Saturday, December 19, 2009
Leavin' on a train, Don't know when I'll be back again
So . . .It's saturday and I'm leaving Maastricht tomorrow and leaving the NL on monday. Oh My God. I can't believe this has gone by gone by so fast. This past week and the week before have been semi-interesting. Ok reallly interesting. So last friday was the ESN final dinner and after that we went to the highlander. I at that point already had about 4.5 pages of my essay for Intro to Psych. My topic? The Efficacy of Select Dopaminergic and SSRI treatments for cocaine dependence. OY. P.S. I picked it out myself. I had an exam on Monday and one on Tuesday. On Tuesday right after my exam, I came home and made fried rice for the week then finished my essay and emailed it off so I was done with everything tuesday. I had wanted to go out but I was too tired. Elsa fdyed my hair and we had a beer while watching my favorite episode of American Dad. On wednesday, after spending the day christmas shopping with Elsa, I went out and partied it up with Holly, Ruth, Fiona and Brian. I wasn't that drunk. . .actually I was kinda sober by the time we got to the Meta so i danced on the bar (I can't dance on the bar drunk! It requires coordination). Thursday I went shopping with Ally again and we bought helllla belgian chocolate (YUM!) after which we had a dinner in the third corridor so I made latkes because its apparently the only thing I can make. I was sooo full but it was hella good. I also sold my bike to Sophie so I had more money for booze. LOL. So Thursday I drank a few beers at the dinner then went to katies for a little bit to have some vodka and chill, then I brought the vodka back to the GH and proceeded to chase it with sangria. Hence I was wasted. We then went to the highlander and then the Meta but I got back really soon after because one of my friends got a little too drunky drunk drunk. Goodness gracious, I apparently have such a strong will, I sobered up at will even though I had had a ridiculous amount of booze. Last night I also got wasted, after spending much of the day packing/ at Pascal's goodbye brunch. I brought vodka and figured out how to make lemon drops (YUM! lemon vodka+lemon wedges covered in sugar). Then since I had bought more vodka just in case, I had more booze hence I had to drink it. We played a different kind of kings cup and went to the highlander when we got kicked out of the kitchen (fucking annoying security guards). At the highlander I had 2 or 3 more beers and tried to play Jenga with Davina and her boyfriend who had come to visit her and drive her home today (awww). I was kinda wasted. Tried to pole dance again. that was amusing. Went to the meta again and danced my ass off again. Got home at around 5 or 5:30 (went to sleep at 6am). Then since I though that we were having brunch at 11am, I woke up at 9am and showered and went to the kitchen. It was a mess so I cleaned it and then we had brunch croissants and turkish sausage, jam, nutella, hard boiled eggs, mashed potatoes, bacon YUMMM. The rest of today was spent basically freaking out and obsessively weighing my luggage to make sure it was ok on the weight. My carryon is heavier than my checked luggage i think. lol. Mainly because it has textbooks in it. Now I'm going to go out with the girls for a last cocktail in maastricht. In the morning, I'm checking out at 10:30 and Simon is driving me and Elsa to the train station and then when I get to the hotel, I'll update the blog. <3
Saturday, December 5, 2009
An Eventful Week ends in Procrastination
Last weekend, November 28th and 29th, I went to Belgium and had a bit of fun with ESN, the Erasmus Student Network. Which I found is chock-full of gorgeous men. This made me happy. On saturday, we left the guesthouse at 9am and went off to Brussels. At brussels all we did was pretty much walk around and see some cool buildings. Also, Ally danced with some kid. It was chill but I wasn't that impressed. We also stopped by a cafe where I got some calamari (yum!) and hot chocolate and on the way back to the bus we stopped by a supermarket where I proceeded to purchase 2 1.5L bottles of Belgian Beer, you know for pregaming . . .We then went to antwerp where we stopped by the Rubenshuis (a museum), then the the hostel, dropped off our stuff and went off for dinner and the bar. I drank (with a little help from Ally) one of the bottles of beer before we left the hostel to go to dinner. I got rather drunk at the bar but not as drunk as I expected from how much I drank: close to 3 liters of beer, tequila and some blue shots. I was really tired and falling asleep at the bar so i left earlier (around 2am) with Ally and passed out. The next day we went to Ghent and Brugge. In Ghent, we took a boat tour which was kinda interesting because we fit so many people into such a small boat and brugge was gorgeous: and we found a store with cheap delicious belgian chocolate. MWAHAHA. we then went back to maastricht, overall it was rather fun
December 30th I had class and I finished making my presentation for tuesday. On tuesday, I did my presentation on happiness data and a happiness study and was very relieved. I then proceeded to do something I can't remember at this time but I think it involved food. That night we also had thanksgiving dinner with the corridor and it was the night of cantus, a giant drinking game (basically) and I had wanted to go but tickets were sold out but luckily for me (and sad for matthew), he had a presentation on wednesday so he sold me his ticket. I got lost on the way there but eventually found it. I lost count of how much I drank there after the 8th or 10th beer, then I walked fiona and somebody else back to the guesthouse and decided to have some tequila while I was there and then proceed to the twee heeren. There I had another 3 beers.. . oy. It was a very good night. You can tell this by the fact that I left at 9ish pm on tuesday and didn't get home until 12pm wednesday.
