Birthdays abroad

It’s been 3 years now since I last had a birthday at home and with my family. It’s definitely different and I’m still unsure whether it’s a good thing or not. I think it really depends on what you make of it – but I tend to find I spend a lot of time alone which would be far less likely to happen with family. Don’t get me wrong, I love being by myself, I really do, but on your birthday I think it can feel a bit lonely – especially when you are used to having a close family. Celebrating your birthday away from home does however mean your day is free for you to do what you want without the worry about squeezing in time to see your entire family – but opening presents alone is something I will never quite get used to. It feels simultaneously both greedy and pathetic – neither of which are great feelings.

I tend to never do birthday nights out the day before my birthday, because honestly I cannot imagine a worse scenario than being hungover on your birthday. Or well, I thought I couldn’t, turns out being actually ill is so much worse, but more on this later… I have a party to tell you about. My 21st birthday was Tuesday 24th February, but I held my birthday (pre-)party on the Thursday before as here at UCU Thursday night is party night. In order to bring a bit of home to Utrecht (and also largely to avoid having to provide drinks for everyone as is Dutch custom), I themed my party as the “The Great British Booze-up”. Essentially British themed, I covered the flat in Union Jacks, made a playlist of exclusively British artists, made Bucks Fizz for everyone and the quintessential British children’s party food – cheese and pineapple on Union Jack cocktail sticks. Of course, no themed party would be complete without fancy (costume) dress. We had John Lennon, Ozzy Osborne, the Tardis, Fish and Chips, Builders tea, Paddington Bear, and in my very biased opinion the best costumes of all, The Spice Girls. I finally got to live out a dream I had had for so long, and make the purchase of a lifetime – the Union Jack Ginger Spice dress. Whilst when it arrived it did look like a sequinned sack, thanks to some very talented friends, it managed to be altered until it looked pretty damn good if I say so myself. So thanks Kasia if you are reading this! Personally I really enjoyed the party, we played a lot of beer pong, sang along to a lot of songs, and of course played the obligatory Ring of Fire and Never Have I Ever… And I even managed to avoid a hangover for at least part of the next day (maybe I was still drunk).

Sadly my actual birthday was not quite as good. On Sunday night I started to feel feverish and assumed it was the start of the flu that had been going round campus, and I woke up on Monday not feeling any better so thought that probably was what it was until about Wednesday morning when I finally went to the doctors. However by about halfway through Monday I started to be in a lot of pain whilst eating, and my wisdom teeth had been coming through on-and-off for a while so just assumed it was that but worse than it had ever been. Most of my birthday was therefore spent in bed drinking juice and watching Netflix and generally feeling a bit sorry for myself. In the evening though I had a few friends over and Louis cooked us all a fantastic dinner which I did manage to eat most of even if it took me ages. It was really chill and just super gezellig – sadly I missed out on the House of Cards themed party that was in the bar that night though (in an attempt to bring back Tuesday party night). But spending the evening with such a great group of people really did make what could have been an awful day a hell of a lot better.

Sadly my health problems were not so easily remedied though and by Wednesday morning my glands were inflamed and in addition to not even being able to eat mashed potato, it was too painful to swallow – so I admitted defeat and went to the doctors. The doctors was awful, and due to my now extensive experience of the Dutch healthcare system I feel I might do a blog post just on that, he was probably not representative of all GPs and the hospital doctors are certainly far better. He failed to tell me I had tonsilitis, said that me not being to eat wasn’t a problem, and prescribed aspirin. Not even a strong dose of aspirin, but told me I couldn’t take ibuprofen. I was thoroughly unhappy and was due to go to Paris the next day. The next day after feeling even worse, painkillers really doing nothing, and not even being able to eat soft bread I went to the emergency room. That was a saga in itself, but after phoning round all the emergency dentists in Utrecht to get an appointment in order to get a referral, I was finally seen in a different hospital. Here they told me I had tonsilitis, infected wisdom teeth, and probably two other infections that they weren’t sure what they were. But I was given antibiotics and happy that this would solve everything I decided to go to Paris. Oh how wrong I was…

I feel Paris probably deserves it’s own post – especially as this one is getting quite long and I am getting quite hungry, so I shall probably write another post continuing my adventures with Dutch healthcare and seeing the sights of Paris.

