lovin' it...
I'm not in an internet cafe any more - thank God! - but not in my room either, since I still don't have Internet (grr...). We got our student cards through yesterday, and so I can actually now log in for free on any university computer, which is what I've been doing. Pretty good fun - all the facilities are really modern and really great - am enjoying them lots!
Have been going out and socialising EVERY SINGLE NIGHT since arriving - haven't stayed in once since the first night here... [time seems to have been strangely distorted by the lack of sleep/change from being lazy over all of the summer to actually having tons of stuff to do!]. And of course spending more and more money; but it's all good...
Brief[ish] summary:
[may be expanded on and split into backdated entries in the future, but don't hold your breath]
- Thursday: Orientation Day 1, then moving into room in the evening, with dinner at Natalie's with her parents (so not really an evening 'in')
- Friday: Orientation Day 2, in the afternoon - a boat trip on the canals/sailing lakes to the north of Leiden, after which I skipped a museum trip to go get the phone (as mentioned in the previous entry, with 'gli italiani', as the quartet is now officially known... Then there was a party in an incredibly warm pub-like place (which I didn't mention last time-apologies) - it was pretty good, though a little bit interrupted by N losing her leather jacket and going home (the jacket was subsequently recovered...)
- Saturday: lots of shopping (including bike/household items), followed by a pub crawl in the evening. Well, wasn't much of a pub-crawl, actually, since we went into 2 bars and one club-like place. But was still INCREDIBLY fun, especially the club-like place - again, quite warm (seems to be a feature of Dutch clubs somehow... though this one did, at least, have SOMETHING resembling air conditioning!)
- Sunday: day at the beach in Katwijk, only a short 7 km away - were originally going to cycle, but ended up driving with Jurst, who luckily has a car... Was v. nice, and met some random Dutch people, with whom we subsequently went out for a drink in the evening Got a really nice pizza takeaway for dinner, too, which was really cool - shared 2 ginormous pizzas between 10 people... :D :D :D
- Monday: got registered, did some more shopping, and hanging out/meeting people. Then spontaneously went to a cafe/bar-type-place [Einstein] in the evening with lots of people from the dorm, then tried to get into the club-type-place [Mas y Mas], but found it was closed on Mondays (silly people...). So went to another bar instead, the name of which I forget (something like Olo Roso..?), and hung out there for a bit... then went back to our house (well, cycled, me with Cody on the back - he weighing more than me, and me having consumed a generous portion of Koronas... but managed to do it without anyone falling off/breaking anything - though he got his nice jeans tangled in the back wheel, which wasn't great...) Anyway, hung out in my room for a fair while, was really good! Though I did end up staying up till about 6 doing all the washing-up/drying etc, it was mainly because I couldn't sleep as opposed to having too much to do...
Anyway, that was that. This morning, went to the Law Fac to try to get some books for the courses I need to take, but without much luck - they don't have them in at the moment, and for some courses there are no books. Which makes me think that the five subjects I'm going to be doing (I decided to take another, Law of European Public Procurement) won't be too much of a strain. Famous last words, perhaps?
Am now about to go subscribe for gym membership - it's going to be 42E for 3 months, which is WAY better than the L35/month I was paying for LA fitness - and hopefully I'll actually use this one more, since it's (conveniently) located in the student centre, which is itself on the way from where I'm living to the law fac (only about 5 minutes' walk, and a pleasant walk at that!). So it's all good!
Have also decided that after all the faff with accommodation, if keeping my room (which I absolutely LOVE) means having to share it with someone, I wouldn't actually mind sharing with Natalie - and she doesn't mind sharing with me, which is pretty good! We're going to try and talk to the head of the International Office at some point this week/next week to try and sort something out, but I doubt they'd be prepared to subsidise each of us for the E310/month for the rest of the year. Actually suggested the idea of me sharing a room with Natalie to my mother last night (they got back from France and are now frantically packing to leave for Iraq/Russia), and her reaction was (rather typically) "ok, but don't go around having children"... Will the woman never learn?!
Before that, though, will have to sort out both the rooms/inventories. The bloody useless pathetic housing company has yet to fix my lights/door of cupboard in the kitchen. Been trying to get hold of Mr Nicepants *v*, the caretaker person, but the useless man has no bloody lightbulbs! Oh, and actually need to get a key to the laundry room, as opposed to a second door key. Why I would want one of those, i don't know...
On a more serious note, see comments to this page for a good article conclusion I read on BBC news. Ah, the joy of the BBC News website!
Ok, should actually go before the gym closes or whatever... This updating business has taken me some 2 hours so far... :S
Take care all, and keep in touch!
N x
*^*: his name is actually Mooibroek, but translated from Dutch, 'mooi' is 'nice' and 'broek' is 'trousers', aka 'pants'... so it's not THAT random! and NOT because of the reason some of you may've been thinking about !
