date: 1094545222
mood:
listening to:
day 2: people, supermarket.
the tower bells are ringing. they ring every hour, however this time it sounds as if someone is playing them. how… european. i only hear tower bells in voronezh.
its 5:45pm by the way. i hope they’ll be playing until 6. that would be so great!
i woke up at 2pm. at least i thought it was 2, it turned out to be almost 3. i guess i set the wooden clock wrong last night.
i woke up many times, once around 4 am, unable to fall asleep. i looked at the night city for a while, looked around the very messy room, sat on my bed for about 10 minutes, then got tired and fell asleep again. i also woke up at 7am (was darkish and felt too early) and around 10 (felt tired), so i kept falling back asleep. i figured i kept forcing my self to get up each day before leaving, with pretty much not a single day when i could have just slept in, so might as well let myself.
so, i woke up at 2.
changed from pygamas (i hope that’s how you spell it), went into the kitchen. found new coffee cups, drinking cups, a new kettle, new utensils. also an espresso coffee box and some milk in the fridge. initially i figured the girl next to my room (italian, i think francesca is her name), got all of it, but then i’m not sure because there is so much stuff… like, knifes and spoons – i can’t remember seeing them yesterday, but i was too tired- i checked, but i just don’t remember whether it was a yes or a no.
the bells stopped ringing, 5 minutes later.
anyway, i made myself some tea. drank half a cup, no sugar, smallish cup, felt sucky. so i went back into the kitchen, cleaned up after myself, and just walked downstairs until i heard noise- which was on the 2nd floor.
went in, went to their kitchen/dining room thing, introduced myself. one indonesian guy watching olympics, 2 indonesian girls cooking, some other people in their rooms. i very annoyingly offered to help until they gave me some cucumbers to cut. i was cutting them in air, talking to the guy, explaining that i just wanted to meet some people. i think they were relieved, because i didn’t want to intrude. heh. anyway, i cut 2 cucumbers for them, and then he offered to show me where the supermarket is (i asked him where can i get sugar, and where can i buy a bike, and where is there internet – i didn’t get a clear answer regarding the last 2). i went upstairs, put running shoes on, got my bag with camera and wallet, went downstairs. he walked me out, offered me to take the bike (he had 2?), i thanked him and said no, anyway, he just walked me out to the road and pointed where to go. i thanked him again, and we went seperate ways.
oh! how could have i forgotten. while i was on my second cucumber, one of the girls invited me to join them tonight at 7 for some kind of get together. i’m totally not sure what is it going to be, but why the heck not. probably not dinner, as they likely ate after i left.
i walked to the supermarket (he said it was the cheapest one). its about 10 minute walk. small streets. took some pictures of the streets. got to the supermarket.
looked like a tiny store, had 5 short aisles. no pictures, not this time, i’m too overwhelemed! ailses have food in carton boxes, with prices printed on top. everything is dutch, and i suddenly realized how scary it must’ve been for my parents to immigrate to israel – canada is english, they leanred it, but israel, its hebrew… how are you supposed to understand what is what?
intersting notes.
a lot of yogurts.
meat is in fridge, fruits/bread/milk not.
there’s showarma in the freezer (already cut up ready to fry)
there are clothes and small table saws, and people are buying htem. no large coffee cups though (argh).
everything is on wooden shelves in cardboard boxes.
pictures are EXTREMELY helpful when you have not a freaking clue what “koeken ass” means. (no, its not what it sounds like).
there’s wine, and white australian merlot is 2.55 euros. some bottles go up to 10 euros.
so i walked around, made like 3 rounds. after much searching found milk standing just in the aisle. i was confused whether it is milk or creamer, and asked some guy who was picking up a similar box, whether it is “milk for coffee or for drinking”. he says “regular normal milk, for drinking”. so i took that. i also got muesli, dishwashing liquid, surface cleaning spray, sugar (cubes), apple juice, some bread, some sweet cookies (they looked awesome and i decided that they’ll come in useful).