P.S. Just remembered that on my birthday I set the oven on fire – first time for everything. Also good job I wasn’t alone – turns out you don’t put a damp cloth on an oil fire…

Back on Campus – Introweek 2.0

After a short trip to Bussum to the home of one of my unitmates, I arrived back on campus and it was time to start preparing for introweek. This time however I got to experience it from a completely different angle – I was chosen to be a Mum which meant I got 10 of my own children (along with Sebastiaan and Fleur – my co-parents/spouses). I don’t think any of us realised quite how exhausting it was going to be, but for every tiny bit of stress and all the exhaustion it was so worth it. One of the most fun weeks I have had since getting here. This introweek was a lot smaller than the fall one as it was only halfies and exchange students. Halfies are students who start in January as opposed to August. I think this made it a much tighter knit group and was just really gezellig. To do a play-by-play account of the week would be too much, but I had something scheduled for almost every hour of the day, which included campus games (our family came second), capture the flag, ice-skating, a city tour at night, formal dinner, and parties almost every night.

My kids are great – 3 degree students and the rest exchanges – and a really international group. We had 2 Canadians, 2 Americans (one half Italian, one half Vietnamese), a Dutch-Australian girl, an Israeli girl, a romanian girl, someone from China but on exchange from Singapore, a girl from Mexico, and someone from Indonesia but an exchange from Hong Kong – plus 2 Dutch parents and one British one. My accent was mocked mercilessly during the week with an entire night spent with everyone trying to talk in their best British accents which were all shocking attempts.

I think one of my favourite activities was ice skating, I’m pretty awful, especially by Dutch standards – but it’s so much fun. Although there was one girl (not part of our huge group) who must have been about 9 who was such an incredible figure skater – needless to say we all disliked her for making us look bad. The rink was also a speed-skating rink and watching them skate in their lycra suits was absolutely hilarious, quite potentially my new favourite sport (to watch, not partake in). Surprisingly ice skating was actually warmer than our day trip to Amsterdam on the Friday.

Amsterdam was definitely the coldest day I have experienced since being here. I ended up wearing 2 pairs of gloves and still not being able to feel my fingers. This just meant constantly finding warm places to sit, have tea or eat. However due to the fact that all museums here have an admission fee, we decided to not go into any and just walk around in the cold all day which is certainly bracing if nothing else. I do miss how London museums are free though – makesgoing to them so much more appealing and accessible. If you are not sure you would be interested in a museum, why would you pay an entry fee especially €15 which seems around average for Amsterdam? Whereas free museums really allow you to just try things out and you don’t have to commit to the entire museum if it’s not to your taste. I also tried my first kapsalon whilst in Amsterdam (well a bite of someone else’s), whilst I can see the appeal of them I really am not a convert, it’s just a bit of an odd concept – Doner meat, fries, salad and cheese. No thanks, think I am more of a kroketten girl if we are discussing Dutch drunk food.

If I am being honest, I think I preferred this introweek to the one I had in August – maybe it’s just because I feel more settled now or maybe the activities suited me more. UCU definitely feels like home, and I know how to do things, I can do my shopping, sort out all the trains, I just feel far more confident than I did when I started knowing no one in August. It’s very odd to think I do have to leave here in 4/5 months – I think going back to Leeds will quite the culture-shock, but hopefully it will improve my English which has become absolutely shocking since moving here. The other day I genuinely used the phrase “what you did say” this is what comes from living in a super international enviroment, I think there are around 54 nationalities on campus and only around 600 students, it’s definitely unique and I feel very lucky to be here.

The blessing of being homesick

This is a column I wrote for my international journalism class and will be published in the campus newspaper:

Having lived in the Netherlands for three months I expected to feel very settled, but the closer it gets to Christmas the more homesick I feel. Culture shock is said to go in phases, first the honeymoon period, then disintegration, re-integration, autonomy and independence. I am firmly stuck in the disintegration period at the moment.

