Days 341 to 345 – Making our way to Greece while the sun shines

Day 341 – (Wed) This trip was totally spontaneous and only happened in large part thanks to Nakita’s strong desire to go somewhere warm before she went home (and my strong desire to go back to Greece).  After a couple of days of procrastination (read: searching for cheap flights to cool places) Nakita found us cheap return flights to the Greek island of Kos – somewhere I’d not really heard of, and not one of “the” Greek islands on the must do list but it looked lovely on the tourist websites and would be a bit cheaper thanks to its lower profile. Only problem – we had to fly in and out of Brussels!!! As loyal readers may remember Brussels is the hated travel destination of most exchange students, and we were headed to the terrible and ‘remote’ Brussels Charleroi airport. Nonetheless, we (being me, Nakita from Sydney and Ally from Canada, whom you may remember from the Faro, Portugal post :P) were stoked to be heading for 4 nights of sun, sand and Greek food!!


First glimpse of Greek islands!

We got in late at night so there was really only time for dinner. We stayed at the Koala Hotel (which I almost didn’t want to stay in because of the name) but it was a great deal for a triple share room (a bit hard to find – and Greece doesn’t really seem to ‘do’ hostels, kind of like Bali because the hotels are so cheap to begin with) but the hotel ended up being great. It was run by a couple of Aussie-born Greek blokes who were really helpful, friendly and down to Earth. They recommended a place for dinner down the road so off we went. About half an hour later (after walking down a mildly dodgy feeling street with no street lights – a sign of austerity?) we were seated at a table covered in different meals to share, cold beer/wine and good company J

first dinner

From the moment we landed it was just so nice to be in Greece. It was definitely in the top 3 of my favourite countries (which rotated frequently between Greece, Croatia and Germany). The air was warm, no cardigan necessary, able to wear a dress without leggings, a nice breeze, not too humid… perfect beer and swimming weather. And speaking of swimming, if we leaned out over the balcony of our (air-conditioned … haven’t used that stuff in a while) hotel room (probably a bit further than was safe) we could see the beach J The landscape was quite arid and really reminded me of Australia, gum trees included! We got a good look at it on a bus ride from the airport in the centre of the island of Kos to Kos town on the north-east end.

One of the strangest things about this place though is that it was almost mini-Maastricht… but with better weather. The first sign that we were actually heading to a Dutch island was the abundance of Dutch people on the plane and airport bus. Other signs included restaurant menus in Greek and Dutch (not English), signs to hire things in Dutch, Greek waiters greeting restaurant guests in fluent Dutch and… the biggest giveaway… the bicycles on every corner (including signs in Dutch to hire them!). We were told by locals that because the island is mostly flat and has always had a pretty good cycle network with good bike paths etc its become quite the popular destination with the Dutchies. Still it was enough of a change of scenery for us!

our bikes and the scenery

Day 342 – (Thurs) Our first day was spent taking it pretty easy, starting with an orientation walk of the area, from our hotel down to the beach, along the water and around to a marina. Dotted around Kos town are random areas of cordoned off old ruins and of course the cycle paths. It was quite hot already though so we made a bee-line back to the hotel to hire bikes nearby which made getting around a whole lot easier – and more fun. There was a great breeze as we whizzed back to the marina for a bit more of a wander and a look around some of the squares, stalls etc. The rest of the day was spent lunching and lounging on the beach swimming and (unfortunately for me) getting a ridiculous tan line that lasted the rest of the trip! We found a restaurant/bar on the beach with free lounge chairs and indulged in cocktails (Nakita, do you like piiiiina colaaaaadas?!), Greek nibblies and dipping into the water right in front of us. By June the water had time to warm up a little but it was still quite fresh. Eventually we cycled back to the hotel and, after a quick stop off at the shop for more bottled water (lucky it was cheap but I wouldn’t suggest drinking the water on most greek islands, very salty… as is the sea water around the place – think crispy skin after coming out of the water!) we headed out for dinner again. The plan was to avoid the really touristy places, anywhere with pictures of food or a hawker out the front (or definitely both) was out of the question. Eventually we found an unassuming place one building back from the main road along the beach with a nice waiter who didn’t hassle us – perfect. The food was really good, nice and authentic, well cooked and fresh. I had moussaka and the mascot of our trip – the obligatory Greek salad.

