Bruges

Bruges/Brugge
You should really try to pronounce it the dutch way, with the g sounding more like an h.

Bruges is really such a cute town. The old city has a lot of old medieval buildings, and it's share of Churches as well. The only catch? Thousands of other people think it's cute too. There are a ridiculous amount of tourists in this city. Not to say that makes it any less beautiful, just harder to grab a photo when there are 20 other cameras around too.

This is the very busy central square. Everyone is getting ready for the parade.

Short Week

So, I wrote this post on Thursday, so I HAVE been writing, but I just hadn't bothered to post it until now because I have been travelling. So this pretty much summarizes the 3 day week I had, so it is a rather boring post. My next one will be more exciting because it will be about Belgium!


Sunday

 On Sunday I went to the Floriade (a horticulture expo that happens once every 10 years in holland), it was pretty impressive, and I've started a blog post talking just about that. So that will be posted... eventually.

Monday
this very short week has been a pretty busy one and quite exciting too. On Monday I ended up leaving the office pretty late, and pretty hungry, so, as I had been craving subway I decided to search for the only one they had in Venlo -which, I now know, is pretty much on my way home-. So I got myself a meatball sub and one cookie (they only give you one in a combo here!) and ate it and read for a bit in a nice park that I hadn't been to before. It's just north of the centrum and it was quite nice.

I was in a little bit of a dissapointed mood Monday night as well, because the bike I had gotten from work for the night was a sad little thing. It makes a lot of noise - creaky sounds when I am biking. So wanting to take advantage of the nice weather (which you need to do here) and not wanting to ride my bike, I decided to go for a run. A first since being here.

It was lovely. I was so happy that I went. I ran along the river. I got to go on paths that I had never seen before because bikers aren't allowed. And the change in perspective was amazing. You really see a place differently when you slow down, and take things in a different angle. I went running at about 9, and I think that is the perfect time, it is around dusk and you can see the sun set on the other side of the river. Definately going to do that again.

Tuesday
was also a very busy day. We went on a "field trip" to a tradeshow, and for some of us, it proved a good resource for our projects, and for others, just a fantastic way to get a sense of the industry. It was in Germany and the Student HR office planned it. There were about 40 students in total, some were currently doing an internship (like me!) or others were planning on doing their graduation project with the company.

It was super awesome. I wish I had pictures, and I might get some later (there was not suppose to be photography, but some of my co-workers took pictures). But the trade show was massive, so huge. There were like 14 different halls, and we were there all day and only saw 4 of them. For lunch I also had a sausage in a bun, because that's what you are supposed to eat in Germany. Pretty awesome.

When I got home, Felix, my roommate from Nigeria was cooking something with a very strong aroma. When I went to go check it out, he asked if I had ever had African food before,  and I was instructed to make sure I was hungry so that I could try it. Apparently he was cooking a very traditional Nigerian beef soup/stew. Being slightly skeptical, I still agreed that I would try it. I really wish I remembered the name of it.

So the stew is served with yam (made from a powder, it looks like mashed potatoes, but with a very different texture). And what you do is take some yam, and then dip the it into the stew. Felix told me that there were two different ways to eat it, you can either eat it with a fork,  almost like fondue dipping the yam into the stew, or you can wash your hands and with your hands make balls of yam and dip them. Being me, I decided to try using a fork, but after watching Felix and his friend Candy use their hands I realized my method wasn't as effective. What you are supposed to do, is take the yam, and roll it into a ball, flatten it a bit, and it acts more like a scoop. It took me about 3 bites to abandon my fork. My only complaint was that there were chunks of beef, and I wasn't as good at eating those without the aid of a knife, very chewy. Oh and I really didn't like the texture of yam.

