First off, let me introduce myself. My name is Matthew Schulz and I am currently studying abroad at The Hague University in the Netherlands with Eric Tandrian and DeSean Jackson. It has been a stressful first week here with many ups and downs. But, I think we are finally starting to get the hang of things around here (and catch up on our sleep)! Transportation was our biggest hurdle starting off. We walk almost everywhere but when we do take a train or tram, it is difficult figuring out how to get from point a to point b. We picked up on it pretty fast though. Walking here is MUCH more dangerous than in the states. What’s so weird is that when crossing the street the cars will stop when you walk out in front of them but the bikes won’t…and bikes are everywhere! We have almost been hit by a biker several times already. The class schedules are pretty confusing to figure out as well. They don’t have a self-explanatory registration like we are fortunate enough to have at UofL so don’t take it for granted! But, thankfully, after many exchanged emails with Ms. Goatley (sorry for pestering you!) our schedules should be complete.
One of my biggest concerns coming here was the food situation. I am a very picky eater so I was afraid that if I didn’t like the food I would starve! It has actually turned out to be quite the opposite. The food is AMAZING. We have already tried dutch pancakes, boterballs (meatballs), and the most amazing apple pie I have ever had den-haag-1-089.JPG! Our favorite food so far though is turkish food. They make a kip doner, which is kind of like pita bread stuffed with chicken and whatever else you want with it. They serve it with french fries and a special dipping sauce that they call mayonnaise (not the same mayonnaise as the in the US) and it is sooooo good. Plus, it is very cheap! We also had a fun time trying to figure out what we were buying at the grocery store because everything was in dutch. When we cooked tonight, we almost poured a sauce that we thought was Alfredo on our spaghetti. Thankfully, our neighbor stopped by and told us that it was actually Buttermilk..That would have been interesting!
We have already bought plane tickets to London, Milan, and Sweden and plan on travelling a lot by train. We traveled to Amsterdam this past weekend and were fortunate enough to meet a local that showed us around the city. It was nice not having to look at a map every five minutes! We visited the Anne Frank House, which was amazing as you could probably imagine. It was neat seeing the actual diaries as well as many of the other artifacts she wrote about. This weekend we are going to visit somewhere but have absolutely no plans as to where that might be. I guess we will decide where to go at the train station!
That is it for now! It is time to hit the sack!
-Mateo
To be continued….