our view for lunch

a dip after lunch

Day 343 - (Fri). This whole day was spent on the water. We’d booked a trip the day before on a sailing boat to head out to three nearby islands. A 9am start and it was already hot under the sun (unfortunately this meant a bit more unwitting sunburn – it seems my Australian sun radar was a bit out of whack… I figured they have Ozone up there, she’ll be right… not so much … but lesson learnt for the next trip to, Croatia, I assure you). After about an hour and a half of relaxing cruising out into open waters we came to the first stop, Platti. Bascially it was a little cove with a flat white sand beach and some really cute classic blue and white buildings a bit back from the beach. We didn’t have long, about a half hour by the time we got down from the boat but it was enough for a quick dip. Back on the boat it was time for lunch – everything you’d expect; lamb skewers, rice, salad, tzatziki, bread etc etc. Was delicious and clearly home made (well, boat made… but with lurv :P). The crew on the boat were great; our captain Georgie, we called him, his wife and daughter in the kitchen by the looks of it, and … the entertainment… Kosta, the boat clown effectively. This guy was trouble – typical cheeky Greek sense of humour and only took it too far on a few occasions :P

relaxing on the boat


our 'mate' Goergie!

After lunch we puttered off to Kalymnos where it was SO stinking hot that all we could do was find the nearest geltai shop to the boat and sit in the shade and watch the harbour. It was bloody good gelati tho (I spotted an old guy nearby who had a fresh looking fruit salad and gelati so I copy-catted that). After about an hour it was back on the boat (where we were treated to some home-made delicious Greek donut thingies OMG SO good!) and then full-speed ahead for the last stop – Pserimos. This was a tiny little alcove where we could jump off the boat into the water (which I convinced Nakita to do and then we both paid for it for a while after with water up our nose!) and then just walk up around the bay or explore a little church above the rocks. Somehwere along the way we also saw some dolphins and Gorgie slowed down for us to have a look. The best part of the whole day though was simply the warm wind in our hair and that reassuring motion of the boat over teeny waves. Eventually it was time to head back to Kos Town. Dinner that night (we’d worked up an appetite swimming and lazing around all day remember!) was on the edge of a lovely little plaza in the middle of the old town. Really we just ordered a collection of starters; dolmades, lentil patties, the obligatory Greek salad etc. I was surprised to find I like dolmades these days (maturing taste buds and all that). We sat in the warm evening air with a light breeze and watched little kids run around the square. The only downer of the night was the waitress telling us we were ordering too much! Ha! We told her we were on holidays and we’d eat what we wanted!!

Nakita and I celebrating surviving jumping off the boat

'hanging out' at the front of the boat

Platti

Kalymnos

Pserimos

Day 344 – (Sat) Our last full day in Kos and we decided to hit up the hot springs for which the island is apparently famed. They did not disappoint. Usually I imagine hot springs these days to be concrete pools dug out of the ground with hot water being pumped in, completely commercial and charmless. What we were greeted with when we arrived at the beach (after a great bus ride up a slowly ascending hill, affording amazing views of the cobalt blue sea and swish resorts on the hillside) was literally some sand dug out of the ground, a few big rocks placed on the sea-side of the dug-out to stop the ocean waves coming in and a trickle of really, really hot water coming in from the cliff side up the beach. There was a smell of sulphur immediately and we could see little bubbles rising in the water. Foolishly, our first entrée into the hot spring was in the hottest side, where the fresh hot water comes in, so it was really bloody hot. It took quite a while to adjust and was honestly pretty uncomfortable at first, but after we adjusted I could see how it felt nice. Later we discovered if you sit on the ocean side, a little of the cooler ocean water seeps in and makes the temperature more bearable. The rest of the afternoon was spent lying on a sun lounger under a palm frond umbrella, reading a magazine, a quick dip and then back to the bus stop. It was a steep walk back up to the main road from the beach below, and at the top we were greeted by a real mountain goat… who decided he wanted to eat my shorts!! Thankfully an ice cream vendor was on hand to deftly shoo him away :S

Hot springs


Cliffs on way to hot springs


Goat trying to eat my shorts!! (and a great shot of dodgy arm tan line!!)

Our original plan for the day had been to cycle to the beach, but we soon changed our mind when we found out how steep it was to get up there. By the time we got back on the bus to Kos Town it felt like 100C (I think my aussie internal thermometer had been turned down during a Dutch winter and I was feeling it a bit more than usual). Sitting on the bus also gave us the chance to take in the views.