Homesickness creeps up on you when you least expect it and about the weirdest things. Having lived away from home for three years now and not once getting homesick – it’s strange that I am suddenly afflicted with it. It’s not family I miss particularly, nor friends, it’s just that feeling of home.

It’s going to work and getting a Boots meal deal, it’s mince pies and brandy butter, it’s walking to university, it’s fish and chips and being constantly offered a ‘cuppa’. I’m not patriotic, I’m not particularly proud to be British but right now I have a yearning to be back with the familiar.

To hear British accents when I go outside and to understand what is being said in shops and on buses – to not feel like I only understand half of my surroundings. It’s the language barrier that makes the experience of living abroad so lonely. It’s not until you can’t do something that you realise how important it is – listening to grannies having a natter on the bus is one of those things. Knowing what to say in shops is so undervalued, I constantly have to pray they won’t ask if I want a receipt – however hard I try I cannot remember that vocabulary. I miss understanding everything and being understood and not feeling like people have to go out of their way to accommodate for me.

I love it here. It really is starting to feel like home, it’s not that I’m miserable. That’s the thing with homesickness, everything can be great but still you know something is missing. A nagging feeling reminding you that this isn’t home and that is what makes it so difficult. There is the desperate desire to seize every opportunity and make the most of the time you have. Realising sometimes you need to sit out and let yourself be homesick feels like a waste of valuable time – but what it does is makes you realise what you’ve got.

Feeling homesick is horrible – but it forces you appreciate everything just that little bit more and really that’s a blessing.

Sorry!

I haven’t blogged for so long – and I’m really sorry. I will hopefully try and catch up over Christmas. But I’ve just been so busy and really settling into day-to-day life, and everything feels normal now – there is much less ‘exciting’ stuff to write about, plus I have had a hideous amount of school work the second half of this semester. But I will do a quick run-down of stuff I have done since I last blogged which is ages!

• Dad came to visit at the end of mid-term break which I may have blogged about(?) – we went to the Heineken factory, and a speciality beer place in Utrecht that sells hundreds of vareities of beer – including one called Raging Bitch IPA which every time I go I ask for to no avail. (This was actually all before Prague, so I probably have written about it)
• Went to see Swan Lake at the Dutch National Ballet in Amsterdam which was really good even if we were in the cheap seats. In all honesty though I much prefer the Matthew Bourne interpretation, contemporary ballet is far more dynamic.
• Went to Eindhoven to a light festival – Eindhoven is the technology capital of the country so it made sense for this to be here. I took a few photos which I will post soon. But really incredible, a lot of it was done by arts and engineering students and included light shows projected on churches and houses and installations in trees. Really lovely way to see Eindhoven (even if it was dark) as it took you outside of the main city centre.
• Had lots of dinners with friends
• My Mum came to visit which was lovely and I should really do a full blog post on – but it mainly consisted of eating, drinking and wandering around somewhat aimlessly. We went to the Stedelijk contemporary art museum in Amsterdam which is fantastic and I can highly recommend – even if half the art work we could definitely do, but half the fun was laughing at the art and forming your own interpretations (us uncultured, what?). In Utrecht we went up to the top of the V&D which I will also post photos of and you get see all across the city – but still not as high up as the Dom.
• Saw the new Hunger Games film – it’s good, but didn’t wow me.
• Went to Den Haag (The Hague) for an afternoon to see Shirin Ebadi speak. She is an Iranian nobel peace prize winner and gave a fascinating talk on women and Islam and the incredibly false perceptions of Islam as anti-women. Plus The Hague is beautiful – definitely need to go back and spend more time there.
• Went on a pub crawl around Utrecht with some of the teachers and the dean – nice to get to speak to them outside of the classroom. The hangover the next day was not so nice – why is the beer here so strong? Also became convinced I could speak Dutch whilst drunk which resulted in me insisting on order fries in a mix of Dutch, German and English. Well done Emma.
• Celebrated Becca’s (one of the other Leed’s girls) 21st birthday!!!
• Got Sinterklaas presents!!! Yay, thank you Sint & Piet xoxoxo
• Got accepted to be introweek parents next semester – so I get my own family!!!

So that’s a quick update might post some photos and such soon, but for now back to essay writing – Rape as a weapon of war, cheery topic for a cold Tuesday afternoon!

