Nijmegen.... I'm so tired.
It's been a long, long, full, few days.
Working in reverse-chronological order:
I didn't really make it a big deal, so I only told the people I'm closer with that it was my birthday. Word traveled really fast, apparently though.
Happy B-day to me! I'm officially legal and 21 now. Woot. It's not like I haven't been pubcrawling here anyway, but it's nice to know I can do it in the states, right? All my friends in the Int'l student group sang me a loud "Happy Birthday" at a pub earlier tonight. It was sweet, and a little embarrassing. Everyone was very anxious to get me some sort of gift, most sufficed by wishing me a healthy, happy next year of life, but one of my flatmates gave me some Polish chocolate (which I'll be trying with coffee in the morning), and Anna, a Russian exchange girl gave me a Russian 10 bill.
Today we took a tour of Nijmegen, were shown some pubs, some historical buildings, and some useful stores. During the tour, I was talking with a girl from Portugal (Marisa) who was friends with me on Facebook. She said she was looking at my pictures, and noticed that I was a Lolita. She's an admirer of the fashion, and some of her friends are into it. That was pretty cool that she knew what it was, and knew enough to ask if I was a sweet or gothic lolita. She wants to see Paris (as do I) and want to check out the Harajuku store and the BTSSB together. A few other people want to go to Paris, too, so maybe that will be a weekend trip for us.
I still don't have a bike (which kind of sucks) but HOPEFULLY, if this girl pulls through, I'll have a bike tomorrow morning or possibly tomorrow night. Anyway, during/after the pub crawl, me, Brandon (a guy from Chicago), and another exchange student took the bus back to Lent, because we were pooped out by about 10pm.
(Aside: I live in Lent, not Nijmegen. Lent is across the river from the city, so it will take about 25min to get to class every morning. I hope my classes are in the afternoon. I have to bike across a big-ass bridge, and I don't want to do that very early in the morn.)
Last night was the most ridiculous thing, ever. Katja (a girl from Slovania; NOT Slovakia) and I walked home from the bar. Do you know how much a 25 min bike ride takes to walk? Apparently about 2.5 hours. It was cold. I almost started freaking out because I thought "fuck. It's the first goddamn night and I'm lost, and I'm going to die, and it's cold. I don't want to go running to my parent's B&B just because I can't find my way home." Luckily, we found a Dutch guy who was riding his bike in the opposite direction and asked him to tell us the way. He was really nice, and actually rode bike with us to the end of the bridge. As I don't have a bike, I had to ride on the back of his- my thighs still hurt from the metal bar rack. D: Katja already had a bike, but she was walking it because she can't balance with a person on back.
So anyway, we found home, freezing cold and still tipsy at 3:45am. About 4am I logged online and found that Preston was on Skype, and we ended up camming for an hour. I hadn't talked to him since I left the states. I was ecstatic to get to tell him about everything that's been going on, and to hear what's up with him. I ended up going to bed at 5am and getting up at 9am for more shopping and errands with my parents.
I'm meeting so many different people, and it's amazing. There are 4 of us from the United States, and of course we hang out a lot, but others are from EVERYWHERE. Slovania, Scotland, Germany, Spain, France, Poland, Russia, South Africa... to name a few. The only hard thing about it is learning names. Half of them I can't pronounce! I already know a few of the people I'll be going to class with, which is cool. I hope I have some biking partners! That 25min would be really boring without someone else around.
More pictures from Paris are up on my Facebook, along with a few pictures from Nijmegen. I'm sick of uploading them on Photobucket, because it takes for fucking ever. At least FB is faster, so I'll be posting pics there exclusively from now on.
Edit during writing blog: SCORE. The girl e-mailed me back about the bike. I'll be getting it from her before my first orientation meeting tomorrow. As of 9:30am I'll have a bike.
Working in reverse-chronological order:
I didn't really make it a big deal, so I only told the people I'm closer with that it was my birthday. Word traveled really fast, apparently though.
Happy B-day to me! I'm officially legal and 21 now. Woot. It's not like I haven't been pubcrawling here anyway, but it's nice to know I can do it in the states, right? All my friends in the Int'l student group sang me a loud "Happy Birthday" at a pub earlier tonight. It was sweet, and a little embarrassing. Everyone was very anxious to get me some sort of gift, most sufficed by wishing me a healthy, happy next year of life, but one of my flatmates gave me some Polish chocolate (which I'll be trying with coffee in the morning), and Anna, a Russian exchange girl gave me a Russian 10 bill.
Today we took a tour of Nijmegen, were shown some pubs, some historical buildings, and some useful stores. During the tour, I was talking with a girl from Portugal (Marisa) who was friends with me on Facebook. She said she was looking at my pictures, and noticed that I was a Lolita. She's an admirer of the fashion, and some of her friends are into it. That was pretty cool that she knew what it was, and knew enough to ask if I was a sweet or gothic lolita. She wants to see Paris (as do I) and want to check out the Harajuku store and the BTSSB together. A few other people want to go to Paris, too, so maybe that will be a weekend trip for us.
I still don't have a bike (which kind of sucks) but HOPEFULLY, if this girl pulls through, I'll have a bike tomorrow morning or possibly tomorrow night. Anyway, during/after the pub crawl, me, Brandon (a guy from Chicago), and another exchange student took the bus back to Lent, because we were pooped out by about 10pm.
(Aside: I live in Lent, not Nijmegen. Lent is across the river from the city, so it will take about 25min to get to class every morning. I hope my classes are in the afternoon. I have to bike across a big-ass bridge, and I don't want to do that very early in the morn.)
Last night was the most ridiculous thing, ever. Katja (a girl from Slovania; NOT Slovakia) and I walked home from the bar. Do you know how much a 25 min bike ride takes to walk? Apparently about 2.5 hours. It was cold. I almost started freaking out because I thought "fuck. It's the first goddamn night and I'm lost, and I'm going to die, and it's cold. I don't want to go running to my parent's B&B just because I can't find my way home." Luckily, we found a Dutch guy who was riding his bike in the opposite direction and asked him to tell us the way. He was really nice, and actually rode bike with us to the end of the bridge. As I don't have a bike, I had to ride on the back of his- my thighs still hurt from the metal bar rack. D: Katja already had a bike, but she was walking it because she can't balance with a person on back.
So anyway, we found home, freezing cold and still tipsy at 3:45am. About 4am I logged online and found that Preston was on Skype, and we ended up camming for an hour. I hadn't talked to him since I left the states. I was ecstatic to get to tell him about everything that's been going on, and to hear what's up with him. I ended up going to bed at 5am and getting up at 9am for more shopping and errands with my parents.
I'm meeting so many different people, and it's amazing. There are 4 of us from the United States, and of course we hang out a lot, but others are from EVERYWHERE. Slovania, Scotland, Germany, Spain, France, Poland, Russia, South Africa... to name a few. The only hard thing about it is learning names. Half of them I can't pronounce! I already know a few of the people I'll be going to class with, which is cool. I hope I have some biking partners! That 25min would be really boring without someone else around.
More pictures from Paris are up on my Facebook, along with a few pictures from Nijmegen. I'm sick of uploading them on Photobucket, because it takes for fucking ever. At least FB is faster, so I'll be posting pics there exclusively from now on.
Edit during writing blog: SCORE. The girl e-mailed me back about the bike. I'll be getting it from her before my first orientation meeting tomorrow. As of 9:30am I'll have a bike.