prices (from what i understand on my reciept):
draagstas (bag): 0.09 euro
halfvol melk (milk): 0.42
appelsap (apple juice): 0.55
una afwas (dishwashing liquid): 0.69
krok muesli (guess): 0.65
baquet brood (bread): 0.22
anyway, total was 5.71.
i hauled all of the stuff back to the room. not that it was a lot or it was heavy, but its still … you know, stuff. my muscles are all hurting, non stop weight lifting!
i came home, put all the stuff into the appropariate sheleves, made myself some muesli with milk, ate that, washed everything (it smells like lemon now!). came back into the room, finished unpacking one of the bags (the one with “stuff” and not clothes – i wanted to find the connectors, damnit!, and it also was lying next to the entrance so i couldn’t fully open the door to get in, was uncomfortable). found the connectors *after* i finished unpacking and started to organize the sheleves and everything, in the bag with the pens. so now, YAY i’m typing on a charging laptop. weee!
my room is missing a bookshelf that was promised.
i just noticed that moms painting has an unknown white stain on it. *goes to wash it off*
yay, oil paints are washa…
goddamnit, when it dries its coming back!
i’ll ask mom what it is. no clue.
i’ll go complete the entry for last night, and take some pictures of the now very clean room (with one bag still unpacked! argh. so tired).
took photos. room clean. clothing mess.
uploaded photographs, and found some old ones. aaah, memories – pictures of mom, dad, family, shady. nice.
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oh my god. what an awesome day!
okay, so it was 7, and i went downstairs. so what proceeded to happen was very cool. their floor is all indonesian group of people that came here together, and they are leaving on tuesday, so tonight they had a dinner for themselves and their friends here, as a good bye thing. so not only i tried indonesian food for the first time tonight, i also tried it with like … real people!
they had samba (i think that’s the name), chicken, eggs with stuff, and various vegetables, including the cucumbers that i cut. hehe.
ohoh and we all ate on the floor (everyone took off their shoes upon coming in to the floor), with our hands (we had spoons, but chicken and veggies you ended up eating with your hands).
there were around 20 people total, i have some photographs of them. most of them are blurry, but its pretty damn cool to meet people.
all of them spoke very broken english, so it was fun trying to explain where i’m from. if i say canada they look confused cause i have a russian accent and if i say russia then it doesn’t explain where i’m actually from. i ended up saying that i’m a russian student from canada. that seemed to confuse them even more, but i guess that’s fine. :P
anyway, i ate with them, then i danced (!) a line dancing type of thing with them. its a step over, step over, step back, step back, then something with your feet (like you kick a foot up in the air), then all over again, to some dancish indonesian music.
they were SO nice! it was cool.
i talked to a lot of people, one guy is there for his phd, he’s going to tutor in UCM this fall. i think they are all married, most of them had rings. i’m absolutely not sure of their age, most looked 23 or so.
one of the people there explained to me where to find free computers with internet. they open monday.
anyway, i just hung out there until 9:55. a girl (that i didn’t really talk to) approached me and the guy who i was talking to (the phd one), and said good bye. i figured that’s my cue so i immedeately said “oh it must be late i have to go”. they didn’t object too much =p anyway, i shook everyone’s hand, exchnaged emails with another girl, and went upstairs.
come in, unload my stuff (map, emails, camera), start taking off my socks to change into slippers (yay for perfect shoes for house), knock on the door. i open the door its my italian neighbour.
she says that she’s going to have dinner with her friends in another house right now, and if i want to join them i’m welcome. i explained that i just ate with the indonesian people (i know she met them cause they mentioned her to me, when i said 5th floor). however i said that if they are going out afterwards i’ll gladly join them.
after some broken explanations we managed to understand eachother ;) and she said she will knock on the door around 12 when they will go out.
wooohoo!
and i have an hour and a half to rest!
i’m happy. i ate cool food, met cool people, AND i don’t have to go sleep now.
it FINALLY feels good.
and my 80 gig harddrive knock on wood knocks well, so i can listen to music.
one think is bad is that only one of the converters i took fits. they look identical but one of them is a *bit* too narrow, so it slips out of the socket, and i’m afraid of pushing it in further – what if it breaks and my expensive equipment gets burned?
good thing my laptop has batteries… cause i can just charge it, and then use the harddrive. maybe i’ll get more connectors if it feels like a hassle, but since i don’t have internet its not a big deal to just turn it off before leaving.
