Happy valentine's day

Today is Saturday, which actually feels like Sunday to me, because I don't have class on Fridays. I woke up, still feeling slightly sick (I've been close to death for a good five days now). Instead of rolling over and sleeping for a few more hours, which is always such a strong temptation, I realized that it was sunny today. I've learned to never take sun for granted; it will most likely be gone by the time you've gotten dressed and walked downstairs. I went around town this morning getting ready for Valentine's day. I think it's funny that I'm actually doing something for Valentine's day because a) I'm usually against really commercially prompted displays of affection, b) I don't usually like attention-y, celebratory occasions, and c) since we've been on the program, Justin and I haven't been totally "OMG we're dating PDA PDA PDA" so I feel like a lot of people don't even know we're dating, and since there are very few people who have someone to celebrate valentine's day with in the city, I think it's funny that I do/am.
I don't know if any of that made sense, but oh well.
I bought some yummy looking chocolates from this store that Renee, our program's resident director and only dutch person, said was amazing. They were kind of expensive, but she said they were worth every euro. I'm just making dinner. I bought steak, because who doesn't love meat and potatoes. On Thursday in Dutch class, we went over food words and grocery shopping, so I know that what I bought was beef, but when I got home, I translated the label on google translator (my best friend because a lot of dutch websites don't have english versions), and I got something called "roasting beef flaps." It's organic, and I made a tasty rub for them, so hopefully they'll taste good? Oh well, it's the thought that counts.

I've come to the realization that a week's worth of reading should not be left for six o'clock the night before your nine am class. All in all, my school schedule is pretty condensed into the middle of the week--which means that I actually have to use the times that I'm not going to class to do all of that work that no one mentioned.
I got a package the other day, which was really exciting, although it was just the books that I ordered online from amazon.co.uk. I saved a ton of money ordering them online, even with shipping and stuff, so that was nice. Instead of paying over 200 euro, I payed about 120 GPB.

Now that I've been productive today (?), I'm going to watch grey's anatomy online.
For everyone at home, if you want to talk to me, but skype is not your thing, or whatever, I have added money to my skype account, so I can call you directly on the phone. Send me an email and hopefully we'll chat, because so far, my dad is the only one who I've seen on skype. Even though it seems like he just leaves it on even when he isn't there, because he was supposedly on at 4 am his time this morning. Anyway, I think I might post some pictures, although they will probably only be from as far back as London. I've taken like three pictures since I've been here...oops.

blogging is such sweet sorrow.

Somehow I wrote this a few days ago, and instead of posting it, I saved it? Anyway this was from last Friday, so it's a week old now....

So I started this blog thinking that I would chronicle all of my adventures. I wanted to believe that I would lead an interesting life in this amazing city, but every time I sit down to post something, I feel at a loss. I've been out of the country for three weeks, and in the Netherlands for two and a half weeks. On the one hand, I've been really busy adjusting and settling down that I feel like I've been here for much longer. On the other hand, I haven't really done much of anything to feel accomplished about. I have developed the habit of cooking dinner with other people, which for me is really relaxing and comforting. I enjoy cooking, so I like that we go from building to building nearly every night and cook for each other.

I think that I spent this afternoon buying books and planning homework time is a shock to my system. It will be good to get into the actual studying part of study abroad. It does seem like everything that I heard about the work being all at the end of the semester does not hold true for my classes. I have pretty short final papers (10-15 pages), but I have a lot of stuff each week like turning in a weekly analysis of the readings and stuff. It shouldn't be too bad, especially because my classes have all been really interesting so far. I'm taking:

Beginning Dutch
Moving Manhood: Me, masculinity and sexual citizenship from cross-cultural perspectives
Emotion and Mental Health across culture
Ethnic Diversity and Popular Culture.

The class that I'm pretty sure I'm dropping is Representing Identity in film and literature in Latin America. I'm only dropping that class because it hasn't met yet and I can't decide which of the classes that have met I would want to drop.

