my personal timeline

date: 1093470157

mood:
listening to:

that is how i feel

date: 1093476040

mood:
listening to:

as in, preparing my desktop.
since myie had open 7+ windows of pretty clothing, i decided to let all of you know what i like in case you win the lottery or something. =p

in order from most liked down:

and as a complement

date: 1093633128

mood: scared
listening to:

with (too) many stories.

it is very scary to be alone.

i had adventures, but internet is too expensive. i’ll report the extremely long version when i have laptop (right now this is internet cafe).

i miss you all! (i really, REALLY do)

date: 1093901237

mood: thrilled
listening to:

i met a shitload of people, italian, brazillian, spanish, german, austrian, french, australian. made a load of friends.

my neighbour is italian girl, francesca.

will have internet from laptop, this week, will post long entries.

be good!

date: 1094487880

mood: thrilled
listening to:italian

i’m sitting in a stone laid courtyard, with 3 floors, surrounded by brick walls. a pigeon just flew over me, j ust like in americans movies about europe. there’s grapewine on the wall behind me (i’m kidding you not), and huge doors to the right of me (like, 6 meter tall), with huge glass. the brick is peeling and its red, and the grapewine is spilling onto the ground. however, i’m sitting here, and i have wireless internet from my laptop!

life is just awesome. i just had my first real class, social psych.

we will have no lectures.

i repeat, there will not be a single lecture during this class. i will have 12 or so tutorial meetings, where we sit around a desk (10 people, and the PROFESSOR too), and we all just chat about a problem that is posed for that day’s class. then we come up with further detailed questions about the problem (it is called learning goals), and we research for the next class.

my schedule is different from week to week. this week i have no classes on wednesday, and i will have an 8:30 class on thursday.

everyone in the guesthouse speaks poor english. i have became a teacher to everyone on our floor.

my floor is now full, and it has the following people:

myself
francesca: italian girl, became an awesome friend
french guy whos name i dont remember
jerome, another french guy
spanish girl
estonian girl
girl from kosovo

okay, 3 italian girls (2 of them i know, not from our building, but friends of francesca), are standing in front of me talking really fast italian. aah, it is awesome, they talk with such expression, and they are discussing classes with SUCH emotion and SUCH hand gestures!

okay, back to list.

julien, french guy
switzerland guy
dutch guy
ireland guy

i THINK that’s it. obviously im having a hard time with names, but i’ll get the hang of it.

on thursday – sunday i went to paris, where i have spent a most fantastic 4 days. (more like 3 with the travel). i met skoey, AKA luke, who was absolutely awesome, and helped me get around and not die of starvation by speaking french whenever i got lost in their nouns. i speak french far better than a week ago, i keep practising both on our floor, as well as i did in paris (sometimes, he speaks excellent english).

i’ve seen the eiffel tower, champs d’elysees, arc de triumph, orsay, louvre (i liked orsay more, but i was lucky, i went to louvre at 9am on friday morning, it was absolutely empty!)

anyway, paris is a seperate story, i will post a bit later, in a seperate entry.

i’m going to run email stuff to people. to be honest, i miss individual people, and i miss my dog, but life became so much more exciting and … different, that i’m all in the experience right now. i dont think i have had such fun/time concentration ever before in my life.

until tomorrow cause i FINALLY have internet from laptop! wooo!

tell me what you wanna hear/see here.

date: 1094545165

mood:
listening to:

Monday (posted from archives)

I woke up at 1pm, because last night we went out and only went to sleep at 4am (dear god, I can’t believe that I’m actually living this life, this must be a story of someone else!).
I woke up, and made breakfast for Julien and Francesca. I made eggs with bacon, tomatoes and red onion, and toast with milk and sugar (like my mom made for me in canada). They loved it! It was fun. They finished their plates, asked for more, and later I caught Julien eating off the tiny leftover pieces on the pan. Felt great!

Afterwards, we kinda cleaned up (shit, I still should wash some plates). I made Francesca some tea, she is sick (sore throat, I think she got a cold). Julien went to do laundry, so I threw in one of my white shirts (same as Francesca). I should do laundry one of these days.

Then Jerome woke up, had his breakfast/lunch, I was typing Paris/these notes.

I shall run to wash dishes, dress, bike to UCM, get internet, go to class, nownow.

12:47am.
well, i wasn’t plannning to be up at this hour. but i was copying music from home harddrive to laptop, to have it with me tomorrow, and i found the triplets of belleville, so i copied and watched that too. shouldn’t have, it has a most adorable dog and made me depressed and missing shady.

its weird, i mean, don’t get me wrong, i miss people. but i can update blog, write emails, call people. but shady, she is just depressed without knowing that i will come back. if one of you thought i left forever and wouldn’t be able to know otherwise i’d be depressed about that too, but i just miss shady like hell.

anyway… i went to class today. 10 people, professor sitting with us at the same table.

we’re going to have no lectures. only tutorials.

i got internet on my laptop after the tutorial, so my previous entry fills in this blank.