Wednesday, we had a party committee meeting at Julia and Emma's house and I got lost going there, too because I'm amazing with directions. We had burritos!! Yummmmy. and we were semi-productive. Then I went home and did homework. Thursday night I stayed in and Friday night, I went to a hip hop party at the Make! student bar which was kinda fun but they pretty much only played old hip hop. However, they did play asher roth's "i love college" so I approve. Ally and I got into a norcal vs socal argument. (norcal won, btw because we have hyphy music) We were a little enthusiastic and I accidentally bumped into this hot German guy who proceeded to take a bunch of pictures with/of us. He was very hot and apparently Ally noticed him checking me out. LOL. After the bar closed, we were going to go somewhere with him and the other hot German guys but they left while I was getting my bike. Whatever, basically I accidentally got tipsy and when we thought we lost Greg, it turned out he was just in the smoking room the entire night. I then went home and fell asleep.
Today, i've done absolutely nothing productive even though I woke up at 12ish and left my room at 2 to go to the kitchen. I dunno, is doing laundry considered productive? Well Tomorrow night, I'm going to the christmas market in Aachen, Germany with the UCM excursion committee and I think its gonna be FUNNN. Anyways, now I'm gonna sort and put away my clean laundry and do some homework. . I guess
December 30th I had class and I finished making my presentation for tuesday. On tuesday, I did my presentation on happiness data and a happiness study and was very relieved. I then proceeded to do something I can't remember at this time but I think it involved food. That night we also had thanksgiving dinner with the corridor and it was the night of cantus, a giant drinking game (basically) and I had wanted to go but tickets were sold out but luckily for me (and sad for matthew), he had a presentation on wednesday so he sold me his ticket. I got lost on the way there but eventually found it. I lost count of how much I drank there after the 8th or 10th beer, then I walked fiona and somebody else back to the guesthouse and decided to have some tequila while I was there and then proceed to the twee heeren. There I had another 3 beers.. . oy. It was a very good night. You can tell this by the fact that I left at 9ish pm on tuesday and didn't get home until 12pm wednesday.
Wednesday, we had a party committee meeting at Julia and Emma's house and I got lost going there, too because I'm amazing with directions. We had burritos!! Yummmmy. and we were semi-productive. Then I went home and did homework. Thursday night I stayed in and Friday night, I went to a hip hop party at the Make! student bar which was kinda fun but they pretty much only played old hip hop. However, they did play asher roth's "i love college" so I approve. Ally and I got into a norcal vs socal argument. (norcal won, btw because we have hyphy music) We were a little enthusiastic and I accidentally bumped into this hot German guy who proceeded to take a bunch of pictures with/of us. He was very hot and apparently Ally noticed him checking me out. LOL. After the bar closed, we were going to go somewhere with him and the other hot German guys but they left while I was getting my bike. Whatever, basically I accidentally got tipsy and when we thought we lost Greg, it turned out he was just in the smoking room the entire night. I then went home and fell asleep.
