HBO, Brussels, Den Haag, and Kinderdijk

September 25, 2013

It's amazing how fast time is going by here. I swear that I wrote my last blog entry a few days ago but it's been three weeks! Now that school and traveling are kicking into gear I forgot to blog! Anywho, now that I am here writing I'll give an update. On September 12th Breda had this HBO Intro Festival (no relation to the TV channel, I checked). It was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. There were thousands of people in the streets, mainly my age, bouncing around between the four stages they had set up throughout the City Centre. And with no strict law about drinking in public you could buy beer at little stands or in a bar then carry it out on the street. It was so cool to see all these people on a Thursday night enjoying a lot of diverse music and having such a good time. However with so many people the streets became trashed real quick, but the next day I biked through town and it was all cleaned up. At the end of the night I was with Megan and Alexis and we headed to the main stage. We pushed our way through literally hundreds of people to make it to the front third of the crowd. Once we got there the artists on stage told us all to sit down so they could get a sick picture of us when the bass drops and we all start jumping. However this process took forever and we were half-sitting for a few minutes and it was really uncomfortable so we just stood up and waited to start jumping.

The next day we traveled to Brussels, Belgium. This was my first time traveling outside of the Netherlands. Brussels was amazing, the architecture was phenomenal and the little shops and restaurants in between where great. We found this place called Delirium. If you ever go to Brussels I HIGHLY recommend spending a few hours at this bar. This bar has over 2,000 beers you can choose from. I had beers from Belgium, Turkey, Lithuania, and Thailand. The bar itself is covered in beer memorabilia from wall to wall (literally beer bottles make up one of the walls) and even the ceiling in covered in beer memorabilia. We also stopped to visit the famous Mannequin Pis (a statue of a little boy peeing, it's suppose to be one of the top sites to see in Brussels). When we found it, we were a little disappointed. It is maybe two feet tall and is a part of a fountain. I was expecting some life size statue that was on top of a building overlooking the city. Regardless, we took some pictures of it then found more amusement taking pictures with a life size one that was next to it which was advertising a waffle stand. We stayed at the Vincent Van Gogh Hostel which was nicer than any other hostel I've ever been to and they had a bar in the lobby. It was a really really nice place to stay for two nights.

On September 17th, I traveled with some students to Den Haag (pronounced The Hey-g) to visit a meeting company called Regardz. We are suppose to be helping them come up with solutions to better their business. Overall none of the group members were impressed with the company, overall we thought that the company wouldn't last much longer. But regardless it is up to us to help this company in anyway possible. Den Haag is right next to the beach, which I tend to forget that the Netherlands has a lot of beaches due to it's geographic location. I hope to go back on a Dutch Excursion trip there so I can visit the beach!

This past weekend I visited Kinderdijk which is where 19 old windmills are still standing and functioning. It was a great experience because I learned so much about how important these windmills are to help keep the Netherlands from flooding. I also got to go up in one and it was amazing to see that people used to (and some still do) live in these so that they can keep them working at all times. We also visited Zeelandveilig which is where you can go into one of the columns of a dam like system. It also doubles as a water park (not like the ones in the States). This was like an actual park that had playground toys that taught kids about how the dam systems work. It was really cool, all of us exchange students were playing more than the kids were. And there was this awesome water slide where you and another person sat on an inflated raft and went down a 50ft (approximately) slide, laughing all the way.

So that's been pretty much it, I also read a book called Beach Babylon, which I recommend to anyone, especially people in the hospitality industry.

Til next time!

To Breda, Amsterdam, back to Rotterdam, Amsterdam again and home

August 19th-September 4th

I apologize for the slow upkeep of this blog (if anyone actually reads it). I have been so caught up with the start of school that blogging completely slipped my brain! However I have had an interesting few weeks here in the Netherlands.

First off, I moved into my apartment which is called Easy Street or Vijfhagen (which means Five Street). I live with another girl who goes to NAU, Megan, and two Austrian guys, Alex and Gerhard. The boys are great! I thought we would have trouble with the language barrier and not ever talk but they have decent English and are really funny! Our apartment is bigger than I anticipated, which I can't complain about! However they do not have air conditioning like we do in Arizona so when it gets hot (which it has a lot lately) our rooms get unbearably hot so we leave the windows open which cause A LOT of nats and flies to hang out in our apartment. That might be the only thing wrong with this apartment.

So after moving in we all had "Introduction Days" at NHTV (the name of the university I am attending). In all honesty, the Introduction Days gave me more questions than answers but I did get to meet a lot of international students which was great! That weekend a lot of them went on a camping trip and Megan and I decided to go to Amsterdam with our roommates and one of their girlfriends. We had a blast in Amsterdam. I couldn't believe I was finally in Amsterdam! I have wanted to travel here for years and to actually walk the streets and see the sights was amazing. And to answer your question, yes I did walk through the Red Light District. It was honestly a little sad. So many women are forced into prostitution and promised "dancing careers" but are stuck being prostitutes. I didn't enjoy that part of Amsterdam but the rest was great! I've been there twice now and hope to go again and see some of their museums. The second time I went to Amsterdam I joined a "Pub Crawl". I paid 17 euros for a free shirt and a "crawl" to six pubs throughout Amsterdam. At each bar we got a free shot and free entrance into the pubs. It was fun, something that I wouldn't do again but it is cool to say that I have done one in Amsterdam! We got into Amsterdam at 5pm that night and left the bars at 2am to catch a train back to Breda. When we finally got back to Breda (at 4:30am) we looked for our bikes to bike home. Turns out someone had stolen my bike so I was bike-less for the day. Only after getting my bike stolen did I realize how dependent I had become on it. Biking is the main transportation in the Netherlands. Cars are common but rarely used and buses are great but expensive. So the next day I had to walk to the bike store to buy my second bike. My second bike is alright, it is a little bit rusty which will hopefully deter people from stealing it!

Finally classes started this week (September 1st) and they are quite different from NAU or any other American class I have taken. It seems like all we have is a small exam half way through the semester and one project at the end of the semester with some lectures in between. I can't tell if this is going to be a breeze compared to NAU or extremely difficult. I'm hoping for the first option because I would love more time to travel and explore the Netherlands and Europe.

I took my first Dutch class today and learned this:
Wie Ben jy? (Who are you?)
Ik ben Tiffany en ik kom uit Amerika. (I am Tiffany and I come from America).

That's all for now! I promise I will try to actually update this blog more often :)