… blank …

after i biked home (yay for improving my breaks all on my own! biking back was nice, the sun was setting and making the pavement bright yellow).

came home, talked to people, made pasta for myself (some people ate before, and others ate after, but i didn’t know if they will). spoke to people, again. its fun, to just hang out, everyone are very nice. i went and cleaned my room (its neat now, yay, but i still want container boxes cause i still have wires and papers to keep organized). we have a little dining room type of thing, with a tv, table, and 4 chairs (people brought more from their rooms). i put my photography book, girly journal, and the free guide to maastricht that i got when i came here there. i caught many people flipping through all these today! hehehe. french guys seemed to be particularly interested in the instyle journal. :P

then we ate rissotto (i think that’s the spelling), which was cool, but not as good as my eggs ;). afterwards, we all decided on a system (okay, so it was my idea, but who am i to brag ;)) to make sure that we all know where our own food is.

i washed the dishes (i usually do, but i dont mind, it makes me feel like i’m preventing aggrevation by doing that).

people then went to a beer tasting thing, but i just felt like being alone for a while.

i copied music, watched triplets of belleville, installed palm software on my computer, so that now i can hotsync (palm is indespensebale for tracking their weird schedule system). now i’m going to do some reading and go to sleep. i’ll also write up some paris notes, if i have the energy. i will have a 2 hour break between classes tomorrow, so i will likely do some updating then as well. :)

music is nice. everyone always plays their music very loud in here, and its good that i dont mind rock, pop, or reggae, cause thats what is usually played (bob marley or u2, was the latest type of music that is heard on the floor).

i feel like i’m home, but its also painful in an odd way to think that this is home.

good night.

date: 1094545193

mood:
listening to:

day 0: the flight

today is august the 26th of 2004 and this is officially my first entry into the “blog” of maastricht travelling. really i’ve been keeping a blog for a longer time, online, however this is meant to be a no secrets barred all opinions shared note type of thing. sensored versions of this will be available to parents and some friends. :)

so, today was exciting – went to the bank, went to shoppers drugs mart, went to the bank (again), and then went home. walked the dog, talked to friends on the phone, finished packing and 5 minutes after we were supposed to leave realize i have no new/good ebooks on my palm (specifically, dont have catch22 which i started to read). so follows a 15 minute delay when i tried loading files – didn’t work, and ended up loading some russian books into myie on the laptop.

arrival to the airport, after a fairly long and rainy ride through the traffic was eventful in the fact that i thought that this is it, no turning back. except, after going into the end of the line which spanned about 40 meters after the last twirl of the snake of the waiting people, we figured something was wrong (we is me and my beloved parents, by the way), and realized that the flight was moved from 6:20 to 8:45. like, whoa. how often does that happen?

i charged the laptop (the battery was around 60% when i left home) and realized that all my opened russian books have disappeared – seems like my computer restarted or something. oddness.

we went through the line (took us about an hour or more – i’m not sure), hugged eachother, took some photographs, and then i went into customs after waving profusely to my parents for at least an hour. (more like non stop from the point of entry to the customs area up until i disappeared behind the doors whre the checked in bags are … checked. hmm, maybe that’s why they call it check in.)

after checking my laptop and peeking at my camera (i just now realized how suspicious 2 harddrives must look to an xray – i’m taking them with me cause too much banging might break them. for some reason im not sure where are they safer – on my shoulder or at the baggage.) i walked out to the gates.

and that’s when it hit me.

my bags are freakin’ heavy.

actually, no.

i’m going. as in, i’m almost gone. as in i’m here.

and what was curious is that the place where i was boarding either the exact same place where we boarded to Cuba, as well as when i went to colorado, *or* each and single freaking terminal is exactly the same. i’m not sure which one it is, but i can swear that it was the exact same coffee shop, same sitting room, same fridge, same book store across the walkpath (Ink. is the name), etc.

anyway, after spending the $5 that KLM graciously given me for delaying their flight by more than 2 hours, (i got perrier and a bag of vickies natural taste chips – it is so odd, i wanted them and the only thing the airport shop had WAS vickies, except they had salt and vinegar too and i kinda debated for a bit but then i decided that natural salt is okay), plus another 80 cents cause the airport authority bastards rip you off at every single turn (3.80 for a bottle of perrier?!!) i sat down and drank some of my perrier enjoying my surroundings immensly. here i was sitting at the airport, parents, life, house, friends, shady, school, everything behind me.

it was like movies, seriously. all that was missing was some rock music.

anyway, after walking to my gate, i found an electrical outlet (its odd, there are almost none around here. i found one, and there’s another guy sitting to the left of me with his thinkpad), sat down and tried to find my books in i.e’s cache. i did not succeed.

what is interesting i didn’t find cache at all. maybe i should start with that…

anyway, after not finding that i decided to start writing my python bot, since python was graciously installed on my laptop by robert. however i couldn’t find hte sample files i had somewhere (i guess i either deleted them or never put them on to the laptop), and couldn’t find any mentions of irc, relay, chat in the attached documentation.

after reading a few chapters of python documentation and trying to think of something to write i became bored, as i’d rather be working on the bot then some useless thing. besides, its a pain in the ass (PITA, hehe) to be working on something without samples!

and theeen i decided to write this blog. i already finished my extra small bag of chips and like half of the bottle.

i’m back. the gensworth financial ad came on in my play list. you probably know it better as the ad where the little kid kicks this guy’s ass in tennis and turns out he’s the son of agassi and martinez (i think that’s her name anyway).

anyway, i still have an hour still the start of checking, so i’m going to start reading the huuuge instyle that i got for the flight… i’m fairly sleepy, so i’m sure i’ll have no problems falling asleep once i get to the flight.

this feeling is AWESOME. i’m finally coming! i’m finally here! its like… i don’t really believe it. but i also feel surreal, like i’m in a movie, and i’m the cool person going to europe. i mean, this is weird to say that i’m a cool person buuuut this is very neat. and i feel like such a student. and its all the little details, the camera, the canadian flag on the bag, everything, is just awesome.

out for now. if more thoughts come my way i shall judiciously jot them down.