Today, i've done absolutely nothing productive even though I woke up at 12ish and left my room at 2 to go to the kitchen. I dunno, is doing laundry considered productive? Well Tomorrow night, I'm going to the christmas market in Aachen, Germany with the UCM excursion committee and I think its gonna be FUNNN. Anyways, now I'm gonna sort and put away my clean laundry and do some homework. . I guess
Friday, November 20, 2009
Forest Party, Sinterklaas, Chinese Food Night, International Mingle, ANTICI-say it-say it-PATION
The events since I last wrote have been rather interesting:
Last Friday ( November 13th), I hadn't had any actual plans but I got a facebook message from Paul saying they were doing a campfire thing in the forest. Yes, Maastricht has a forest (home sweet home lol) and on the way there, I accidentally went the wrong way, i.e. up the wrong street for about 15 minutes and since I didn't have a bike at that point, i had to walk the entire way. so Paul's phone wasn't working so I called the other guy who was organizing it, Thomas, he vaguely told me where to go but after a while his phone had stopped working so I called Weike and she was lost in the forest as well so I waited and waited and then Thomas showed up and walked with me to the campfire. It was hilarious and the forest was really muddy so I ruined my boots (they were close to the end anyways) so I showed up there with a 6pack of beer and a liter and a half of sangria. Once we'd all drank a wee bit, we decided to play marco polo . . drunk . . in a forest. . .on a cliff. . . at night. . . .that was a brilliant idea. I of course had to explain the game but it was funnier that way. Then we played (pardon the mispelling) oxenbak (basically red light green light). originally the sangria was going to be the punishment but then we would have kept losing on purpose. Then we attempted to climb up into this wierd crevice, I failed but Paul and Weike chilled up there while i sat and drank sangria. Drunken nights in the forest=fun
Saturday (November 14th) we saw sinterklaas. He's the Dutch version of Santa Clause. It was raining so the 4 of us had to buy cheapass umbrellas. Mine broke within about 20 minutes but it still got the job done. After seeing Sinterklaas arrive in Maastricht with his helpers, We went and bought ingredients for pepernoten which are Dutch cookies and we went to Weike's house to make and eat pepernoten, hot chocolate and a shitload of candy. DEEE-LISH! Armed with our pepernoten, candy, and hot chocolate the now 6 of us (5 girls and Paul LOL) watched Alles is Liefde, a Dutch Romantic comedy similar to Love Actually but set around Sinterklass time and freakin amazing. It was soooo good. I think walked back home (yes walked since my bike was still out of order) and rested. After that silly resting thing, I went with a bunch of Italians and Matthew to Take One, which is a beer bar. . .erm a beer tasting bar. The owner is hilarious: extremely raunchy and refers to customers as victims. He asked what your taste is and surprises you with a beer you'll enjoy and he was correct for my choice because my beer was yummy. Since I didn't have my bike, I rode Matthew's and he rode on the back of someone else's. Then I wanted to leave before he did so he graciously lent me his bike so I wouldn't have to walk all the way back since this bar was on the other side of the river. Maybe he does deserve to be my substitute fake big brother. . .
I also decided to make a chinese food night. . . i.e. cook chinese food (because I freakin love it) for people. This night ended up being Thursday, November 19th. I invited a few people, including Ben . . who then confused my facebook event with another and invited a bunch of people. So I ended up cooking for 30 people . . .This was fun (yes fun) but a little hectic. People enjoyed the food and we had enough left over fried rice to last until sunday. The menu included dumplings, spring rolls, egg flower soup, wonton soup and fried rice. If you want me to make you something from scratch, the only things that were made from scratch were the soups and the fried rice.
Since I don't feel like splitting up the weeks of events and I'm procrastinating my damn presentation, I'll continue this entry about writing about this past week. . .i.e November 23rd-27th. The 27th being today. . .Not much has happened except for Alberto's girlfriend, Valentina visiting our corridor and International Mingle Night. Valentina came and made us real Italian risotto, It was sooo good! And she was a sweetheart. The International Mingle was basically free food and cheap drinks so we could all mingle. Funnn. . Yes, yes it was. I won a free Maastricht University hoodie. . .which is good because it's really expensive at the souvenir shop (40 euros=$60 US) I won this because I'm crazier when I'm sober rather than drunk. Let me explain: There was nobody on the dance floor and the DJ wanted people to actually party, you know? So he offered the winner of his choice a UM hoodie for dancing the best for a song (w/e) so I went up there and danced the entire song exuberantly and stuck around until he basically had no choice but to announce me the winner. . .so I got the hoodie. The DJ actually reminded me of Jared so I kept expecting a bear hug but it never came. I then, again because I'm crazy, told a stupid story to open the open mic thing they had and left very soon after ( I told the universal story of sleep deprivation with my thinking I was still asleep, singing to customers story) and went to go hang out with Greg who had just had Russian class so we attempted to remember the Russian alphabet and FAILED. Oh well.