The evening consisted of a swim in the hotel pool and cocktail hour with one of the hotel guys, Angelo, who made us cocktails! He also recommended a place for dinner, a little way down the road along the beach in the opposite direction to the Marina where he said locals eat. We cycled there and pulled up to a place that was LITERALLY on the water – as in there was our table, a little wooden fence and then the beach. We could see Turkey out in the distance (Kos is only 20 minutes from Bodrum on the Turkish east coast) and there was, again, a lovely breeze. Don’t know about the locals eating there though – we ended up at a table next to some Dutch people we met coming off the plane! Again there was plenty of food for dinner; the highlight of my meal – a piece of chargrilled octopus that looked like a hand!

Angelo's crazy cocktails

My octopus 'hand'

Day 345 – (Sun) Time to go home. I started our last day with a little solo cycle in the opposite direction for a bit of an explore. Later we lunched at the Museum Restaurant, recommended to us by a fellow exchanger where again we ordered A LOT and again the waiter told us it was too much. But we showed him! Lunch was followed by a stroll in the Marina to buy a few paintings as souveniers and then a sweaty walk to the airport bus stop with our luggage. Once on the plane it was announced  that we would be stuck on the tarmac for 20 minutes. But it was OK, we passed the time staring at a gorgeous baby and his equally gorgeous Greek dad (flying solo) in the row in front!

Arriving back in Brussels “le shit-hole” Charleroi Airport (as we have now dubbed) it, we entered into the nerve-wracking process of procuring a hotel in jumbled English-French to take us to the expectedly dodgy hotel we’d booked for the night seeing our flight arrived at 10.45pm and there were no trains running back to Maas til the next day. We had low expectations of the place given its reviews but I was actually pleasantly surprised. Don’t get me wrong, it was VERY basic and a bit grimy, with that faint smell of cigarette smoke that never really goes away. But it was generally clean, the guy at the front desk was surprisingly helpful and it had wifi and even breakfast included (those chocolate croissants I have now decided I love!).

Day 346 – (Mon) Up early and back to Maas by train. While other parts of beligum are really picturesque (think Bruges of Antwerp) but Brussels and especially  its outerlying areas really aren’t. Most of the time you just feel unsafe and dirty! Although I am going to miss good train travel….

Day 319 - Honestly, this country....

.... never ceases to amaze me.

Yesterday I sat in the sun in the garden out the back of our guesthouse flat studying. The mercury hit 30C at some point during the day (truly amazing for the Netherlands and about bloody time!). At some points I even broke a sweat (although I wasn't quite to the point of wanting air-conditioning like some of the other foreigners here!). Nonetheless, the point was it was hot... Today I wake up ... and it's RAINING! and I mean really raining. So far the maximum temp has been 14C and I got absolutely drenched cycling home.

                              
Felt like this was me on the way home today! 


<= Me yesterday in the garden (happy snap by the housemate Emma)


I honestly can't believe it - a 16C turnaround in less than 24 hours. And we're not talking a 'cool change' like we get back home. This was literally "Netherlands: summer one day, winter the next". And remember this is one day from the official start of Summer. It did get me thinking though about other things that surprise/amaze/dumbfound/disappoint/confuse me about the Netherlands, so here's a few:

• People here walk their dogs ALL the time - seriously, day or night - and in whatever weather. So of course I saw people in ponchos walking their dogs today as I was cycling home against gale force rain. And the other night Emma (my housemate, Sydney) and I came home from the pub about 1.30am and a young girl was walking her dog!
• No fly-screens on the windows: even though they have just as many bugs as the next country here it seems the Dutch haven't heard of fly-screens :( which means no opening windows on muggy nights (its MUCH more humid here than back home) or playing mozzie hunter before bed
• Non-poisonous spiders: even if they get inside, apparently none of the insects here are poisonous. I really found this hard to believe when I was first told - that their spiders aren't poisonous. But enough people have told me now that I suppose I have to believe it. Coming from Oz though it just doesn't seem possible!
• Pre-cut food: it seems the Dutch are as time-poor as any other western nation but what really gets me is the staggering variety of pre-cut, pre-washed, pre-flavoured food you can get at the supermarket. In addition to the usual freezer pre-cut chips or pizza, there is a literal WALL of refrigerated peeled, cut potatoes at our supermarket in EVERY shape, size, flavour and filling.Our Dutch teacher said most Dutch families don't like to spend a lot of time cooking during the week. "Choose and cook" fridges like this are common:
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• Dairy products: there's also about a bajillion types of yoghurt/drinking youghurt/cream/milk etc variations in the dairy section. Lot's i've never heard of obviously, like Vla, Slagroom, just plain Room or Kwark... (whatever that is)!
•  
• Missing words: language-wise, one of the funniest things is the missing words. For example an English speaker would say "I play tennis" or "I use the computer", but in an effort, perhaps, to be efficient the Dutch simply turn the activity into a verb. So, one "tennisses" or "computers", or my favourite, "I internet" - sounds like Apple's next venture.
• Mutant words: the Dutch also have the LONGEST words I've ever seen (except maybe in German). Apparently, in many cases it is okay to join a number of words together in the Dutch language to describe something, and there's really no limit to the length of the combination. Perhaps they were the true inventors of 'supercalafrajilisticexpialadocious' (or however you spell it!)
• One word for too many words!: one last thing about language, it seems the English have a lot more words for things compared to the Dutch. There are a number of little words in Dutch that cover so many meanings, depending on context, which can make it really hard to make sense of a sentence. For example, the word 'nog' can mean yet, still, besides, further etc etc.

And this brings me to a brief piece of other news - my narrowly passed Dutch course. I'm sure I complained to a number of you that I was surely going to fail my Dutch course... but I managed to scrape through. While I now feel after 28 weeks of lessons once a week (and admittedly VERY little homework in between) I can understand about 60/70% of everything I read and hear (ie. government letters, announcements at the train station, speaking to the lady at the supermarket counter) my speaking and writing is not so flash. My grammar in particularly is atrocious, which was pretty embarrassing to discover given my profession of choice! The problem is I tend to think in English and then put Dutch words into the English grammatical structre - which is COMPLETELY different to Dutch. For example, the verb always comes at the end so when in English you say "I went to the beach with my friends", in Dutch you would say "I to the beach with my friends went". Hence I messed it up a lot!

However I saw the classes as much as a cultural experience as anything else - a chance to ask our Dutch teacher questions about the country and lifestyle as well as the language, and figure out some of the oddities of this place. As a result I feel a little bit more like a resident and less like a tourist. It's also a humbling experience to realise how hard it is to learn another language, let alone become fluent - and therefore makes me appreciate the across-the-board English skills of almost Dutch person!

So before I go, some funny Dutch words or phrases from our last few classes:

• Kater = hangover (NB: overgeven = vomit!)
• de voedselvergifiging (yes, that's a real word!! an example of those combination-long-as-you-like words) = food poisoning
• magnetron = microwave (i just love this one cos it sounds so futuristic :P)
• Jeetje = aw geez! or oh gosh!
• borsten = breasts!, or elleboog = elbow, or billen = bottom :P
• Trouwens = "by the way"
• handschoenen = gloves (literally, handshoes)
• beha = bra
• ontzettende = very, very, very, very, very, very, very .... you get the point, it's a very emphatic word!
• ging = going, which isn't anything very interesting but I just think its a cute dutch word, only missing one letter and it could be English
• zadelpijn = saddle pain, as in when one rides one's bike !!!
• zonde van de tijd = "waste of time"
• paars = purple & geel = yellow

So, a very random selection, but some of the quirkier things that came up in class in the last few weeks.
For now though, it's back to the study of "theorising terrorism" - the course that got me excited about coming to UCM in the first place. Only about one and a half months til I'm home now! I hope the weather gets its act together - I need to get a tan to make you all jealous on my return!

Days 286 & 287 - Right Royal Weekend

286 (Fri) Konninginnenacht
The entire world (it seemed) was anticipating a certain royal event today – the wedding of British Prince William and (commoner!) Kate Middleton. But in fact the Netherlands throws a major royal party on this day EVERY year – Queen’s Night (or Konninginnenacht). This then leads to Queens Day the next day (or Konninginnedag). Basically it’s the equivalent of Australia Day back home, but on crack! The Dutch really do love their royal family, evidenced by enormous posters of their Queen, Beatrix, on a number of buildings. (She also makes a royal visit to a couple of towns each year.) Generally though, its just a chance to be patriotic and have some fun!