———

okay, so the flight was delayed for like 4 hours. we took off at 10:10pm. i boarded at 9:30.
met this guy from UA (going to UA), who travelled all over the world. he asked me what grade i’m in, i said 3rd year university. hmm.

flight was boring. sucky food, shrek 2 movie but i was DEAD tired so i fell asleep. was very uncomfortable.

woke up, landed at 10:49 – 29 minutes after my flight to maastricht left. not only all stewardesses kept telling me that we’d make it, they also told me there is an hourly flight to maastricht.

well, turns out there isn’t.

i ran to the transfer booth, stood in another line, was told that the next flight is at 4:20. yeah, rigt, i’m not gonna wait that long! the guesthouse would close. so i found out that i can exchange the airplane ticket for the train. i call sigrid (the guy who’s supposed to pick me up), and have a horribly incomprehensible phone conversation, however getting my point across to him, that i’ll be late.

i go to bagage rolley 9. wait for 10 minutes. nothing happens.
look on board – flight from toronto comes at rolley 17. take a huuuuuuuuge walk with 2 heavy bags (im hoping its the journal that makes this so heavy), nothing there. talk to another person, she says its supposed to be at 9.

go to 9, wait for 10 minutes.

go to another person, next to 9, talk to her, she ays it can be anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour.

its around 5:30am toronto time at this point. i wait for 25 minutes, realize i can’t wait anymore, go call parents.

my amusement during the wait was (mildly) people watching, and (strongly) a scrolling vertical ticker line with brainwashing slogans:

“you should push yourself to the limits as often as possible”
“for some cooking is a chore for some it is art”
“only during the most terrible times can the oppression be removed”
“your body doesn’t obey you when its sick”
“disease is in your mind”
“listen to your body”
“trust yourself”
etc. weird stuff, kinda cool.

anyway, by 6:40 (am) (i’m still on toronto time at this point) i go talk to her again. she asks me for the baggage tags and the description of the baggage. i give it to her, she spends some time on the phone with some (guy?) one, giggling and having flirty body language. she is ~35 and married (ring). she hangs up, tells me that he is going personally to get my luggage.

i go call parents, again, they don’t reply, so i make an attempt to leave a message throught the voicemail.

30 seconds after i hang up *she* approaches me, and tells me that the luggage was found.

10 minutes later i put the luggage on the rolley cart and take it to her. boy its heavy!! she explains “go in that line and then the train is right outside”
i go in that line, however stumble around for 5 minutes or so until i find the train.

i’m paranoid like hell, cause now i’m out in the real world, so anyone can snatch my bags and run away.

i find a train ticketing station, give the lady my airplane ticket, she gives me first class ticket to maastricht with an exchange in duivendrecht. she tells me the train is leaving in 4 minutes, and points to the entrance.

i RUN downstairs, see a train, but am not sure if its mine, so i RUN with a HEAVY F@#%ing cart towards the ticket person, but they close the doors right in front of my nose, saying something that i don’t understand.

at this point, i’m lacking sleep, food, rest, home, and i really need a hug.

i lean over the cart and just want to not move for an hour, realizing that its not a good idea because then i won’t be on time for the guesthouse.

this pair of 28ish looking, glances at me and kinda asks “are you okay” and at *this* point i feel that i’m going to cry. i tell him i need to go to maastricht and he goes that the train that just left isn’t mine. i breathe.

i am not sure what happens after this, except he kinda runs with me to the map, goes “this train is yours” and the whistle blows, meaning its going to leave in 15 seconds (feels more like 3). we throw bags, he throws my jacket into the train and the doors close just as i’m trying to convey how thankful i am and such. he just smiles and they both wave.

in the train i’m standing on a tiny platform, with 3 more people. they all are looking at me like i’m a nutso. probably rightfully so too! i breathe for a few moments, stuff the jacket into the laptop backpack, and ask them when’s the next stop (duivendrecht). they say its in 10ish minutes. i need to transfer at that station, and another guy who was there asks me how many kilos the bags are. i say “30 and 33”. he offers to help me with the 33 bag, and i agree.

next station arrives right as i manage to stop feeling as if my hair is going grey in prime live time. i grab one bag (the carryons are on my shoulders), and jump down with the 30 kg one. he grabs his equally big bag plus my beast and puts it next to me. he kinda offers help and i decidfully refuse saying “you have a train, and you’ve already helped me so much, so thank you very much”.

another guy who was on our little platform says “i’m also going to platform 8” and offers to help. he rolls the heavier bag as i attempt to roll/drag the “lighter” one (this is semantics here, really). i make a joke “don’t try to run away with my bag” and he goes “nah, its too heavy even if i wanted to”. we arrive to the platform, he leaves me with the bags. i look around, the train isn’t there yet.

now, my ticket is 1st class, so i’m intending to get what i want. the train rolls up, i run towards the first class, step on to the train to pull my bags on and hear the whistle.

