1) Classes: School unofficially began the day after I returned from London. I had signed up for a conference on European Union law in the overseas territories (such as Aruba), so instead of resting and relaxing I was sitting in a classroom for two days. Considering I came all the way here to learn about EU law, I still think it was worthwhile. It's a cool experience to be in a room full of people that care as much as I do about the EU and have a deep knowledge of its inner-workings. It's even cooler to learn about a topic I knew NOTHING about - for example, did you know that the EU has 34 overseas territories through its Member States? Adding the 28 Member States of the EU to that equation, EU law covers (to varying extents) 30% of the world's countries!
Now that I have exposed my extreme nerd:having a life ratio... Classes have been good so far. I've met some really great people from all sorts of countries. As I mentioned above, I was taken a little off guard by the amount of reading. In one of my classes, the professor assigned a sum total of around 200 pages for one day, not counting the 70 pages from the class earlier in the week (or reading for my other courses). I had heard that the International and European Public Law classes (the ones I'm taking) are the most reading and time intensive, and that seems to be bearing out.
2) Things that don't make sense: At the introduction day for Erasmus, one of the presenters told us that the Dutch approach schooling as an exercise in problem solving. I'm beginning to understand why: there are a lot of problems to solve around here. I could go on a long rant about things that don't make sense around here, but here are the two that really stick out to me:
a) Bikes: No sense to make here. I refuse to get a bike, because of the lack of sense-making. First, I don't quite understand why the bike was chosen as the national mode of transportation. It is always raining and therefore wet, usually cold, dark, and often windy when it's raining. Unsurprisingly, Marta and I saw a guy on a bike get hit by a car, then hop right back on like he had intended to get hit by a car. I wonder about the conversation going on in his head at that moment: "Today seems like a fine day to get run over by a moving vehicle. Good thing I have my pick between another bike, a car, a tram, maybe even a metro or a plane. Oh look, there's a car! He probably doesn't follow traffic laws either! No helmet? Check. Not going to look before I make that turn? Check. Riding a bike? Check. Okay, I think we're good to go!" Dutch bike riders overall seem to have a death wish. They ride aggressively and
b) Store hours: Not even trying to make sense. Stores open and close at the most random hours. Very few things are open late around here. It also seems like just about every store picks a random day of the week to not be open. One store will be closed on Tuesdays, while the one next to it will be closed on Thursdays; some stores close down for multiple days during the week. One museum here is closed Mondays, Saturdays, holidays, and April 30th (probably because the people who run the museum threw every day of the year into a hat, then pulled April 30th and said "Okay people, looks like we're taking off that random day for no reason!" The worst example thus far is the visa office at City Hall. Online their hours are listed as Monday through Saturday 8:30-5, but in person they close at 4 and are not open on Thursdays.
c) An added bonus of nonsense:
3) Movies: With the weather totally killing the mood around here most of the time, I've taken up to watching a lot of movies. I've seen a movie almost every day for the past week, including Braveheart, The Usual Suspects, American Beauty, and Moneyball. American Beauty in particular has instantly become one of my favorites. Send me your movie recommendations!
4) Other random thoughts: Yesterday (Friday the 13th - when the guy got hit/spiritually hit himself with a car) Marta and I went unsuccessfully to get our residence visas. On the way back, we stumbled across a taco shop, and I ended up getting a burrito for dinner. Dutch burrito variants are interesting: no beans, heavy on the cheese/sour cream, no tomatoes (at least that I saw/tasted), and with pineapples.
Speaking of interesting...after we ate at the taco place, I accompanied Marta to a nail salon. There didn't seem to be much to do in the area, so I just sat around using my phone while she got her nails did. Maybe this should have gone in the "things that don't make sense" pile. Oddly enough, simply being at the nail salon was not the strangest part of the experience. There were plenty of things wrong with the situation, but I particularly "enjoyed" the music. The salon had on a rap radio station. Apparently, Dutch radio stations either don't censor explicit lyrics or don't understand any English. Not only were they playing American music exclusively, but they kept choosing rap songs I had never heard of (not that I'm a rap connoisseur) and which had a hankerin' for swearin'. The juxtaposition of a lady gingerly painting another lady's nails with lyrics like "Imma fuck some bitches up" in the background...perfection. Also, the bathroom was placed lovingly between a fire exit and a deep, dark, stone stairwell that looked like it was from a medieval castle. I think the nail salon was called "The set for the movie Saw." The icing on the cake was the language barrier. At one point, Marta told the lady she's from the United States, but the lady apparently had never heard of it. Considering one of the signs outside looked to be in Vietnamese...ironic...
Today's Dutch lesson: poffertjes! (Small, airy pancake-like dessert that's covered in powdered sugar, butter (roomboter) and any other topping you want - I got brown rum.)
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