Wednesday
was a little less exciting. I needed to actually go to work, no field trips :( . After work, the students in my department, there are four of us, went to go for a bite to eat. One co-worker was trying to get me to eat a frikendel (after telling me all the wonderful types of meat there are in it). So we went to enjoy some dutch traditional favourites (junk food!). I thought it was quite interesting, because when we were talking about Canadian food, I explained was poutine was. And they made fun of how bad that would be for you. But then I found out what they eat on their fries is, apparently Frites 'WAR' is fries  with (soaked in) peanut sauce, mayonaise and onions. Not any better, if you ask me. In the end I didn't eat a frikendel, I had a kroquet, which probably wasn't much better for me. Oh, and they made fun of my fries with tomato ketchup.

Flowers

Gasp. It's been far too long since I have written anything. I should probably try harder to keep in the habit of writing regularly.

The first thing I will do is a reflection. Today is Mother's day, and I have a truly amazing Mom. I have recently been watching the TV show Parenthood, and it has made me realize that my mom is a pretty great mom. Mom, Sorry to compare you to a bunch of fictional weirdo's. But pretty much every episode, when one of the character's screws up, I think, "thank gawd my mom isn't that silly" or "I hope I'm never like that". My mother is probably the most supportive person I know, and she is always grounded and down to earth about everything. Moving to Europe has been super hard, and she was always there to help  me, (and always there to call when I was in the registrars office at school, and I needed my Highschool permanent code or some other number that I didn't have (but a mom does). And, knowing me, it was probably 4:15 on the Friday before the deadline)

She is also the type of mom to pick you up at a bus station at like 4:30 am, and one that you can call when you took the wrong bus and don't know how to get home, and you need her to "google maps" it for you. She will also tolerate me when I call her just to pronounce a dutch word or vowel sound for me. She is pretty great. I know that now that I am an ocean away I can't experience some of these amazing things my mom does. But, also thanks to her, I am a strong independent person that doesn't shutter at the idea of being alone on a different continent. My favourite thing right now, is that she is always up before anyone else in Canada, so if I have a really exciting day, she is always the first to know :P.

So, this is my post for my mother, on Mother's day. And I am really sad that I can't be there to spoil you for a day and bring you breakfast in bed.

Today I am going to do a very Mother's day like thing and going to look at flowers. So there will be some mother's day themed pictures in my next post :P.

Steyl

I think I have found a favourite place. I like to have many favourite places (Which I guess makes them not really my favourite, but just that I really like them). In Ottawa, I had a lot of favourite places, especially outdoors, and a lot of them along the canal or river (Ottawa is a really beautiful city!). I think I can see a trend, because this favourite place is also near water.

This is the ferry between Steyl and Baarlo. There are a couple benches around, and it's really nice to watch the ferry go back and forth (it can go there and back in like 5 minutes, it's really short). It is just under 6 km to bike there. And I haven't had any yet, but there is an ice cream place just up the road :O. I think it'll be a nice place to stop on the way home from a longer bike ride. I sat here tonight and watched the sunset while reading a book. It was pretty great.

Also this is a bit overdue

Here's a picture of a typical bike from work. 

Succes

Here in the Netherlands, instead of saying good luck, they say succes, as in veel succes, which translates to many (or much) success. To me that makes way more sense then saying good luck, because you are saying that you wish them success, to succeed. I'd rather succeed then have "luck", and wouldn't you rather succeed, thanks to your own abilities rather then "luck"

Although, today I could of used luck. Today was the closest thing to a "bad day" since I've gotten here. The day started alright enough, I woke up on time (and earlier then normal!) and I dragged myself to town hall, where I needed to find out how to get a social security number. Once there, there was a very nice lady, who gave me a number, and I waited. After about 20 minutes, she told me that there wasn't going to be anyone in that could help me, and I could come back between 11 and 2, or before 2 all this week. A little disgruntled, I left for work, planning to return on my lunch hour.

When I did return, around 12:20, I was very sad, but the lady wasn't working. So I needed to explain my situation again, and I got a number again, and I waited 20 minutes again. Then they called my number, and I explained my situation again. Then they told me that they couldn't help me. In order for me to get my number at the town hall I needed to be registered as a resident, and in order to register as a resident I needed to be planning on staying in Venlo for more then 4 months (aka have a 4 month+ long lease). So then I got a generic 0800 phone number for the tax office to call.