FUCK!!
that means that the train will likely leave with out my bags.

i start yelling “HELP! HELP!” and 2 tall black women run in from the train, and seeing my predictament drag in the bags. the doors close just as my last bag lands inside the train. i’m nearly crying at this point (again), and again i start thanking them but they just kinda wave it off and leave me with the bags.

i see the tiny entrance to 1st class. (downtstairs – am i nuts to drag the bags upstairs? :P) its *empty*. there’s 2 people at the other end of the train, and no one else. i leave my smaller bags next to the entrance, drag one bag to them, go upstairs and ask some person sitting on the little platform whether they know how many stations is it to maastricht. they laugh and say “a lot! its the end station”. so apparnetly this train is going to stop at maastricht for 10-15 minutes (not enough for me to carry my bags up), but there will be an announcement.

the train ride should be around 2 hours, i’m arrivint to the train station there at 4.

sucks, sigrid thinks i’m arriving at 3, and i have no way of calling him, with the exception of borrowin ga cellphone of a stranger, but i don’t think my karma is that good. not going to push it anyway. :)

right now i’m riding in a very comfortable seat, watching scenery pass by:

sheep
cows
rivers
a looong tree lined walkway about 1 meter wide, with a guy walking a black lab along it.
everything is wet. a lot of water. its raining non stop since i landed.
the dutch language is beautiful.

my hands feel in pain from all this dragging and throwing.

more sheep.

more water.

i wish i had change – i didn’t have time or ability to exchange the 50 euros into smaller change, and if i had change i could have offered it to someone in the train for a few minutes of their cellphone.

generally i’m happy, i’m on the train, i’m safe, bags are here, and i’m 4 hours late, just as promised by klm. heh.

so far 0 spent in additional charges on carrying the bags, however emotionally i’m dead.

that’s it for now, be back later, hopefully with laptop charging off an outlet in my room. :)

——–

*sniff* okay, i’m in my room. the room is cool, small, a bit stinky (odd smell, not bad, just odd), but i have a balcony (shared), so i opened the door wide to air it out.

so the guy who was supposed to meet me turned out to be a girl. i think a very mildly retarded one too (medically, that is). her speech and facial features as well as her .. thinking … was … well, odd. not dutch, odd.

anyway, i slept most of the ride to maastricht. as in i kinda leaned over the two most important bags and fell asleep.

my luggage is sooo fucking heavy. i mean, its sooooooo fucking heavy. i wish i could’ve gone back and left literally half the stuff! my hands and arms hurt so much from carrying all that. yet another nice person (an older couple, from uchretcht (sic)), helped me haul the bags to the phone stand.

anyway, we took a taxi from the train station (she met me after i was waiting for abt 20 minutes, looking at each person walking into the station with bewilderment), because there’s no way we could’ve carried the two suitcases the 300 meters from the bus stop to the residence (its more like 700m). taxi was 10 euros. i then paid 750 (or so, i got the reciept) euros for the deposit, cleaning fee and first month. so i can pay before the start of each month, which is nice.

then i went to my room and for about 30 minutes tried to get rid of her. subtle hints like “i’m tired, so i think i want to be alone now” did not work. neither did shaking her hand and saying thank you for all the help. anyway… i’ve been alone for about 20 minutes.

its scary.

i’m alone.

like, completely.

so at first, i looked over the room, and kinda froze. i have 2 huge unpacked suitcases and absolutely no energy, and no will to sit on a bed that’s not mine.

after reading over the papres that came with the “spiffy” bag that the university here gave me, i unpacked first one bag, firstly making the bed. the teddy bears are just a life saver. i’m trying so hard not to cry, and i really want a hug, and i’m really scared. i know its melodramatic, but really, i’ve never been so utterly and completely alone. i don’t even know where the phones are, and from my attempts and conversing with her i understood internet is not available right now (building closed or something, but she doesn’t seem like a trustable source of information).

anyway, i didn’t really unpack clothes, with the exception of hanging the 3 jackets and putting shoes in to the closet, and opening the sealed bags. i don’t have the strength to hang stuff right now, i’ll do it later.

the orientation is on monday, so i have 2 days of nothingness to do whatever i want. right now that seems a bit daunting, so i’m not trying to plan.

anyway, i made the bed, covers, pillows, blankets, and all. its comfy and nice now, and the fresh air is slowly kicking odd smells out. the hall is still stinky, but who cares.

after kinda unpacking the first bag, i opened the second one. took out all bathroom stuff, put on shelves, the books/notebook as well, and seen the painting that my mom gave me.

words cannot describe the joy that i felt at seeing even the *back* of it. i mean, it was lying face down, but just seeing it made me feel so nice. mom, you’re a genious. its perfect. and it already is standing on the bookshelves.

i’m not allowed to hang anything, and right now i dont want to break the rules.

the clock, from home, is standing on the window sill (i think that’s what its called). the desk is a mess, but i dont care. i feel more at home, finally.

it is like 12pm in toronto… i wish i knew if my parents are there or what. and i want internet, damnit. i still haven’t found the plug converters, but that’s what i’ll do next. then i’ll wash my face and change and go find food/internet.

typing this feels better, its like i have a thread to home.

the sirens here (of emergency cars) are different.

i have a sink, 2 mirrors, and a shelf in my room! its awesome.

the bathrooms are fairly disappointing, but they’re okay, i suppose.

kitchen as well, but its usable. big fridge, very close to me.

i already miss everyone though. maybe its the thought that i know i wont see anyone for the next 4 months, on the dot, from today.

and it feels like, what, 4 months? its nothing! but then its kinda scary, because i miss my room and everything.