Givin' some lurv to Queen B


Queen B looking over the crowds at Museumplein


More Dutch patriotism

We decided to spend the night and day in Amsterdam where, unsurprisingly, the biggest party happens. Now, Aussies do green and gold for our national day, we might hit the beach, have a BBQ and possibly sing or listen to the anthem at some point during the day. The Dutch do Orange – the kind of Orange prison gangs wear (and indeed there were revellers dressed in orange prison-style overalls!). In fact, they get dressed up in ALL SORTS of costumes, face paint, accessories (think glitterbril [glitter glasses], orange afro wigs, blow up crown hats etc etc.) and run around in the streets dancing and singing to infectiously cheery Dutch tunes (or Dutch covers of popular songs, which are hilarious) and of course drinking and eating all things Dutch (think frites met mayo, broodje wurst [basically a hot dog], Heineken, suikerspin [fairy floss] etc.) And so that’s pretty much what we did!


The ubiquitous blow up crowns



FRITES!


BIER!

The train ride up on Friday night was mildly hectic/full, but not as bad as we had expected considering the hordes descending on Amsterdam. We only put on about half of our crazy Oranje get-up for the first night and headed into the club district where it was nuts – outdoor stages, people dancing on top of tram stops and on tram tracks(!) and generally Dutch orange madness. We also visited a shots celebrating the occasion with drinks such as ‘Dutch Delight’ and ‘Pumpkin Pie’ (it’s orange...). The real excitement  though came when a drunk Dutch guy tried (only half-jokingly, but thankfully unsuccessfully) to throw me in a canal!


A taste of the Queen's night decorations all over the city


SO many balloons!

287 (Sat) Konninginnedag
Our Queen’s Day started about midday. Out the window of the bus on the way into town we started to get an idea of what to expect as whole families rode past, decked out in range, flags and feather bowas flying being their bikes! The event spreads out over the whole city, with street parties and markets, music blaring from everywhere, food and drink stalls, event stages and park picnics. Everyone’s in a pretty good mood, but we noticed there weren’t a lot of kids around. Another observation was that its most certainly a Dutch event - while there were quite a few tourists, and we saw the odd tourist group or bus, the event is definitely a local thing. We were always surrounded by Dutch accents and language, the music was mostly in Dutch etc etc. And in typical Amsterdam style, not only were the streets PACKED but so were the canals. Quite a few people hire canal boats for parties, which caused major traffic jams under some of the canal bridges. There’s no real point to the day other than to have fun, be Dutch, wear Orange and maybe contemplate the royal family. It was also great for touristy photos. And you’re all aware how much I love an excuse to get dressed up!


An idea of the crowds ... are you sensing a colour scheme? :P


Canal traffic jam!


Amsterdam through Oranje coloured glasses!

The only downside to the day was getting home. After a day in the sun, drinking and dancing, we were knackered but it took about two hours longer than usual to get home by train because of the masses of people using the system. But nothing a good sleep in the next morning couldn’t fix. So now I feel like I’ve experienced the two most Dutch events during my exchange – Carnival (which I still haven’t blogged about now that I think about it! Eek – stay tuned) and Queen’s Day.... so I suppose you can just call me Lauren van Oranje!



(P.S. photo credits to Kathleen, Katie, Nakita and Emma, as I FORGOT my camera for this one!!)

Day 151 - my butt, my butt, i can't feel my butt!!!

Observations: Snow is sneaky and tricky... it wants you to fall and when you do, the illusion it has created that its soft and white and fluffy is shattered by its compacted, icy reality!!!

Mistakes: falling off my bike in the snow ... straight onto my butt! (didn't see that one coming did ya?!) not catching the bus in the monring (but it wasn't snowing then!!), not reading the weather forecast which said "snow falls on Thursday" until I got home... after falling :(

Mini victories: not breaking anything (me, the bike or the laptop in my backpack!!), not too many people seeing, not swearing too much, getting back on the 'horse' and making it home in one piece ... eventually!

Dutch I've learned: lot's apparently! had our final test for Dutch class tonight, an aural. actually went really well. I paired up with another girl from australia and we just tried to fit as many funny words and lame jokes in dutch as we could into our 10 minute dialoge. success! we zijn uitstekend!