Well at this point I realized I was really hungry, and I had forgotten my sandwich at home :(. Luckily the town hall is literally around the corner from my flat. So, I decided to go home, get my sandwich and phone the tax office.

Once I had a bite of my cheese sandwich in my mouth, I was much less frustrated with the day, cheese sandwiches are awesome. I should have enjoyed that small moment of relaxation before becoming extremely frustrated.

I called the tax office, it was an automated system, all in dutch.
I was home alone, none of my roommates were home, so I pressed the last option (I do know my numbers) every time because I just wanted to talk to someone, and I thought that was probably the best chance. After pressing 3 three times, a lady answered. I started to talk to her in English, but she would only respond in Dutch. I don't remember much of this conversation, but the basic idea behind it was, she wasn't "allowed" to serve me in English, and I didn't have anyone that could speak Dutch for me around. Also, I had no idea what options that I had pressed in order to get her. So, I didn't even really know what department she was working for.

She FINALLY transferred me to someone else, but this time I was really frustrated, and perhaps on the verge of tears (perhaps over the verge). This lady was more helpful and actually would speak English to me! To my disappointment, she won't make the necessary appointment at the Tax office in Eindhoven for me, but I gave her my information and she said that someone would call me the next day between 12-3 to schedule it for me. I was still pretty frustrated that the matter wasn't completely resolved, as I really dislike any unknowns in my life, but what can I do.

By this time, I had been gone for much longer then hour I can take for lunch.

Later in the afternoon, a nice gentleman from the Tax office called and made an appointment for me, I was delighted to get that out of the way. I even got to make it before work Thursday (I hate missing work :P) so, perhaps I did have some luck after all.

Eindhoven

So on monday, yesterday, I got to go to Eindhoven. And when I say that I "got to go" I mean that I needed to go. I needed to visit the office of the IND and get a sticker in my passport saying that I can live and work in the Netherlands for 3 months. So I dipped out of work early and took the train for the first time since coming to this beautiful country.

Buying my ticket was highly annoying. I went to the automated machine, and checked the ticket price, it was 17.40 Euros there and back, I then counted the cash that I had on me, and it came in just under 16 Euros, not enough to pay in cash *sigh*. I made an executive decision and instead of trying to pay interac and get charged some ridiculous fee for my 18 Euro purchase (they didn't have M/C), I would withdraw a larger sum from an ATM.

So plenty of cash in hand I returned to the automatic machine, to discover when it had said "pay with coins" it meant actual coins, it was not a translation error as I had hoped. Well did I have 18 euros in coins? no sir. At this point it was closer to train time then i would have liked, so i bit my lip, inserted my debit Visa card, and hoped I could pay Visa to avoid fees. Well here's another fun fact, apparently my chip card doesn't work on their machines.(I am not sure how wide spread this is) So, I then decided to swallow the 50 cent service fee, and buy my ticket at the desk. After standing in line, watching the seconds and minutes pass by, listening to an old lady ask EVERY possible question to the teller (I couldn't actually understand her, but I could tell the type) I FINALLY got to buy my ticket. for 17.90 Euros, with two minutes to spare. The platform was easy to find, it was the only one with a train on the tracks. In retrospect I did have about 11 Euros in change and could have just bought a one way ticket (the 2 way didn't offer any discount) but alas, I was not that smart.

The train ride was super awesome. but if you know me at all, I am not exactly objective when it comes to trains. (I really really like em) It was about a 45 minute train ride, I was in a silent car, which was pretty cool, because that meant that I got to read and look out the window :)

(Venlo Station, about a 5 minute walk from my house, or less)

Maas (River), from the train

Once in Eindhoven I got my sticker without a problem, from the hooghuis. it was quarter after 4 once I was finished though, so i decided it wasn't worth it to go back to work. Starving, I decided to treat myself to a real meal before heading back to venlo. I ate outside on a terrace and had fish and chips, it was quite yummy (I haven't had french fries in a while). I took a quick look around the city, and snapped some pictures (I even busted out my SLR). And so my big city adventure ended and back to Venlo I went. The train I took back was a older train, and by this time there were alot more people on the train, so it was slightly less awesome as well.