Tiny update

Orientation is officially over, which is both good and bad. Except for the people in my dutch class, I probably won't get to know many other CIEE students, if I don't already know them. I start classes tomorrow actually. Right now I'm in five classes and I have to drop one in the next two weeks. I am intimidated, but also excited to get into the swing of things and find my Amsterdam groove. Hopefully I'll have more to talk about soon!

Oh, and I still don't have internet at my flat.

After the fact: 28 January

SO. My internet isn’t working at the moment, so this entry will be posted after the fact. After a very posh overnight ferry ride, one sprinter commuter train ride, and then another sort of commuter train across the country, Justin, Alex, and I arrive in Amsterdam. We found the hostel after walking nearly twice as far as we needed to. It wasn’t that big of a deal because the hostel was actually about a three-minute walk from central station. It did feel a lot longer when we were carrying all of our god-forsaken luggage. We slept for a couple of hours in our hostel, the FLYING PIG. It happens to be a self-proclaimed “party hostel,” but the only real evidence of this that I found was the smoking room. They didn’t always keep the door closed, so sitting in the loungy bar area where they played really good music was a little unpleasant at first.

For the first hostel I’ve ever been to, it was not disgusting. I didn’t really use the bathroom except to brush my teeth. The experience was probably better because we had a four person room with it’s own bathroom. I think I saw the fourth person awake for a total of five minutes.

We met Ian at central station after he flew in, and wandered around the city center for a bit. Stopping into a brown bar, I was sort of but not quite surprised by the fact that the smoking ban that went into effect this year has done little to eliminate smoking, especially in a bar that is named after the old brown wallpaper (brown as in from tobacco smoke stains). I got a delicious coffee. Then we met up with Giulia, another one of the people from Oxy. We got 6 Euro noodles which were warm and yummy!
Apparently, even though the flying pig is a party hostel, only guests are allowed in, so we couldn’t hang out with Giulia there. We went to the first bar we found. It was a Scottish bar (?). We played scrabble and met a fabulously gay man named Paul. He took us on an adventure of signing and gay bar bingo. It was a fantastic first night in Amsterdam. Then we were tired and out of euros ( I only had 35 on my first day that I exchanged at home), so at like 11:00, we went back to the hostel to go to bed.

We went down to breakfast (included in the room) at 8:30 in order to get a jump on move-in program starting, exciting day, and most of the other people at breakfast that early were going on our program. We had a group to figure out how to get to the housing company, which was nice. Once we got off the bus with seven people and probably at least half a ton of luggage, we were greeted by the nicest people in the world, the employees of De Key housing. They poured you coffee, they carried your luggage, they even had free massages (it was an amazing massage, but in the end it tricked my body into thinking that the carrying and the pulling and the walking and the other things that make my body hurt were over). Alanna, one of the girls from the hostel was assigned the dorm right down the street from me, and our street happened to be sort of around the corner from the housing office, so we walked together. It was a battle, that did not end when I got to my front doorstep. My room assignment is D1. This means that I had to heave all of the luggage that I’ve been cursing for weeks now up a bunch of flights of dangerously narrow stairs. Then I saw my huge room with a sort of canal view. I unpacked, showered, and felt much better.

After the welcome program and the canal boat cruise which featured drink coupons, I got a ride on the back of Emily, a girl who is in Amsterdam for the full academic year,’s bike back to Plantage Muidergracht. Then a huge group of people walked to the Albert Heijn, which is the local grocery chain. I bough a bunch of stuff because I wanted to feel like I would not starve to death, even though I think a lot of meals are provided during orientation.

An interesting thing that I noticed is that my total came to something and 81 cents. The change listed on the receipt was rounded to give me 20 cents. I was pleased with this, because the 1-cent euro coin is useless, but I thought it was interesting that it was institutionalized that way.

Now I’m back at my room, which is so blah feeling, but I found out that other than the two girls from CIEE living on my floor, there is a Spanish architecture student, and some girl that spent time in Australia but that is from California. I have met neither of these girls, but there is still one empty room. It is the room right next to mine. I’m glad for now, because who doesn’t want a silent roommate? Also, when the two other girls are back, the place should be much cleaner because the people staying over the break were sloppy guys. That made me feel better about how dingy the place is.