Days 85 to 89 - Officially livin' the Dutch life

Day 85- (Mon) Yes, Adelaide is a proper city!
Had a meeting at Maastricht town hall this morning to officially apply to live here (bit late now right?! but that's how the system goes). I had to register within a couple of weeks of getting here, then they set you up with this meeting. You have to show your passport, rental agreement, uni forms etc, they even wanted my birth certificate but let it slide given the hassle it would be for just 10 months here (but if I ever come back I must bring it, the lady tells me in an ominous tone!). So we fill out the forms and she gets to the bit that says "Adelaide" and queries "Is this a place?" HA! I nearly burst out laughing ... all anyone knows about Australia is Sydney!! Where's Norman from Eindhoven immigration and his recognition of the Adelaide Crows when I need him!!?? Anywho, I'm now (after more than 2 months here) officially allowed to live here (even if I come frm Adelaide :P). To celebrate this status I went and bought Milo ... yes MILO!! found it in, of all places, an Asian supermarket. Has what appears to be a Chinese Olympic swimmer on the can instead of Kieran Perkin's look-a-like like at home but has that same 'just like Nesquik only crunchy' taste :) mmmmm
Also, on my way out of he town hall to buy said Milo, I passed a bridal party and was aghast to seethe bride wearing ... BLACK!!! (And no Jess, just cos a European does it does not mean its acceptable!!!)

Day 86 (tues) - Totally a Dutch student
Went to a Dutch girl's house for dinner tonight after class (although we ate tortellini, not anything particularly dutch). Then I went to my first hippy student open-mic night. The uni holds free-for-all performance nights for arty students in the common room. Cheap vego food on sale, cool kids with guitars, make-shift drums, AMAZING voices and even a girl who did fire twirling (and almost set her stockings on fire in the proces!). Made me annoyed at myself for giving up the piano... :(

Day 87 (wed) - Cashing in on the student life
Scored a multitude of old-school kitchen goods from an op-shop this avo for the miserly sum of 6 euro! then scrounged back 1.50 euro from the supermarket by returning plastic and beer bottles - e-YES! Returned for (i think) the third Zumba class this evening - we're totally pros now, we gots da mooooves LOL

Day 88 (thurs) - Telling times
Tackled the overwhelming topic of financial crises in history class today, presenting me with an opportunity to brag about Australia being the "only country to avoid recession"! Later, in Dutch class we handed in our first written assignment - a whole 50 words! (I later received a grade of 4 and was DEVASTATED ... until I found out the score was out of 5, not 10!) We also learned to tell the time in this class but its so weird in Dutch ... if its for example 8.30, we say half past 8 (as in how many minutes it is past the turning of the current hour) but the Dutch say its half 9... (as in there's half an hour to go until it turns to the next hour) SO confusing!!! although its fun and knowing these little bits of Dutch is helping out day-to-day, I've come to the conclusion that if I ever want to have a proper conversation with a Dutch person I'm going to have to put a lot more effort into studying the language ... like grammar for example, I hardly know how to describe grammar processes in English, let alone Dutch! But after a day of bragging about Oz and all things Dutch, I ended this 24hour period at an international student dinner. Basically everyone brings a plate from their homeland and we share (again with the communism!) I made ANZAC biscuits (but with stroopwaffle syrup bc I couldn't find Golden Syryp, so they were kind of Dutchy ANZAC biscuits!), some other Aussie girls cut up sponge cake and dipped it in choc and coconut to make lamingtons (YUM), but the craziest thing was this blood pudding from Sweden. It was really, really dark red, almost brown, sliced thinly and baked or fried or something (and obviously is made from, among other things, animal blood). Its a bit of a Swedish specialty apparently, tastes really bland and floury but they put this kind of tart jam on it... (I tried a small bite... :S) Unfortunately it totally looked like chocolate cake ... and this meant more than one person was duped to "try some chocolate cake for dessert" and took a BIG mouthful... eep! To round off my multicultural education I learned two swedish words tonight - "tjnixen" (or something like that) means "howdy" and "schkrinkly" (totally not the spelling but roughly how it sounds) means "crinkly" as in a crinkly shirt ... useful hey?!