3 day weekends are great

On Monday, Abbie and I made our way into Amsterdam for a day of museums and tourism. Having a three day weekend is so good! Touch wood, I have such a good timetable next semester… a girl can dream.

We went to the first museum, Body worlds, with Abbie’s housemate from York, who completely coincidentally was in Utrecht at the same time. The museum sounded really interesting, it was called the happiness project and I’m super interested in how emotions work and how they affect the body and such, so it sounded like it would be right up my street. I definitely had not realised it would be real-life dead bodies that had been like plastinated. So creepy, especially how you could actually tell what a lot of the full body ones would have looked like alive. It was actually really interesting though, even if some of it went over my head a bit. Abbie and Gillian were very into it though, and as two nurses probably understood a bit more of it. Definitely worth seeing though, even if it is a bit pricey.

I sampled “holland’s number one fries” for lunch, and I must admit I was disappointed, definitely had better chips. It is very odd, everyone seems to have an opinion on who does the best chips and everyone claims theirs are best. I don’t feel like we have that as much in the UK. Either way, I’m still a McDonald’s girl – with fritessaus.

I am Amsterdam

That afternoon we went to the Rijksmuseum, which is predominantly a huge dutch art gallery, but it does have a few pots and clothes and guns, etc. It’s an absolute maze in there, we kept ending up back in the main foyer somehow and having to re-enter the museum. Without sounding hideously uncultured, a lot of the art wasn’t really to my tastes, it was more just looking at it and walking on. The architecture was beautiful though, such an incredible building – especially the library which is really what I went to see, so pretty! Some of the more modern stuff I really enjoyed as well, although because it closed quite early, we only got to see half of this and missed the side that I really wanted to see, with Yves Saint Laurent and Appel. But I am here for a whole year – next time I’ll just see if I can borrow a Museum card though instead of having to pay again!

Bibliotheek

We went to Wok and Walk for dinner, which is probably one of my favourite fast food places – you get to choose what noodles you want, what sauce and what toppings and then they cook it all for you in a wok in front of you, and it just tastes soooo good! They only have them in Amsterdam here, but also in London in the UK, so if you’re passing, I would recommend it.

When we got home, we were celebrating my flatmate Bart’s 18th birthday so we got loads of chocolate cake which was so good. In my mind starting uni at 17 is so young, I mean it’s my sisters year at school, but it’s so common here. It’s probably partially because skipping (or being held back) grades isn’t really a thing at home, and everyone tends to be the same age if you are in the same academic year. I don’t think you really notice the age difference most of the time anyway, even if I am two years older than a lot of my friends.

Tuesday was back to class so I sent Abbie off exploring Amsterdam by herself. In the afternoon we had the study abroad fair where Abi, Becca and I (3 of the Leeds exchanges) tried to convince people to go to Leeds, which is slightly hard to do when you are competing against the USA and Australia and far more ‘exciting’ locations. I think we repeated the same conversation at least 20 times: “everyone in Leeds is always up for a good time”, “You’ll barely have any class and never have to buy books”, “You’ll be taught by people who are experts in their field”, “We have one of the best Student Unions in the UK, look at how much there is to do”. We also may have attempted to deter people from going to the other UK destinations (sorry guys!) but people should go to Leeds, especially if they’ll be going whilst I’m still there.

Abi, me and Becca

That evening we went to the best burger bar in town, Meneer Smakers. I had a goats cheese burger and it is potentially the best burger I have ever eaten – absolutely incredible. It’s such a nice atmosphere as well, really cute decoration. I will definitely be going again, even if I have already now sampled both the vegetarian burgers they sell – maybe I will have to try a meat burger next time and take a break from vegetarianism, or maybe I’ll just have the goats cheese one again because that was heavenly.

Geitenkaas burger

The weather has been a mixture this week, but on Friday it was absolutely beautiful and campus looked so pretty in the sun! I love living here, I am seriously never coming home.

More soon – especially on the incredible 1975 gig I went to last night, but I should definitely be revising as I have my first mid-term on Tuesday for Linguistics and I have no idea what a phoneme is… Wish me luck!