24 to 30} then i have a break in which i simply went home to drink even more tea and try to rest. then comes the workshop for Cost Accounting which was actually great. we worked through some problems i hadn't done before and i was able to figure out what was going on even with most of the class sitting confused. it has nothing to do with the fact i have taken a whole course before and they have never seen it. nope. 

then i attended a lecture for Intro to Dutch Culture which was about Dutch politics with a focus on the elections that had just happened the day before. 

it was also the birthday of one of my good friends here! 

in an effort to celebrate we invited her back to my apartment and made a delicious salad and no-bake cake balls! they were delicious and we just enjoyed the evening together talking about everything/anything we could think of!

that was my first week of school here in Holland! looks like i have lots to learn but it should be a good time. 

living a dream

3-6 september 

seriously. somebody pinch me. 

i know i said that at least twice this last week. 

someone did pinch me - it's not a dream!

the second full week of living here in Den Haag has been incredible - from the amazing sites to the incredible people that i have had the pleasure to be around. 

let me show you just why my life has been so fantastic. try not to be too jealous alright?

on monday the school booked a boat tour for us to show us around Den Haag from the water!

we briefly talked more about Dutch culture and what we could expect from the class and then we headed down to the water to see the city! 

this used to be the head office for the port 

the traditional symbol of Holland

guess who wants to move into a house boat?

our tour guide

the other boats in our tour

pretty boats in the canal

restaurants use boats for extra seating 

we even got candy! we passed an old candy factory and our guide had some for us. remember those candy necklaces?

photos on the canal of what used to be

oh look one of the 32 bridges we passed under

grote kirk

beautiful buildings

where officers used to live.

love beautiful bridges

learning to be a snap happy tourist. i need practice

where the soliders used to live

watch your head! 

swans!

go that way

it was a delightful ride. it was sunny, hot weather but cooled by being on the canal to a perfect summer temperature. we had interesting features of the city pointed out to us by our guide. adventure was even included! there are a large number of low bridges that we had to be sure to duck our heads or lose them.  we saw many pretty and historical sites. it was a fun change of pace to see the city from that angle. 

after a delightful ride we had the afternoon to ourselves and a few of us set out to get some groceries then figured why not go to the beach? 

only two of us had bikes so they set out to meet us there while my friend and i took the tram to the pier. 

we walked to the water and this was the beautiful site waiting for us! 

we walked down to the pier but everything was close to closing for the night so we walked down to the water. we hung around there for awhile chasing seagulls and talking before heading up to the mcdonalds (i was hoping to avoid going there this whole trip) to get ice cream. we enjoyed stroop waffel mcflurries and then headed home for the night. as two of us headed to take the tram home we caught sight of the city lights just coming on. 

can i live here forever?

the next day was a short day of receiving more information of the people there to help us with any problems we may have and opportunities around us. afterwards i took care of a few errands then chilled to save energy for the fun night ahead! 

i went over to a friends to eat dinner and get ready. it's fun to chat with these girls! we enjoyed wine with our dinner. maybe someday i'll learn to like it. one of the girls had some temporary tattoos so we figured why not! 

what do you think? should i get it for real? 

{mom stop the heart attack. i'm kidding.} 

we chilled on the roof terrace meeting more people before heading over to the pool party! i hadn't been planning on getting wet but all my friends jumped in {ok we may have thrown one girl in} and who am i to ruin a good time because it involves getting a little wet? so i jumped in and we all had a blast dancing and laughing. 

finally it was time to go and we all headed home to grab some sleep before the next morning of orientation. Gotta balance all the fun with some responsibility. 

the next day was filled with visits from each department and just tidbits of information on courses. after the overload of information we grabbed some lunch and then rested for the afternoon. that evening was the big event put on by the school Oh Oh Intro with stages set up for talent and booths of groups on campus. we went a bit late and caught a few of them but the only stage performing wasn't great so we went back to a friends to play some games and chill. we were having a good time but figured we should head back to check out more of the bands. as we were almost there some friends came out and told us it wasn't very good. so change of plans to another group hang out. we chilled there until the big after party the school was putting on. a group of us went and danced for about an hour but it was time to head home. course registration was in a few hours! 

course registration isn't an online ordeal like home. rather you have to get there at least two hours early to put your name on a list {if you want a good spot you have to get there at least that early} then wait for your name to be called to pick your time slots. i got there at the bright hour of quarter to eight and i was already down at number 63! i waited there until about 11 when my name was finally called. i got into every class hour i wanted then went back home to sleep! after a great relaxing time i got all dolled up and headed over to enjoy a good dinner of pasta, veggies and wine with friends before heading out to this little place named Havana for some fun. 

we made a yummy dinner and went to the roof to chill with people for a bit again. 

{if you had a roof terrarce, it was warm out, and had a great view you'd find any excuse to be up there too}

finally we made it to the party and i tried cider for the first time. it was really sweet and yummy! 

we tore up the dance floor and met more students from the four year program.

 i also enjoyed the lovely night sitting in the courtyard talking with a friend. after a great night we made our way back to our friends apartment and crashed for the night.

a great week with an even better weekend that needs its own blog post to tell you about! this one is plenty full the way it is! this has been such a great experience so far and it's only been two weeks! what else awaits?