PS: definitely need more friends on LJ... Nat filled out this cool questionnaire-type-thing, and I couldn't possibly do it since I only had 3 people added as friends at the time... now have 5, so a bit better, but still not great!
Have been going out and socialising EVERY SINGLE NIGHT since arriving - haven't stayed in once since the first night here... [time seems to have been strangely distorted by the lack of sleep/change from being lazy over all of the summer to actually having tons of stuff to do!]. And of course spending more and more money; but it's all good...
Brief[ish] summary:
[may be expanded on and split into backdated entries in the future, but don't hold your breath]
- Thursday: Orientation Day 1, then moving into room in the evening, with dinner at Natalie's with her parents (so not really an evening 'in')
- Friday: Orientation Day 2, in the afternoon - a boat trip on the canals/sailing lakes to the north of Leiden, after which I skipped a museum trip to go get the phone (as mentioned in the previous entry, with 'gli italiani', as the quartet is now officially known... Then there was a party in an incredibly warm pub-like place (which I didn't mention last time-apologies) - it was pretty good, though a little bit interrupted by N losing her leather jacket and going home (the jacket was subsequently recovered...)
- Saturday: lots of shopping (including bike/household items), followed by a pub crawl in the evening. Well, wasn't much of a pub-crawl, actually, since we went into 2 bars and one club-like place. But was still INCREDIBLY fun, especially the club-like place - again, quite warm (seems to be a feature of Dutch clubs somehow... though this one did, at least, have SOMETHING resembling air conditioning!)
- Sunday: day at the beach in Katwijk, only a short 7 km away - were originally going to cycle, but ended up driving with Jurst, who luckily has a car... Was v. nice, and met some random Dutch people, with whom we subsequently went out for a drink in the evening Got a really nice pizza takeaway for dinner, too, which was really cool - shared 2 ginormous pizzas between 10 people... :D :D :D
- Monday: got registered, did some more shopping, and hanging out/meeting people. Then spontaneously went to a cafe/bar-type-place [Einstein] in the evening with lots of people from the dorm, then tried to get into the club-type-place [Mas y Mas], but found it was closed on Mondays (silly people...). So went to another bar instead, the name of which I forget (something like Olo Roso..?), and hung out there for a bit... then went back to our house (well, cycled, me with Cody on the back - he weighing more than me, and me having consumed a generous portion of Koronas... but managed to do it without anyone falling off/breaking anything - though he got his nice jeans tangled in the back wheel, which wasn't great...) Anyway, hung out in my room for a fair while, was really good! Though I did end up staying up till about 6 doing all the washing-up/drying etc, it was mainly because I couldn't sleep as opposed to having too much to do...
Anyway, that was that. This morning, went to the Law Fac to try to get some books for the courses I need to take, but without much luck - they don't have them in at the moment, and for some courses there are no books. Which makes me think that the five subjects I'm going to be doing (I decided to take another, Law of European Public Procurement) won't be too much of a strain. Famous last words, perhaps?
Am now about to go subscribe for gym membership - it's going to be 42E for 3 months, which is WAY better than the L35/month I was paying for LA fitness - and hopefully I'll actually use this one more, since it's (conveniently) located in the student centre, which is itself on the way from where I'm living to the law fac (only about 5 minutes' walk, and a pleasant walk at that!). So it's all good!
Have also decided that after all the faff with accommodation, if keeping my room (which I absolutely LOVE) means having to share it with someone, I wouldn't actually mind sharing with Natalie - and she doesn't mind sharing with me, which is pretty good! We're going to try and talk to the head of the International Office at some point this week/next week to try and sort something out, but I doubt they'd be prepared to subsidise each of us for the E310/month for the rest of the year. Actually suggested the idea of me sharing a room with Natalie to my mother last night (they got back from France and are now frantically packing to leave for Iraq/Russia), and her reaction was (rather typically) "ok, but don't go around having children"... Will the woman never learn?!
Before that, though, will have to sort out both the rooms/inventories. The bloody useless pathetic housing company has yet to fix my lights/door of cupboard in the kitchen. Been trying to get hold of Mr Nicepants *v*, the caretaker person, but the useless man has no bloody lightbulbs! Oh, and actually need to get a key to the laundry room, as opposed to a second door key. Why I would want one of those, i don't know...
On a more serious note, see comments to this page for a good article conclusion I read on BBC news. Ah, the joy of the BBC News website!
Ok, should actually go before the gym closes or whatever... This updating business has taken me some 2 hours so far... :S
Take care all, and keep in touch!
N x
*^*: his name is actually Mooibroek, but translated from Dutch, 'mooi' is 'nice' and 'broek' is 'trousers', aka 'pants'... so it's not THAT random! and NOT because of the reason some of you may've been thinking about !
PS: definitely need more friends on LJ... Nat filled out this cool questionnaire-type-thing, and I couldn't possibly do it since I only had 3 people added as friends at the time... now have 5, so a bit better, but still not great!