*sighs* i miss everyone.

————

so after typing this, i read the journal for some time, and then tried again to find the plug converters, unsuccessfully.

pretty quickly (after about 20 minutes) i dressed (mom, wearing new sweater and the light blue winter jacket). oh yeah, it felt kinda cold to me outside, so i ended up wearing this jacket which we grabbed literally in the last second – we stuffed it into the bags in the airport – and that i usually wear in light winter. but i felt warm, and that felt good.

so, yeah, i went downtstairs to the porters, asked for directions to internet anything, ended up getting a mark on my map to the internet cafe.

after about 2 hours of wandering (this was 8:30), and generally watching the streets (no pictures, i had camera but i was so tired, and it was raining the whole time), and getting my hair soaking wet, i find this internet cafe, completly different from the one to which i was originally refered (i couldn’t find ANYTHING, not a single intersection that i found was on the map), one that i just asked someone on the street for directions refered me to. anyway, looked at the prices, 1.50 euros for 30 minutes, 3 euros for an hour, YIKES! got half an hour.

go online, write off a mass email to everyone letting them know i alive. then a quick email to parents. they had icq! opened icq, no one online is responding.
parents replied (well dad) right away. we had a quick conversation through emails (i love you gmail, you saved my life!), discussing that i can’t find the plugs, in 2-3 words on what happened so far (i promised this longer version later, so we didn’t go into too many details). 5 minutes before my time was running out, robert came online, we had a quick conversation, which was awesome.

i wish i could’ve talked to more people, i miss everyone terribly!

i updated blog. not sure why but by the end of the 30 minutes, like 20 minutes into it i got and conveyed all the important information to my parents and figured why not.

after the time ran out (i managed to be prepared and let everyone know that i’m leaving and said good bye and logged out!), i went back out into the rain, and walked in the general direction of the guesthouse.

on the way to the internet cafe i noticed a lot of showarma places, so i stopped in one. looked at the prices and the language, and didn’t understand ANYTHING, nor it looked nice to me, so i kinda walked out.

on the way home i stayed close behind this couple, cause it was late (9pm), dark and rainy, and i’m still not sure where safe/unsafe areas are. i’m not even sure if there are unsafe areas, everywhere looks and feels safe, but you know.

when i was getting closer to home i was passing by the first showarma place i noticed when i was walking into the centre of the town. i went in, first item on the menu is “showarma: 4.30 euros”. alright, looks more reasonable then the 9euros-17 euro prices i’ve been seeing so far. so i order that.

the place is small, ran by 3 indian guys, has arabic tv running, a fridge with weird drinks (cofe looks different here, well, the logo is the same, but one half of it is in this indian-styled “dance valley” ad), a cigarrete box. 3 tables. a creepy dolphin painting on the wall (the dolphins look evil!).

i order showarma, say sandwich. they ask me where i’m from, i say russia, they say “moscow” i’m too tired at this point to explain anything to anyone, say yeah. they say “oh we have a guy from moscow” and point to this man. i go “vy otkuda” and he goes “kiev”. yeaaaah.

so i buy a small can of coke (nothing looked more attractive and i didn’t feel like beer), sit down. he brings me a huge plate of showarma with salad and bread and 2 sauces. i suddenly realize that i haven’t eaten anything the whole day, and just start eating. wasn’t really a sandwich as proportionally there was more showarma then bread, salad, and sauces combined.

i finished all of bread, salad, one of the sauces (it was AWESOME) and about 90% of the showarma. it was impossible to eat more!

i talk to the guy for a bit, he moved all over place, was in pakistan, kiev, geneva, lives in maastricht for 7 year, has extremely broken russian (althought we talk in russian, not english). while he *is* like 50ish, he doesn’t seem suspicious on emotional level – too … stupid. =p on logical level of course i’m being safe. its still nice to talk to someone, finally.
he says to come by if i need help with anything, i say “da da konechno” (yes yes of course), compliment the food (it WAS awesome), and leave. all in all i sat there for about 40 minutes, i’d say. (cooking, then ate, then about 15 minute conversation with him).

i walk home, dead tired, change and fall asleep right away. it was around 10 – 10:30 at this point.

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.

—-

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.

—-

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.

—

i miss internet!