Now, I'm attempting to work on a presentation I have to do on Tuesday but because I'm in belgium this weekend, I have to finish 95% of it today. Which I hope isn't going to be a problem as I just drank 3 times the normal serving of Turkish coffee. However, I also have to pack for the weekend. . . CARP. I'm also freaking out a bit about leaving because I'm now leaving in a little over 3 weeks. and I'm crazy about logistics so I've been obsessively planning my schedule for Sunday, December 20th and Monday, December 21st. This is what it looks like so far:
Thursday& Friday Pack like a maniac
Saturday Last bit of packing and saying goodbye
Sunday:
8am Wake Up and shower
10am quadruple check luggage
11am Leave room& Check Out
11:45 Online Check-In for Flight
12pm Leave guesthouse w/ Taxi
12:20ish get to train station, get on train to AMS
3pmish Get to AMS, take taxi to hotel
3:30ish, check in at hotel, go over details once more and then rest
10pm go to sleep
Monday:
6am Wake Up, shower, get dressed, go over details once more
8am Update facebook status, freak out a little, plan out purchases at duty free
8:45am leave hotel to go to airport, walk to airport
9am Arrive at airport
9:45am Check in luggage and get plane ticket(s)
10:15ish go through security and go to duty free shopping for cheese
11:00am board flight
11:45am flight leaves AMS to go to london
12:10am (london time): plane arrives in London
12:15-12:45 go through security AGAIN at heathrow
12:45ish-1:20ish Duty free shopping again
1:35ish board plane for SFO
5:20pm (SF Time): arrive at SFO
5:30ish PM: re-unite with parents and anybody else who came to pick me up from the airport
And there ends my neurotic planning .. .at least until I start freaking out again. . . .and back to the presentation
Last Friday ( November 13th), I hadn't had any actual plans but I got a facebook message from Paul saying they were doing a campfire thing in the forest. Yes, Maastricht has a forest (home sweet home lol) and on the way there, I accidentally went the wrong way, i.e. up the wrong street for about 15 minutes and since I didn't have a bike at that point, i had to walk the entire way. so Paul's phone wasn't working so I called the other guy who was organizing it, Thomas, he vaguely told me where to go but after a while his phone had stopped working so I called Weike and she was lost in the forest as well so I waited and waited and then Thomas showed up and walked with me to the campfire. It was hilarious and the forest was really muddy so I ruined my boots (they were close to the end anyways) so I showed up there with a 6pack of beer and a liter and a half of sangria. Once we'd all drank a wee bit, we decided to play marco polo . . drunk . . in a forest. . .on a cliff. . . at night. . . .that was a brilliant idea. I of course had to explain the game but it was funnier that way. Then we played (pardon the mispelling) oxenbak (basically red light green light). originally the sangria was going to be the punishment but then we would have kept losing on purpose. Then we attempted to climb up into this wierd crevice, I failed but Paul and Weike chilled up there while i sat and drank sangria. Drunken nights in the forest=fun
Saturday (November 14th) we saw sinterklaas. He's the Dutch version of Santa Clause. It was raining so the 4 of us had to buy cheapass umbrellas. Mine broke within about 20 minutes but it still got the job done. After seeing Sinterklaas arrive in Maastricht with his helpers, We went and bought ingredients for pepernoten which are Dutch cookies and we went to Weike's house to make and eat pepernoten, hot chocolate and a shitload of candy. DEEE-LISH! Armed with our pepernoten, candy, and hot chocolate the now 6 of us (5 girls and Paul LOL) watched Alles is Liefde, a Dutch Romantic comedy similar to Love Actually but set around Sinterklass time and freakin amazing. It was soooo good. I think walked back home (yes walked since my bike was still out of order) and rested. After that silly resting thing, I went with a bunch of Italians and Matthew to Take One, which is a beer bar. . .erm a beer tasting bar. The owner is hilarious: extremely raunchy and refers to customers as victims. He asked what your taste is and surprises you with a beer you'll enjoy and he was correct for my choice because my beer was yummy. Since I didn't have my bike, I rode Matthew's and he rode on the back of someone else's. Then I wanted to leave before he did so he graciously lent me his bike so I wouldn't have to walk all the way back since this bar was on the other side of the river. Maybe he does deserve to be my substitute fake big brother. . .