Eindhoven

Septemberplein 18 (near the station), this is an entrance to underground bike storage 

Shopping mall in Eindhoven (too bad everything closes so early!)

Eindhoven

One of the Folding Chairs I saw at IDS in Toronto

Beesel and back

So I almost forgot to write today, which means I am much too lazy to add photos as well (but I will add them later)

I decided to try my luck at biking following the bike routes that they have all over Limburg (and I am guessing the whole of the Netherlands). I woke up pretty late (NOT helping me adjust to waking up early for work :( ) And I knew it was seriously cold outside, but it was also not raining. So I needed to gamble, if I waited too long, waiting for it to warm up, I would probably get caught in the rain. I knew that I wanted to spend a good few hours outside. So in the end, I headed out around 11, which was probably a little later then ideal.

I decided to bike south along the river, Maas. On Friday I had biked a bit north, so I thought I would try my luck going south. I hugged the river as best I could for most of the way there. It's very cute, there are a few small, older towns along the river. They all have almost identical profiles on the horizon, with a large church tower. Also which is very cute, there are little ferries that go across the river once in a while. Perhaps next time I will try biking for a bit on the East side of the River. I followed the bike paths most of the way, and that was quite cute, because they bring you sort of along "back roads" many of them just dirt farm roads. But there was a really nice section through a bunch of orchards. It was about then that it started to rain.

But I was prepared for rain, so I wasn't too bothered. I continued on my route. Around Beesel was where I got good and lost, well not so lost, I pretty much always knew where I was, I just didn't know the direction I was going, so it took me a bit to get right and turned around back toward Venlo (I had even made it to the next town without trying, and further from Venlo!). Since it had been raining for a while, there was a good deal of water around. So for the way back I decide to opt out of the dirt paths. This also was a bit harder to navigate, because since I wasn't following a specific bike route, I was mostly following automobile signs. And I needed to be careful not to be guided in the wrong direction to the highway (which isn't really the most km efficient way back). But I did discover the main road that took me the (shorter) 15km home.

So all in all, I was out from 11-3, with a few brief stops for water and fruit, when I got home I was quite damp, so I enjoyed a large bowl of tomato vegetable soup to warm me up!

Rain

So, yesterday was the nicest day so far. Today, the most miserable. Weather wise, that is.

Today was also Market day. Wednesdays and Saturdays are Market days here in Venlo, with Saturday being much bigger then Wednesdays. So, due to my lack of fruit and just general food, I decided to check out the Market. It was very busy, and very wet. I was quite overwhelmed. I ended up not buying very much, most of the fruit and veggies were in big bags of a couple kgs. So I didn't feel like buying a huge bag of onions or leaks, and even if I did, I had biked there. I did buy a bag of oranges, so that should last me the week I think, and I also bought a bucket of grapes.

(Cheese stall at the market) 

The market had a lot of stuff, a lot of flowers, and fabrics, and clothes, and veggies and fruit. There was also a bread booth. There were quite a few cheese and fish booths as well. There were some food stalls, but I could not really decipher what they were selling, so I passed :).

It's hard to see, but this is a cool fence that doubles as a bike rack!

After the Market, and being quite wet, I decided to check out a shopping plaza that was on the other side of my house, a bit south (everything else is north). My main mission there was to get stamps at the magazine shop and perhaps a dictionary. After getting even more wet, I was about to buy some worldwide stamps, but failed at my dictionary mission. I liked the stores though, I *think* they are closer to my house then the other supermarkets I've found, but they aren't on the way home from work. Also, the store is an Albert Hejin, which is a more expensive chain.

In the afternoon I (finally!!!) successfully got myself a regional bike route map, and two dictionaries (a pocket sized one and a larger English-->Dutch). So I spent a good deal of time planning a potential bike route for tomorrow, as long as the weather is better then today.. which I am doubtful about :(

Where does your asparagus come from?

So here is my Friday post, I was much too tired to write yesterday.