—

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!

date: 1094545272

mood:
listening to:

day 3:

well, its sunday morning ,around 11 am. i woke up about 30 minutes ago (yay for computer/palm alarms working!) , and got up around 10 minutes ago. time to have breakfast with my italian neighbours.

this is all so surreal.

i wonder what will today bring! hopefully, internet. i woke up thinking how much i wish i could email instead of just writing this.

going to go knock on her door now…

—

weeee.

okay, so we had “breakfast” – some coffee with steamed milk she made – was very good – she is very italian, she complained the coffee is not good! hehehehe.
she had a biscuit, i had some musli with milk, and tea. i also tried a bit of her coffee (i just had half a cup).

during breakfast we arranged what should be bought: eggs, salt, lettuce, tomatoes, onion, cucumber, potatoes, basil. she is allergic to wheat – so i’ll buy some flower (flour?) for myself, for little things, but not soon.

she loves pasta and said she’ll make pasta with some tomatoe sauce later. and she claims she is not a cook!

i hope that the division between the two of us as me cleaning/preparing and her cooking will mostly work. i’m ready to make potatoes and such (we have no oven but i’ll figure something out), but i just am not sure what should i get for sauces and such. we are undefined on what kind of meat we should get.

after breakfast as we were going to our rooms one of the guys from last nights indonesian party stopped by with his laptop, asking me for assistance on how to put photographs together. i just noticed a panorama making software on his desktop and just ran through with it, showing him how to fine tune. in the beginning, it was adorable, francesca was making these huge eyes at me, like “who is he?!” and then i explained that i met him at last night’s indonesian party on the 2nd floor, and that i will help him edit photographs. the guy is like 30, has a blurry photograph of his son on the background. the picture that we put together was a BEAUTIFUL photo(s) of a mountain in indonesia. looked magnificently beautiful, and … yeah, i wanna go there too one day. :)

it is sunny outside, so i think i will go shower, dry my hair and go walk outside for a while.

—

the shower is very nice. pressure is not insanely strong, but its strong enough to enjoy. water is very nice and hot, and the shower is fairly big (like canadian shower, maybe a bit bigger). i feel … at home, finally. at least in some sense.

—
alright. hair dry, clothes on, shoes tied (not running shoes!).

i’m going into the world! woohoo, brave me :D

—

oh my god! i left at 1:15, and came back at 5:15, and i was walking practically non stop for all this time.

soo, people are saying that sunday is a dead day… yeah, right. so i walked (by sheer intuition) to the main square, then to The Bridge (the one that’s on all photos and the one that’s closest to main sqaure), crossed it, walked around on the other side, then crossed on another bridge (the Modern Bridge, it was built recently. dont know its real name), came back to the square, hang out a little more, then walked around until i got back home.
so all this time the streets were *chockfull* of people (well, main streets).

i have so much to tell, that i am not even sure where to begin.

the main square and streets leading up to it slowly fill up with people as you get closer to it. the actual main square if *FULL* of people to the point where its impossible to walk through. there is wonderful live music, and a load of stores selling wine and beer and icecream. i stood there for about 15 minutes, listening to a band of like 9 men, with one drummer and the rest on various wind instruments, playing jazzish music. it was seriously nice.

then i continued walking, not looking at the (practically useless) map, just in the direction of the water and just where i felt like going. as you leave the market, there is a huge walking section of streets, where there is like an insane amount of stores, and again, and insane amount of people. all the stores were cool, clothing, shoes. no coffee shops (and not “coffee shops” either) in this area, people don’t sit, just walk.

i stopped by an electrical stores, 10 dvd-rs cost $19.99 euros. my palm costs 230 euros. ipod mini 250 euros (approx). i took a little ad as a reminder.

i kept walking, stumbling around different streets. eventually i reached the water front, where i walked to the old bridge. crossed the bridge, continued stumbling.

interesting stores: canadian naturals, mcdonalds, SUBWAY (?!), america today. a lot of cool shoe stores.

everyone are dressed to stylishly. even kids of like age 4 are wearing things i like. not to mention girls and younger women and adults.

no one looks like a teenager, everyone are either 20something or 40something.

no one walks alone: you either have 1 (usually 2) very blonde and young kids, AND a partner, AND/OR a dog, OR a bike. all kids are blonde, most people are blonde too. i’m talking white hair here. surprisingly most people are fairly tan (as in, not dark skin, but this even … bronze glow). it is sunday, and most people are fairly dressed up (damnit, i knew i should’ve dressed up too!), and an incredible amount of people have dogs.

i’ve seen maybe one other person with a camera. i was the only one with an d/slr.

on the waterfront there is a huge, huge area full of chairs and people drinking coffee. it feels almost like a zoo, because the area is so big and uniform.

people eating waffles, ice cream. drinking coffee, beer, coke.

the other side of the river is quite more quiet – people juts disappear. i walked a little, crossed on the newer bridge (nothing spectacular, the london millenium bridge was better).

back on the other side i decided i was tired.

went inside a church. sat for 15 minutes. listened to song. lit a candle for my grandma. it was very nice.

went outside, wandered until found an empty chair. sat down, waited for someone to talk to me (as in, waiter). didn’t work out. =p i got bored so i left.

walked back to the main square in a different path, there i got some icecream (yummy). then walked some more, picked an odd way that i didn’t take before, found some fantastic odd small streets and places.

i mostly didn’t take photographs, just some snapshots and even not too many of those. it was just better to enjoy the surroundings.

walked back home at this point, very odd backward way, through small streets, in a big curve. enjoyed small streets, its just awesome, the atmosphere. found some buildings with “ucm” on it (the name of the university).

came home, *ideally* walking out on the exact street that i needed that is closest to the building. i’m an ideal navigator, i tell you, did all this without a map!

came home, debated calling home, decided that nah, i’ll just figure out how to email tomorrow.