I also decided to make a chinese food night. . . i.e. cook chinese food (because I freakin love it) for people. This night ended up being Thursday, November 19th. I invited a few people, including Ben . . who then confused my facebook event with another and invited a bunch of people. So I ended up cooking for 30 people . . .This was fun (yes fun) but a little hectic. People enjoyed the food and we had enough left over fried rice to last until sunday. The menu included dumplings, spring rolls, egg flower soup, wonton soup and fried rice. If you want me to make you something from scratch, the only things that were made from scratch were the soups and the fried rice.
Since I don't feel like splitting up the weeks of events and I'm procrastinating my damn presentation, I'll continue this entry about writing about this past week. . .i.e November 23rd-27th. The 27th being today. . .Not much has happened except for Alberto's girlfriend, Valentina visiting our corridor and International Mingle Night. Valentina came and made us real Italian risotto, It was sooo good! And she was a sweetheart. The International Mingle was basically free food and cheap drinks so we could all mingle. Funnn. . Yes, yes it was. I won a free Maastricht University hoodie. . .which is good because it's really expensive at the souvenir shop (40 euros=$60 US) I won this because I'm crazier when I'm sober rather than drunk. Let me explain: There was nobody on the dance floor and the DJ wanted people to actually party, you know? So he offered the winner of his choice a UM hoodie for dancing the best for a song (w/e) so I went up there and danced the entire song exuberantly and stuck around until he basically had no choice but to announce me the winner. . .so I got the hoodie. The DJ actually reminded me of Jared so I kept expecting a bear hug but it never came. I then, again because I'm crazy, told a stupid story to open the open mic thing they had and left very soon after ( I told the universal story of sleep deprivation with my thinking I was still asleep, singing to customers story) and went to go hang out with Greg who had just had Russian class so we attempted to remember the Russian alphabet and FAILED. Oh well.
Now, I'm attempting to work on a presentation I have to do on Tuesday but because I'm in belgium this weekend, I have to finish 95% of it today. Which I hope isn't going to be a problem as I just drank 3 times the normal serving of Turkish coffee. However, I also have to pack for the weekend. . . CARP. I'm also freaking out a bit about leaving because I'm now leaving in a little over 3 weeks. and I'm crazy about logistics so I've been obsessively planning my schedule for Sunday, December 20th and Monday, December 21st. This is what it looks like so far:
Thursday& Friday Pack like a maniac
Saturday Last bit of packing and saying goodbye
Sunday:
8am Wake Up and shower
10am quadruple check luggage
11am Leave room& Check Out
11:45 Online Check-In for Flight
12pm Leave guesthouse w/ Taxi
12:20ish get to train station, get on train to AMS
3pmish Get to AMS, take taxi to hotel
3:30ish, check in at hotel, go over details once more and then rest
10pm go to sleep
Monday:
6am Wake Up, shower, get dressed, go over details once more
8am Update facebook status, freak out a little, plan out purchases at duty free
8:45am leave hotel to go to airport, walk to airport
9am Arrive at airport
9:45am Check in luggage and get plane ticket(s)
10:15ish go through security and go to duty free shopping for cheese
11:00am board flight
11:45am flight leaves AMS to go to london
12:10am (london time): plane arrives in London
12:15-12:45 go through security AGAIN at heathrow
12:45ish-1:20ish Duty free shopping again
1:35ish board plane for SFO
5:20pm (SF Time): arrive at SFO
5:30ish PM: re-unite with parents and anybody else who came to pick me up from the airport
And there ends my neurotic planning .. .at least until I start freaking out again. . . .and back to the presentation
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Something Witty
Pretend the title is something witty, that'll make me feel better.