This is the first time in my life that I have ever experienced the feeling of TGIF. I wasn't tired of my job or anything, I think it's too early for that. But I was too tired of waking up at 8 am (which is 2am Canadian time) and tired of staying awake for 9+ hrs straight, (if you know me, during school, I nap A LOT)

Work was good, best day yet, I think with new jobs that is pretty common. I was getting less nervous around my co-workers, and getting know my way around the office. I was shown a bit more about the project I am working on, and it got me supremely excited!

Since it was the first day that it hasn't rained, I decided to go exploring! Since it gets dark at like 9:30 here, it gave me a lot of time to be able to go biking without worrying about getting my bike light working. I started by trying to bike along the water, which proved quite difficult at the start, because there was loads of construction, but once I was out of town, it was really nice. It's pretty cool, because they have a bunch of bike routes posted on the bike path. So I decided to follow route 96 for awhile. It brought me past a bunch of farms and green houses. And through part of a town that is known for its asparagus, which is a very exciting thing to be known for. After a while the bike route brought me through a town, which was very cute, it was called Velden. It is only about 6km from Venlo.

Disclaimer: All pictures were taken on a bicycle.. in movement

(This is where I got stuck because of construction)

(A couple km out of town)

(I thought this was an interesting contrast, the left and right side of the street)

(FYI, YOUR asparagus probably comes from China, the biggest exporter, The Netherlands only exports 1% of the amount that China does) 

On the way back, I took a faster route, which was pretty cool too, it was through more of the industrial part of Venlo. Somehow there were still tons of trees and greenspace, which is something I am not used to having in an industrial park. I also took a small detour through an older medieval part of Venlo. I saw one of the big churches that I'm supposed to care about :P. I also found a grocery that is open until 9pm everyday (except Sunday) It was actually closed though, because May 4 is a semi-holiday (meaning that some stores are closed and some have shorter hours)

(Venlo likes grass :) )

(A landmark that finds itself on postcards, it just reminds me of John Abbott College though) 

When I got home I was super duper tired.

I also decided that, since I eat a lot of sandwiches during the week, I am making a resolution to try and avoid eating bread on weekends.  I'll start with just like, sliced bread, but I'll see if I can avoid all baked goods.

Cheese sandwiches

So, in an effort to catch-up with real time, I am writing about today, today! (If you didn't know, I've been posting a day behind). I will also be posting about yesterday, today!

So, I've been getting the hang of things, sending emails, how to print, using the coffee machine (for hot water) and all that jazz. Today, I got my photo taken for my badge and visited the company library. One of my fellow interns was nice enough to translate the dutch section titles for me, so that I knew what I was looking at. It's been pretty quiet in studio this week, a lot of people take it off because all the schools and uni have the week off.

So lunchtimes at the work are definitely my favourite, what a surprise. Pretty much everyone from the design department eats together, time permitting. The best thing about lunch is how everyone eats sandwiches, and many of them cheese sandwiches, for some reason it makes me so happy. On the first day I brought a cheese sandwich, and you don't know how delighted I was to see everyone else have one too!!

Yesterday at lunch the company put on a concert, it wasn't very big, and it was basically a girl singing Adele in a small auditorium, but I was pretty impressed by the fact that there was any lunchtime entertainment. One of the CAD modelmakers (eek, don't remember his name) was saying how they used to have a concert every first wednesday of the month, but they stopped and this was the first in a while.

Today at lunch was a bit more fun, I watched my three fellow student interns play a board game invented by the same modelmaker who I can't remember the name of, it's something ridiculously Dutch, I assure you ( I recently found out how to search people in the system by their office number, so I can figure out people's names if I forget them, which is pretty much everyone I've met). But anyways, the game was pretty fun looking, it was a board game and it requires alot of strategy, it was similar to chess or chinese checkers.

Basically my lunches so far have been pretty ace.

On the way home today I went shopping (what's new) I set out to buy some healthy (real) food. But then failed pretty hardcore. I went to a cheaper grocery store, but they didn`t have very many fruits, so I bought some apples. But then I saw a pizza for like, 89 cents, so I bought it. Little did I realize that I don`t actually have a freezer. So I ate the pizza for supper. I will probably bring an apple to work tomorrow at least.

