HOLLAND!

hey everyone!
i finally got my ass in gear to start up this blog! should make it easier to let u all know what im up to and show some pictures! holland is great so far! its still gonna take some gettin used to since its of course VERY different than canada. i think im really gonna like it here tho... its so pretty and the people are great! and i already see there is more to this country than the windmills, tulips, cheese, wooden shoes, and soft drug laws!

my trip here went quite smoothly and i arrived at schipol airport wide-eyed and beyond tired! I got picked up by martijn, who is dutch and lives in a small villiage here in holland. we drove there in about 20 mins which looked SO far away on the map! wow this country is SMALL! they say you can drive across the whole country in 3 hours!! - that'll give u an idea of how small it really is! the populaton of the netherlands is about 17 million people, so as u could imagine, people live very close! my city (utrecht) is very pretty and its the 3rd largest city in holland with about 250,000 people... 1/5 of which are students! so its a good crowd and an sweet nightlife!.. pubs EVERYWHERE and at most that we have gone to u can get a glass of heineken or grolsch for about 2 euros ($3).

anyways, martijn's family invited me to stay at their house that first night since my room wasnt ready. it was nice that i didnt have to figure out how to take the train from amsterdam to utrecht (25mins), then find a hostel. they were the cutest dutch family ever and made me a big dutch meal (potatoes, this traditional meat sausage thing and salad - with tons of mayo of course).

im starting to settle in here now... the house is small but all newly renovated and really cute! it has 5 rooms, a bathroom and a kitchen. i have a great room with a bed, closet, sink, chair, table, tv/dvd AND a lil private balcony which is really nice:) i'm excited for the warmer weather to come, so i can sit out there! i have 3 flatmates so far... 2 girls from france (not students.. here working) and an indonesian guy that ive only seen once. we have another girl moving in on feb 19. i made some good friends during the orientation weekend... people from france, belgium, spain, finland, south africa, hungary, germany, austria, usa, etc. they are all tons of fun and we had a blast at all the parties and events.

on my 3rd day here, i bought a bike! here, everyone here rides a bike... they are all super ugly, old looking bikes. they look like bikes that ur grandmother would love and probably owned when she was 12. they are heavy and most have a basket and one of those small benches across the back where a friend can sit or u can put groceries. i hear that the dutch learn to ride a bike before they learn to walk. we were joking today that they then probably learn to swim incase the dykes burst and the sea comes to flood the country! haha quite possible since most of this country is below sealevel. the bikes are ok tho! - the uglier the better since then they wont be stolen as fast. most of the time the lock for the bike is more expensive than the bike itself! its fun to ride, but i can never find where i parked since theres just thousands of bikes everywhere. they even have a bike parkade at my school... its so funny. i almost got a bike traffic ticket 2 days ago... a cop on a bike pulled me over and started yelling at me in dutch. im not exactly sure what i did wrong but i played the "im new to holland" card and got myself out of the 50 euro ticket! phew!

oh and school! (riiiight this is why im here in holland!) its good so far! i heard this school can be pretty unorganized tho and ive already begun to see that! they had me in the wrong program (communications, which should be international business) but now it should be all sorted out. im taking dutch language and culture, international economics, intercultural management, globalization, international marketing, and sustainable management (some are half semester courses). they all seem pretty good but learning dutch is the most fun so far!

next week we already get a week vacation :). me and 4 of my friends here have booked a flight to madrid, spain! it should be great! we are going for 5 days and got our return flight for about $150 cdn. i'll be nice to get out of this rainy weather and to finally use some of my spanish!

anyways things are going great! i love the country and the people and im finaly gettin settled in and used to the dutch lifestyle! i definatley found it hard to adjust for a few days since their culture is so so different. maybe it was because i thought they would be more like canadians, but it was a surprising culture shock! even more so than going to s.e. asia i think... maybe that's because since they look like me, i assume them to act like me. its really interesting! anyways, im missing all u guys back home and i hope things are good! leave a comment on here or email me (ln_saunders@hotmail.com) to lemme know whats goin on back there and keep me up to date! MISS YA! tot zeins! (bye!)

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