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okay, so upon saying how well the hardrive works i decided to check nd the 3 new harddisks disappeared, so i reconnected it, then i played music, and then i decided to copy files… anyway, long story short an hour later i folded and hung all my clothing and figured out what to wear tonight (considering i aint got a clue where we’re going! so black pants and the black shirt with one sleeve).
its nicer in the way that i miss everyone much less than i did yesterday. the first day was absolutely horrible.
i am glad i have photographs of everyone though, because i keep looking at them. its nice.
i can burn 3 cds of the photographs that i already have. maybe i can do that tomorrow, don’t have anything else planned.
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i miss internet!
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okay, so at 12 exactly knock on my door, i was already ready.
this was a fun night! we didn’t exactly go out, we instead went into a building next to ours, the so called C building (wow, after spending all this time with italians i almost start feeling as if im typing with an italian accent). i met like 10 new people, we were all sitting in this girl’s room, she was french, another girl from austria, another girl from brazil, and like 5 italian guys, and the italian girl that’s my neighbour (and i think another italian girl joined us later). we all sat there, (some people drank martini, i drank a small glass of smirnoff ice), it was the french’s girl birthday, just talked for a while. eventually, me, francesca (neighbour), and nicolas (i think thats his name) started to talk about art (nicolas is a law student doing theatre and francesca is doing literary studies), and i shown my photographs. for the next 2 hours we just sat in nicolas’s room (which is right next door) and just talked about art, meaning of art, photography, theatre, lighting, travel, politics, europe (the guy came here by car and francesca by plane to brussels and then train). it was insanely interesting, if only for the understanding of poor english and loving the strong italian emotions when they switched to italian out of frustration. i absolutely LOVE italian now! when she talks its like … a fountain of emotions, its so cool!
funny quotes:
“italy is not really a country, it is only a century and a half years old!” (said with italian accent)
“i think canada is very european”
and generally a LOT of VERY bad english with a STRONG italian accent.
at like 2, francesca went “i want to go outte! i want to go outte!” so we realized that its late, and that we can’t go out, so we started to leave. its hard to believe its already almost 4 am, because we left at 3 (or so) and the walk is like 5 minutes. the “party” seemed to be going strong even as we left though.
anyway, came home, changed, washed my face and teeth (“i’m going to wash my teeth, one secondde!”), brushed my hair, so now to sleep.
francesca offered to make us breakfast tomorrow morning. we agreed to share everything in the kitchen – like split the price for oil, and share some products. sounds good to me! now i only need to learn how to cook!
generally speaking the kitchen is well stocked with equipment now. we have dishwashing liquid (2 bottles, she also bought one after i did), she also got a wipe thingie for dishes, and we have a kettle, and a lot of cutlery for 2 people.
anyway, tomorrow at 11am, we’re having breakfast. going to set my palm for alarm, and go to sleep.
i checked email very quickly from the guy’s computer. scanned through emails (he was sorta standing over my shoulder, blah), sent off a quick 1 liner to parents saying i’m good, read emails from maha and robert and koj (WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEE to all of you!! thank you!) and the gazillion (3) emails from parents (WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EE to you as well :D). gosh, i miss everyone so much!!
i mean, now it feels more OKAY, because i know people and stuff. everyone says that they wouldn’t be brave enough to just go like this. i know exactly what they mean, cause last night it really hit me that i’m doing this allll by myself.
thank goodness for teddy bears!
well, goodnight now. battery is all charged. maybe i CAN survive on one charger!
buenas noches!
among the vastness of work, tedium, pressure, deadlines, responsibilities, failure and more hard work, there is a heaven. and it is called “stuff that makes you happy”. and within that realm of stuff, there are many things which could be included – or excluded, depends on who you are.
“In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock.” — Orson Welles (1915–1985).
okay, people.