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 :)