Day 89 (fri) - Rookie mistakes
So I got ripped off at the market this morning ... found this awesome dip store and asked for a small amount of dip and some stuffed baby capsicums, but there were no price signs and the language barrier prevented verbal clarification so I was left with a 12 euro bill (about 18 aussie dollars!!!). Later on that night, we went to a new little beer bar and (rookie mistake no. 2) asked the bar tender to just bring us some nice beers... we ended up with one that tasted like a mix of rocket fuel and anniseed, two that were 10+ % alcohol and another that was like sweet/sour cherry medicine!!! on the upside the place had the cutest bathroom, with rubber ducky patter on the bright blue toilet seat! In between mistake one and two I managed to pop over to Belgium for dinner - yes that's right, ANOTHER COUNTRY for dinner (really we just cycled up the road to the house of a German girl I met in introduction, who lives just over the border). Had to stop in at my place between cycling from there to the bar to meet other friends bc it had rained while we were in having dinner and I'd sat on a wet bicycle seat... (I may spent 10 or so minutes blowdrying my butt! don't judge!!) And then, I am proud to report, I cycled all the way to town holding an umbrella over my head ... doing about 2km an hour! As the title of this post says, I'm a real Dutchy now!

Observations: Brie cheese is especially smelly in Europe! And supermarket-brand wine for like $4AU is actually drinkable, as chocolate for 50cAU is edible.
Also, I've realised cycling time is like "loo time"... gives you time to think. Unlike catching the bus at home where I can read the paper or do uni work, and unlike the car bc there's no radio, you just have time to think (and watch the road of course) but I come up with some of my best (if I can call it that) blog material on two wheels.

Mistakes: See above!
Mini victories: Cycling with an umbrella ringing a bell...?

Dutch I've learned: "laat maar" = "never mind"
"Ja, ik wil" = literally translated means "yes, I want" but is apparently the Dutch version of "I do"!

Days 75 to 77 - Food, glorious fooooood!

Day 75 - (Fri) A (verbal) taste of home
Crunch time -today's the day to perform a poem in poetry class. I've chosen Mulga Bill's Bicycle by Banjo Paterson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulga_Bill's_Bicycle), about a bloke's awkward (to say the least) first bike ride, in a bid to give an Australian perspective on this country's most-loved pastime. Went down well. I'd forgotten in fact how infectious that kind of Bush poetry can be and was reminded of primary school poetry recitals :P Although, my classmates were grateful for the "actions" that came along with my performance which helped with interpreting my "thick Australian accent"!
That night, a celebration, at Nakita's "new" unit (she moved upstairs, most likely to get away from the mouse taunting her in the unit downstairs!) Twas also the debut of the mini oven - a kitchen appliance we've all been missing badly. Kita spotted one at the store up the road and now its the latest fad in the guesthouse - we've all got one of the microwave sized wonders. Yo don't realise how much you miss grilled-cheese-topped pasta bakes and fresh baked muffins until you're deprived of them for months...

Day 76 - (Sat) My very own hot-box
So of course this morning I went to the shop first thing and bought my own oven!

Day 77 - (Sun) Brunch communist-style
Was a regular Sunday morning spread. All the girls gathered at Andra's for the mst extravigant student brekkie - each bringing a few things to contribute and sharing in cooking duties. Unsurprisingly, I was in charge of pancakes. Katie brought a whole boody tropical harvest (fresh from the market - pineapple, melon, even mango mmm) and of course we had waffles with chocolate spread (for about an 18th of the price we paid in Bruges). Also, the Dutch are fond of what we Aussie's would call fair bread, for breakfast. Except their chocolate sprinkles actually taste like chocolate, bigger than ours, and more velvety mmmm
Stuffed full, I had planned to take part in a uni excursion to a professional Sand Castle competition being held about an hour away by train - but the trip was cancelled last minute :( So instead, I took myself off to the movies, solo .... bad idea ... the only flick showing was "going the distance", a movie about a couple dating long distance ... hrm. Only thing that ameliorated my depression afterwards was chuckling at the thought of the bloke sittng about 4 seats away from me, about my age, also watching this chick flick by himself!

Observations: There is too much poetry out there to ever read ... and only half of it makes any sense to me!
Mistakes: Watching a long-distance rom-com by myself while in a long-distance relationship, half way around the world!
Mini victories: Manging not to cry in said movie!
Dutch I've learnt: "Ik weet 't niet" = "I don't know" (new favourite phrase in class!)
"Kunt u mij zeggen waar de WC is?" = "Can you tell me where the toilet is?" (I should learn this one in all languages!)