I’m such a wimp because it’s only 9:30, and I’m already tired. I think I’m going to read something and go to bed.

Just touched down in London Town

CIDER IS THE BEST DRINK EVER.

So far in England, I’ve landed two hours late, driven around in what felt like circles on roads that didn’t seem to have rules, took public transportation into London, went to an old Pub near castles that are only open in the spring, and drove to Brighton (a cute sea side town with neat shops and pretty colored buildings, also the home of Banksy). I’ve developed an affinity for Strongbow Cider, playing cards at sticky pub tables, deaf cats named Winston that come into my room each morning to smell everything, and watching American news one day later recorded on the DVR. This evening, we went to the London Museum of Transport. Justin was uncool because he did not want to participate in the stamp game. Alex and I got all 13 stamps around the museum. The reason we went to this semi-obscure museum was we saw a sign on a bus stop advertising a century of posters exhibition. That was pretty cool—they were the original artist’s submissions for various posters from the last century.

In Brighton, we had a yummy tea, explored the pier, went to the royal gardens, some museum, found the kissing coppers by Banksy, ate at a delicious sandwich place called toast, did some more window shopping, or as I like to say, took some more Shopportunities, and went home. I like Brighton; it is a cute town, with an apparently lively club scene.

We reserved a room at the Flying Pig Downtown in Amsterdam for the night before orientation begins. It is where quite a few other people on the program are staying, and hopefully Ian can meet up with us there. We are taking an overnight ferry from London to Amsterdam in order to maximize our time in Amsterdam and minimize our expenses. Hopefully I’ll be able to carry all of my luggage from train to ferry to train etc. The three of us reserved a four bed, windowless cabin. It actually looks pretty nice from what the website photos show. Plus it’s only one night. I’ll actually be glad to sleep on a regular bed instead of a blowup mattress finally.

Thanks to everyone who is reading. It's actually quite fun to write. Also, My Skype name is sara.fultonkoerbling Let me know if you want to set up a skype date.

Around the world in a day at the happiest place on Earth — or how not to get hit by falling light bulbs

First of all, apparently only Disney Land is the happiest place on earth, not Disney world, contrary to what I told Justin earlier this week. Walt Disney World is where your dreams come true. I am not sure which one is better. I am inclined to believe that neither is great.

I’ve been in Kissimmee for a little less than a week; I’ve spent two days hanging out by the pool, one rainy day at the animal kingdom, one cold day at epcot, and one cold day at the magic kingdom (a transplanted Disney land). The Magic kingdom was disappointing because so much stuff was closed—the tiki room, Splash Mountain, and this noodle place we were going to eat at. The animal kingdom was really fun. We got a late start, and that park closes early so all the animals can sleep and be fed, so we were only there for about four hours. It has a really fun roller coaster that goes backwards and through the dark, called Expedition Everest. The best part about the ride was that there was a special line for single riders, and it was WAY shorter. None of us minded sitting next to someone we didn’t know, so we went on again and again and again, sitting next to someone new each time. It was really nice. Whenever I’m waiting in line and I see an empty seat go by, I get annoyed. I wish everything in life had a single rider line. It was way cooler than a fastpass.

At epcot, the first park we went to, I was going on Mission to Mars, a simulator ride, with Becca. She doesn’t like most roller coasters, so there was a less intense version that she went on before and was ready to try the more intense orange version. We waited in line, went through the safety videos and strapped ourselves into the seats when we realized the compartment simulator next to ours was not loading. Some woman had vomited all over the inside, even though there were barf bags hanging in front of the seats. Apparently they weren’t able to just shut down that one little pod to clean, so we all had to leave. They gave us a free fastpass for five people good until the end of the month. We have five-day passes and there are only four parks, so we may end up going back to epcot. They have yummy food and it is fun to go around the world at the world showcase. I hope we go back to the Animal Kingdom since we were only there for a couple of hours.