I also took a pretty big detour on the way home, I just basically biked wherever the bike lane took me. They have a lovely bike path along the river (on boths sides apparently). I am not sure how far they go, I just biked a km or two on each side, but I will discover this weekend.

Also one speed bicycles can`t handle hills, at all. You don`t need to handle hills much in the netherlands. But just so you know, they can`t.

First Day

So, this will be my last post detailing every aspect of my day for a little while. But this a pretty awesome day if you ask me. It was my first day of work.

So I walked to work this morning. I was lying in  my bed this morning, listening to the rain, thinking about how much it would suck to walk an hour in the rain. Then I thought about taking the bus, and possibly taking a taxi. But the longer I laid there in bed the more I realized walking 3.5 km was the most viable option. So I woke up, broke open my hagelslag for breakfast, only to discover it takes terrible with the brown(weird-flavoured, very nutritious, I'm sure) bread I have bought, and proceeded to make myself cheese sandwiches for lunch. I also put on make-up, it was my first day of work and all. So once I had actually gotten outside it had started to rain. I ran into my roommate (literally) that I had met yesterday, he is from Nigeria but an international student at the university here.

The walk to work was nice, but I have come to the conclusion that no one really walks here, everyone just bikes. So walking 3.5 k wasn't really the funnest.

Work

Once I arrived, I checked in, got a badge and waited for my supervisor to come and get me. Unfortunately, my supervisor has the week off, so I got a stand-in. He seemed pretty cool anyways. I was told a bit about the company, and shown around the office. The office/studio was just one big room, with product designers, visual designers, CAD model makers, interface designers and students. All the desks were in clusters. All the interns sit together, front and center. Next to us are meeting tables. There are cartoon cardboard cut outs all around, and big rubber balls here and there, as well. It was very cool! In the next room they had physical model makers. This means shops! They have a bunch of equipment, some RP stuff, and the wonderful smell of acrylic lingering.

So, one disappointing fact was that I didn't have a computer this morning, it was MIA. So I was shown around the rest of the facilities, got my assignment given to me, and given some background information to read as I waited for my computer. I also saw a prototype for the project that I am working with, which was very very cool. Once my computer did arrive it didn't connect to the internet :( So I went for lunch with the other people in the Design Department. I had packed a bagged lunch, but I bought one instead so that I could go and see the cafeteria. Everyone ate together, and I was able to talk to the other students that were working there. They were very interesting and both from dutch universities and studying design. They tried to explain the Dutch school system to me, but it was very complicated with many levels, I still don't completely understand.

After lunch, I got my computer and email set up. It was pretty straight forward, after a bit more instruction from my stand-in mentor I started my work. The rest of the afternoon passed pretty quickly. It was semi-frustrating that I couldn't eavesdrop on any of my co-workers or the other students working around me. They would switch to English once in a while for my benefit, so I really needed to wait to be invited into the conversation.

Biking


After I was done work, I made a fool of myself, I couldn't figure out how to work the turnstile. The secretary was on the other side, and looked at me like I was completely retarded. I then checked out a bike key. Basically how that works is every evening I check out a bike key, bring it to the Fietstallen (bike parking) and find the awesome old one-speed bike that matches the number on my key chain. I then, can ride it home and back to work the next morning, and I return the key.