came home, drank 2 glasses of apple juice. dinner at 8, but i’m not sure *what* i’ll be eating, as i know francesca has pasta, however i’m not sure if there’s some for me. all convinience/supermar ket stores were closed, i was looking on the way. don’t feel like going to shoarma again, although the menu said they have lasagna, and its like 5 euro… and i didn’t really eat today yet.

well, we’ll see.

i’m extremely tired, sitting in the “dining” room of the floor, watching the marathon race of the olympics – last show! – and typing this, slowly. *dead* tired. so much walking and everything, its just deadning.

its sunset and hot in greece, it was sunny for the whole day today here (except now its again overcast), and i wonder how it is in toronto. i miss everyone greatly, i was thinking about how fun it would be to have each and single person here with me (not all together, haha). each one would have enjoyed a different aspect of the walk.

i think i’ll go take one of those sweet thingies i got yesterday.

more food shopping tomorrow, also 8:30 at reception to discuss lack of microwave and bookshelf (who cares but i need to make sure that they dont blame me for disapperance), then 10:15 have to be at this street (which i didn’t really find today, although i wasn’t really looking) to meet Ina (the woman who was arranging courses with). i wonder how many other people will be there. francesca has a seperate, different (later) thing. so its only cross ocean students that them make get up so early! hehe. i wonder what’s my schedule like!

6:07pm, i’m going to go eat and watch olympics, and relax, and miss you. (well, not you, but the other you).

—

oh my god!
okay, i ab solutely love my neighbour. we spent like an hour talking about paris and rome and taking trips to them, and she told me that i can get an airplane ticket from brussels to rome for like 25 euro. !!!!
and then i just need to take train to brussels (like 2 hours), so that’s fantastic.
i can book over internet, so that’s what i shall do tomorrow. and train from rome is not 18 hours, its 10, according to her. she said a friend took train from northern netherlands, and it was 12 hours.

and she looked at my rome maps and gave me more advise.

did i mention that i’m thrilled?

so now instead of dinner here, she invited me to go with her to her friends to have dinner with them. since i’m starving, and we have no food, i agreed.

we *might* go out afterwards. judging by last night its unlikely, plus i have to get up early, but i’m not going to refuse ahead of time.

she’s getting very dressed up (make up and all).

i’m wearing boots, pants, black shirt, jacket. simple. i COULD get dressed up, but i don’t really feel like it.

YAY food! its 9:40pm so i’m pretty hungry.

i’m happy. but i still miss everyone!

—-

wow, i’m extremely late writing this. this is almost exactly 24 hours later, its 9:17 the next night. so many things happened!

so i went with her to the other building.

there were about 16 people there, italian, brazilian, french, austrian, (and me). we all sat in this common room: it is very large, as the building is far better then the one that i live in. huge ceilings! anyway, the room has 3 couches, a coffee table, and a tv, and behind all that there were two large wood tables surrounded by plastic chairs. everything is ikea or similar, but i’m fairly sure its ikea.

after about an hour, italian people made pasta with tomato sauce and bacon for everyone. while waiting we all just talked, conversations was just flowing between different people. the music was smashing pumpkins, evanecense, queen, coldplay, prodigy, and then during dinner real italian music (like, ballads/pop, not dance or trance). it was absolutely fantastic!

the people that i met:

francesca: my neighbour, very nice girl, about 20, going into economics, very cute and friendly, claims she can’t cook but knows a lot of basic dishes, allergic to wheat, has very poor english but adorable italian accent. talking to her makes me laugh because she is so extremely emotional!

dolphina: a french girl, from south of france, speaks fairly good english but also with problems, we got along very well. it was her birthday.

eva: austrian girl, not from our school, she studies in leiche, but she’s here because she an dolphina met during dutch language classes (somewhere). also very nice.

brazillian girl: who’s name i AGAIN forgot! ARGH, i just asked her for it yesterday. very shy, very quiet, never talks, but when i did talk to her she is very friendly. when we go out she comes with us.

diego: a brazillian guy that the girl met at the train station, lives in the same building as me and francesca. curses a lot. loves soccer.

a bunch of italian guy who i gave up on trying to remember their names. they don’t speak english that well (most of them) so we get along fine by just waving hi.

oh, there’s one italian guy who’s name is … (goes to francesca to ask) enrico. he went to toronto 2 years ago, and there was this hilarious story that happened to him:

he was in finch station, and he entered through “outside building”, which is i assume the passenger pick up. a cop stopped him, and tried to take his documents. enrico didn’t recognize the cop being, well, a cop, and kicked him. (when i asked how come he didn’t recognize he said “well, his clothes looked dirty and he smelled bad!”) the cop punched him (like, duh), breaking his lip and sending him to the ground. he ended up going to the police for a few hours, where they said that he could have went to jail.

anyway, that was a fairly reasonable person to talk to, except i have no idea how he lived in toronto, their english is … well, sucky. i feel my english becoming much worse as well.

after we all ate (and drank tiny glasses of red wine to share with everyone), i went to wash the dishes, as i didn’t cook or buy food or anything, and i was STARVING and ate this huge serving of DELICIOUS pasta. i figured people wouldn’t particularly notice, but *5* people came up to me seperately, *each* one asking why am washing (“because i didn’t cook so i want to do something”), arguing that i should stop washing (“but cooking is easier than washing!” said by an italian guy), and the last person was the brazillian girl, who came in to offer to help me, but i was already done (it was like 16 plates and some forks and such, its like 5 minutes of washing), and was very surprised. all in all it was very nice, i felt appreciated and happy.