The other night we went to this Brazilian Churrascaria, which is a restaurant where these muscular attractive men in gaucho pants come to your table with skewers of delicious meat that they ceremoniously carve onto your plate. The food was delicious, but it was not without sacrifice. We arrived for our seven o’clock reservations about two minutes late. This is practically early for my family, especially on this particular vacation (Today we didn’t arrive at the part until nearly 2PM). The hostess led us to this room that had two of three tables unoccupied. We let my dad choose the table, and we were all filing into the room to sit down. After I put my coat on the back of my chair I began to sit down. I hear glass shatter and I look around, I thought that I had somehow knocked down a glass with my jacket, but something hit my arm from above and glass sprayed everywhere. I looked at the seat next to me and it’s covered in glass. It turns out that a light bulb from the chandelier had basically exploded and fallen right as we were being seated. Leis, who was about to sit down, had been reading something on her iPhone, and was being slow. In the end, it was good that we had been late, and the iPhone saved leis a light bulb falling onto her head. Since it was kind of sketchy that glass exploded onto our table, we got free dessert and free corkage, which was awesome. We ended up switching tables.

So, fast forward and I am sitting at the Orlando International Airport starbucks, using free wireless, which is awesome. I just sent my dad through security at his terminal. I’ll probably wait to go through security for another hour or two because the internet isn't free on that side. Orlando was fun. It was great to see Sami, Becca, and Leis--and those other people I see more often too. I won’t be around to go to Sami’s graduation, so hopefully Leis and Becca can go in my place. Last night was my last night in America, and I had McDonald’s for dinner. It was pretty funny. I didn’t wear my sunglasses on the drive to the airport today, because I realized this was probably the last sun I’ll see for a few months. I was going to post some photos, because we took some really great ones this week, but I just realized that I checked my camera chord. In a few days, there will be pictures.


Also, I WANT an iPhone.

Musings

I'm almost ready to leave... for another week of hanging out with the family. Orlando vacation part five thousand will commence in one week. My dad used to take my sister and I on vacation to Walt Disney World every winter in high school. Once he invited our family friends, Becca and Leis. Shortly thereafter, Sami and I decided that we had simply experienced all the magic that the magical kingdom had to offer. My dad continued to go, either by himself or with Leis for a couple of years. After a long enough hiatus, we seem to be ready to return. This time, Sami is bringing her boyfriend, my dad is bringing his girlfriend, and Leis and Becca are coming. We are also not staying at Walt Disney World. I'm sure we'll be going to the theme parks, but we are staying at some Orlando resort timeshare. It's really all the same to me because I'll surely be sleeping on the foldout couch.

I have already done most of my packing/planning for this trip because when everyone else returns to the west coast, I'll be flying across the Atlantic to meet up with Alex and Justin (FINALLY!). I hadn't been home for nearly a year until this break, and I plan on doing roughly the same this coming year. I am so excited to live on my own and cook food and be a cute ex-pat. I don't think I actually qualify for that description, but so what?

Before I can begin the first steps toward my freedom, I have to finish my Richter proposal. If you don't know, I'm applying to do independent research over the summer in London. It would be amazing for someone else to pay for me to live in London for the summer, but right now that isn't enough motivation for me to work on it. I would much rather stay my room all day, only leaving to go for walks and to get coffee.

I just hope this week goes by at the right speed. I want it to be fast, but there are certain things I need to get done before I can leave in a sane fashion. We'll see how that goes.

I also think I might make a new year's resolution or two:

1. I will not eat high fructose corn syrup knowingly.
   
2. I will do more things that I enjoy--time you enjoy wasting is not time wasted! Bertrand Russell told me so.
3. I won't do things just because they are "good" for me, and I won't not do things just because they are "bad" for me.

At this point, I think I'm just making resolutions that will serve as excuses somewhere down the road. I like the idea of making a resolution that will improve your life, but I don't know how easy that is.

Another day is almost over, which brings me closer to what I've been waiting for.