going dutch

So, I have a lot to talk about from before and after my last post. Right now, I am sitting in my room, with the window wide open because it is warm and sunny outside. It’s days like this that make me glad that some of my classes are in the morning, so I can enjoy the few hours of afternoon sun. Although I said it was warm (I’m literally sweating, and I’m only wearing one layer which is super rare), it is only actually 43 degrees. I’m officially used to the weather here.

Last week, I celebrated my 21st birthday. Technically I celebrated the night before my birthday, a little unintentionally. I drank a lot of wine without eating equally a lot of dinner. To make a long story short, I went to my 9:00am class on my birthday, hung over, with a lot of bruises that I still haven’t quite figured out the story on. But, hey, I had fun. For my actual birthday celebration, m some of my new best friends and I went out to all-you-can-eat sushi dinner. We ate SO MUCH FOOD. I was still full the next day. After dinner, we biked the long way home in an attempt to ride off some of the extra sushi rice in order to make room for “gin and titonics.” Earlier, in Brighton, Alex bought this cute little silicone ice cube tray that had icebergs and titanics. Get it? We played catchphrase, because it was my birthday, and I’m glad that other people are almost as enthusiastic about the game as I am. The teams were the Marlee’s and the tough Sara’s. Then everyone headed off to 1-euro beer night, while Justin and I stayed home watching Mad Men (my new favorite addiction?).

I think I might spend too much time watching television shows on the internet when I should be exploring Europe…. I think that my saving grace is the fact that megavideo, the website that hosts much of streaming television, has a 72 minute limit on watching content for free, so I can’t spend all day online.

Although I’m loving Amsterdam, the weather, my bike, wearing so many layers of colorful clothing, I also really miss LA. I eat enough food here, but I constantly find myself fantasizing about eating Eagle Rock food when I’m falling asleep at night. I even have a mental appointment list of all my meals when I get back to LA. When I do leave Amsterdam, I will have a few new friends at various schools in LA or across the country, so hopefully we will all still hang out?

I’m slowly making travel plans, which I should be doing much more quickly. My instructors are already asking questions about our final papers and projects, and I don’t have any travel plans finalized. Right now, I think I am going to Belgium the weekend of March 13th. Easter weekend in the Netherlands is a four day weekend, and I’d like to go somewhere in Spain. Barcelona is the town that most people on my program are going to, but I don’t think I would really enjoy it. I want to go to Valencia, a town on the south-eastern coast of Spain. Unfortunately, my high school Spanish teacher made us memorize the map of Spain with capitals and all the provinces, so I know a lot of places in Spain, but not which ones are fun or nice or weekend travel-friendly. I also want to go to Prague, Italy, Germany, and France. There is a long break in classes at the end of April, so I will hopefully get some of those places then. Germany could also be a weekend trip because it is soooo close. If anyone has suggestions, leave a comment please!? I also don’t know what traveling my Dad and Sami want to do when they visit in June, so hopefully I can plan around that. By the time they visit, I will be an expert on Amsterdam (comparatively at least…)

Speaking of which, this weekend, CIEE is taking us on a day-trip to Groningen, a small university town north of Amsterdam. I am excited to visit another part of the country and do a bit of warm up traveling. We are just going for the day, although there was an overnight option, because Alex’s mom, who so graciously hosted Alex, Justin, and me in London last month, is visiting! It will be good to see her and to be able to show her around a city instead of the other way around.

I really feel like I’ve gained a lot of independence so far on this trip. I’ve officially been in the Netherlands for four weeks. That doesn’t sound like that long, but it feels like forever. I think it’s funny that I feel more independent here, because I rarely do anything on my own. About seven or eight people and I regularly make dinner for each other every night. Last night we joked about how when no one has a plan for when and where dinner will be that night, we feel lost. It’s something that I enjoy because we take turns and it makes every night feel like a dinner party. As a side note, it seems that every night we have a bottle of wine or two with dinner. I don’t know if it’s because we can all legally buy alcohol, or the aforementioned special occasion-ness, but I don’t think this will continue when I get back to the states.

I bought a ten euro coffee grinder about two weeks after getting here, and my friend Anya gave me a French press that had been left to her (she was here last semester as well). It’s been really nice to make myself a fresh batch of coffee on a leisurely weekend morning (read: early afternoon). I feel homey and sophisticated all at the same time.

As a final note for this update, Yesterday, I had a very fruitful trip to the post office. I bought stamps (so if you haven’t received a postcard from me yet, I’ll be able to finally send it out) and a concert ticket to see Girl Talk. Apparently concerts in Europe are way cheaper than in the US. This ticket was only 12 euro instead of like 50 dollars, and I’ve seen festival concerts in the UK for only like 25 Euro instead of more than 100 dollars at home. That concert is on donderdag 19 maart (Thursday, March 18th, for those of you who don’t know Dutch). On the following Monday (23rd), I’m going to a Dutch cultural event put on by CIEE, a concert of the Dutch band Room eleven. Their songs are in English, which is a relief. I’ve searched for them on youtube, and a song hey, hey, hey or something like that sounded cute. They are supposedly popular among Dutch students, but unscientific research has put those claims in doubt.

In addition to all of these exciting happenings, I still have to worry about school. Boo! It takes up more of my time than I was led to believe it would, but it’s pretty interesting. So far, it’s been a lot of reading and then writing about the reading each week. Quite boring, but I’ve actually noticeably improved at the task in the three weeks I’ve been doing it. Oh well, so is life. Also, we had our first Dutch quiz yesterday, and while studying for it, we realized how much we’ve actually learned, but we haven’t really been taught any of it? I’m not sure if that makes sense, but I think I did alright on the quiz.

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.