after that i went to call my parents, spoke to them for a while, and then we went out.

which is where the sad part begins.

we were walking to find a pub (some people wanted coffee shops, and there were plenty of those, however francesca, myself and the two brazillian people don’t smoke). while we were walking on a very narrow street, a person on a bike passed us. he was riding downhill and going very fast, and swerving, and he hit the last girl in the line that we were going at. she had a bruise on her head and otherwise she is okay, however he fell on the ground, and hit his head to the point where he wasn’t blinking, wasn’t concious, and had a huge pool of blood around him. police was there in 1 minute, and ambulance took him away in like 5-10 minutes. the girl went with them just in case (for her bruise). i have no idea what happened to him.

anyway, aftewards, we all went straight to the home, and very shocked just sat for about 2 hours. went to sleep at 4am, after drinking the medicinal tea to relax (me, francesca and diego).

date: 1094545306

mood:
listening to:

i’m really backlogged.

short summary of today (i have handnotes to fill in later):

i’m retyping this day unfortuantely from memory 2 day later. even if i can’t fill in the details, the fun stuff will come back to me, and the unfun stuff – who cares. you’ll understand why i didnt write for 2 days though :P

so i woke up at 8, since it is monday and the reception is finally open – on monday i had to hand back my signed forms, and it opens at 8:30.

yeaaaah, right.

its closed.

i go back to the room, fall asleep. (blah). wake up again at 9:20! i have to be at university at 10. ouchouchouch. run to reception, sign/pay for next month.
run to bus.

busses are cool. first of all i had no clue how the hell does the system work, so i got on the first bus that came.

so i’m sitting in the bus, hoping to go to the main square. instead he goes to the main market. i figured he’ll have another stop at the square… instead he goes across the river! waay far from university. i slightly panic. get out at the train station, he points to busses 3, 4, 9 as ones to main square.

i get out, look for 3,4,9. not happening. 2 comes. it stops at the market. alright, i go on 2. cross river back. get out at market and run through main square to the introduction.

miraculously i wasn’t late by about a minute. :P

university introduction was the usual number of speeches about how cool they are and how stupid the students are. here are my notes from the thing (i wrote by hand in pad of paper):

the dean has a crumpled, untucked in bright orange shirt, with rolled up sleeves. on shirt corner is hanging out. he is a large man with bright white hair and intellegent eyes. he is wearing sandals and rolled up pants. i’m dying – he is the freaking DEAN!

in the room are the first year students for whom it is the first day. and exchange students, quickly getting bored out of their mind and insanely sleepy.
60-70% blondes. dean mentions there are about 250 people entering the college this year.

the college is 3 years old – the first graduate class of their weird degree is this year.

i realize 10 minutes later that he is speaking english! to be honest 2 days later it seems normal to me (maybe i’ll type up an explanation of why UCM is so different from any other university you know), but at that point its weird. its like u of t intro in french.

each student applying to ucm had to go through an interview with 2 teachers.

after the speeches we have an incredibly boring lessong about pbl (problem based learning). then a 3 hour break.

after the tutorial i am exauhsted from getting up so early, so i drag myself home. each way to walk is 30 minutes.
i come home, fall asleep telling francesca to wake me up an hour later.

an hour later i hear a knock on the door, and realize it is 3:30 (2 hours later) and i have to leave NOW to make it on time to “PBL classes”. whoops! thank goodness and francesca for waking me up.. if i missed class i couldn’t enroll in courses.

(i come in 3 minutes late. 10 minutes is a miss.)

there are 7 girls and 2 guys, and myself. there is also the tutor, who is a 3rd year student, meaning it is his last year. 5 girls blond, 1 a black haired, absoutely danish featured girl. i have NO clue how to explain – she is very pretty – but she is decisevly danish. she mentions she is from north of holland.

the first class was stupid and boring. i was tired. at least i got information about internet access from a guy in the helpdesk!

after class i went home (which would mean i walked 2 hours at this point, since i went there and back twice). met francesca and we went to the nicer shopping centre to buy cooking materials.

shopping is a seperate story and i am too late to type, but it came out to quite a reasonable price. 18 euros for supplies to last for about 2 weeks:
potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes, rice, pasta, salt, oil, salad, onion, garlic, basil, eggs, coca cola. f. and myself split the cost.

came home, cooked dinner with f. – pasta with italian sauce made by her. tasty, good, homemade. i made salad. biting into a fresh cucumber felt awesome, like i’m at home, cause i can only do that at home. tomatoes here taste AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!­ !!!!!

after dinner, she prepared to go out, and i prepared to go to internet as the building should be open.

went to internet, spent about 1.5 hours online, which felt nice. got kicked out of building at 11:30 and not 12, turns out it closes at 12 when school starts, and earlier before than.

came home, robert called the floor. at this point there is no one except me on the floor, so it was a like an hour long conversation while i retold him everything i typed here.
all in all it takes me less time to tell than to type!

after the talk i went to drink some juice, and watched the end of some movie with harrison ford and geena davis (i think thats her name) about secretary, on bbc.

went to sleep at 2:30.