So I got my key, I found the bike, and was thoroughly impressed by how nicely it rode, considering. On the way home, I stopped to get a bike lock. Because there was a lock on the back tire, but after being in Amsterdam and other places in the Netherlands, I knew that locking your bike was something you took seriously. So I went into my favourite discount store and grabbed a 10 Euro lock that looked pretty legit. After, when I went to lock up my bike more seriously, I noticed that a lot of people didn't lock their bike up with more then one lock. There were loads that had other locks on the bike (the dinky ones you find in Canada too!) that weren't even attached to anything, just chilling under the seat. So I think, I will probably not bother with a hardcore lock (the majority of the time I will just be locking it up at work and in my backyard)

So I also picked up a phone on the way home. I got a prepaid sim, with 7.50 credit (plus a bonus 7.50)  for 15 Euro. I thought it wasn't a bad deal. But then I realized the rates were pretty stupid. I didn't want to struggle with bringing it back, so I just thought, well I won't use my phone that much anyways right? Then my wonderful mother called and texted me a bunch and cost me 1.50!! :P

Queensday

So Queensday, April 30 is like a awesome party all across the country, and is apparently the only day you are supposed to fly a flag out front (with an extra orange banner). This Queensday I had the opportunity to move to Venlo.

Driebergen
So I started Queensday in Driebergen with my second cousins, where I had been staying for two nights since I had arrived in the Netherlands. Almost everything was closed, except one grocery store, Albert Hejin (as far as I can tell the largest chain grocer here). So Selma brought me there by bike, I borrowed Nadine's, and it was still too tall for me! So, we went to the store because it was assumed that it would be hard for me to find open stores once I was in Venlo.

On the way back, we went by the park and town hall. There were Queensday celebrations. There were orange balloons, and you attach an envelope to them with return postage, and everyone releases them at the same time (we missed this part because the speaker was taking FOREVER). But whoever's balloon makes it the farthest wins a prize, so you hope it will get to Germany or France (Selma said they never get too far). There were also tons of people selling their stuff, it was like a giant flea market/garage sale.

Venlo
After shopping and tea Andy drove me to Venlo. It was about an hour and half from their place. Andy was very nice and called the landlord for me, and stuck around as he showed me the place. I will post pictures of my humble abode soon :)

My house
So basically there are two parts to my house, one has 10 students and the other 4. I live in the section with 4 students. In my section there is a shower, toilet and kitchen (that is shared by the 4 of us). I need to go to the other side to use the washer and dryer, and there is also free bike parking (bike parking is always free haha), but this is in the locked backyard. In my room, which is probably similar in size to a single college dorm (maybe even a tad bigger!) I have a desk, small couch, wardrobe, bed, and sink in my room.

The kitchen is an interesting place. There is pretty much every appliance you can want in a kitchen, well not crazy outlandish ones. But definitely more then I was expecting in a student house, microwave, toaster oven, toaster, rice cooker, and more that I can't remember, because I am simple and those are the ones I would want. Also, the contents of the kitchen are interesting. Butter? Check. Dried out cheese? Check. Ketchup and other sauces? Check. A box full of garlic and onions? Check.

Here are some pictures of my room, I've already made a mess

Shopping and Etc
So my internet didn't work right away, the ethernet cord didn't work. So I decided to venture into the world of Venlo and see if i could possibly find ANYTHING open to buy a new one. I started at the train station, which is just a stones throw from my house (if you can throw a curve-stone hardcore). And with no luck, and a very disappointing convenience store, I decided to follow the helpful signs to the VVV(tourist info). I made it there, after a very round-about way, to find it closed. Luckily I found the main shopping street (it is a pedestrian street, not even any bikes) and like a miracle, there were tons of stores open.

I was able to find a couple of other things I needed, like hand-soap. and tea. I also stumbled upon what I made out to be a main square and a park, and there seemed to be some queensday activities. I don't mean to chirp Venlo. But after being in Amsterdam last year and Utrecht on Queensnight, and even Driebergen that morning, I was underwhelmed with the orange to other color ratio going on. Apparently, Queensday is less of a big deal here then in other parts of Holland. So I window shopped for shoes and phones.

Here was a bit of the stuff going on for kids in Venlo

Internet
I got my internet working and I was super duper excited! Its a corded internet, so I am in a very uncomfortable position on my bed to make it reach. I then checked email/updated my family and had a quick bite (cheese and bread, will it ever get old :) )
I ventured outside again with the hopes of buying some flowers (my room came with 4 identical vases) but to my dismay everything was closed and empty. :( So I packed it in early, because I knew I had a BIG day tomorrow (first day of work)