Not that I'm not feeling fan-fucking-tastic right now (not being sarcastic, I swear) I know I've been terrible about updating this thing. I mean I've been gone since August 5th (i.e. over 3 months) and I have what? 12 entries? That's a little pathetic or maybe a little encouraging (depending on your viewpoint--> either I've been too lazy or too busy having a fabulous time to update it). Anyways, to continue with the story that I'm just now beginning : the last period of classes is over (thank goodness) and the grades have been posted. I am sad to say that I have failed the first class of my college career. Actually, the first class I've failed since 8th grade. I could make excuses but I'd rather just do that in person. Luckily, the class that actually mattered was the one I passed, with a 7.1 no less. Sure its not the best but it's quite good for me learning in a completely different style than I'm used to and subject material of a type that I don't usually enjoy (this class was actually quite interesting though and I can now say I understand gini coefficient). Since that period is over we've begun a new period We're on week 3 of 8. Yeah I know . . intense.
I'm currently taking intro to psychology and economic psychology. Both of which i do rather enjoy probably because of the combination of interesting course material and fascinating people in the classes. What I'm not enjoying is the 8:30am classes 3 times a week. Well, whatever. . .it's part of the experience, just like going out on weekdays. I don't do that at home. weekdays=staying in or homework party. Here if its a day that ends in Y and you don't have school the next day (or even if you do) partying is fair game. I love it so much here. I also think I need to stop falling in love with european . . . . .cities. . .which brings me to my next story:
over the weekend, because I needed to go somewhere since it was the only 3 day weekend I had that I could go somewhere, I went to Prague, which was fucking amazing. I fell in love with the city and not just because things there were so cheap compared to the Netherlands. The sights were beautiful and the people I met were really cool. Plus the beer was cheap. yeah I know . . .I'm a college student though. The hostel that I stayed at was really good too. I went to the club with 5 stories and although I got there really late in the night and felt kinda awkward at first it got really fun. I had such a great time. I want to go back really bad.
Also, last week to keep the subject of partying like a rock star alive in this post, on wednesday of last week we had our illumination party at the meta (and by we I mean the universalis party committee)
see, that's us right before the party started (photo credit: MeDo ALshalowi and maybe facebook a bit) Anyways, most of us are dressed in white or neon because it was a blacklight party. It was so much fun. I kept buying beer so Greg wrote "beer me" on my arm since the first 50 people got markers to write on each other so it would glow under the blacklight. I also got something written on another part of my arm in Dutch (thanks Jeroen) I only understood the first part of it. The next day I tried to go and help clean up but as I had class until 3:30 I got there too late.
Thursday evening was also the second taco night (thanks to Matthew or Jose Jimenez as he was known for the night) For taco night, I made guacamole. It wasn't too bad if I say so myself. The tacos were rather good and my tequila sunrises were a hit. what can I say? I'm a master of mixed drinks. (insert evil laughter here)
This upcoming weekend, a bunch of us are going to go see the Dutch Santa Clause (Sinterklaas) arrive in Maastricht then go eat cookies and watch a Dutch romantic comedy. the day was Weike's idea and it was a lovely one. I'm quite excited for it. However, I have class in less than 9 hours so I should probably go to sleep. I shall update another time when I remember more adventures . . .yes remembering adventures is important for blogging about them.
Not that I'm not feeling fan-fucking-tastic right now (not being sarcastic, I swear) I know I've been terrible about updating this thing. I mean I've been gone since August 5th (i.e. over 3 months) and I have what? 12 entries? That's a little pathetic or maybe a little encouraging (depending on your viewpoint--> either I've been too lazy or too busy having a fabulous time to update it). Anyways, to continue with the story that I'm just now beginning : the last period of classes is over (thank goodness) and the grades have been posted. I am sad to say that I have failed the first class of my college career. Actually, the first class I've failed since 8th grade. I could make excuses but I'd rather just do that in person. Luckily, the class that actually mattered was the one I passed, with a 7.1 no less. Sure its not the best but it's quite good for me learning in a completely different style than I'm used to and subject material of a type that I don't usually enjoy (this class was actually quite interesting though and I can now say I understand gini coefficient). Since that period is over we've begun a new period We're on week 3 of 8. Yeah I know . . intense.
I'm currently taking intro to psychology and economic psychology. Both of which i do rather enjoy probably because of the combination of interesting course material and fascinating people in the classes. What I'm not enjoying is the 8:30am classes 3 times a week. Well, whatever. . .it's part of the experience, just like going out on weekdays. I don't do that at home. weekdays=staying in or homework party. Here if its a day that ends in Y and you don't have school the next day (or even if you do) partying is fair game. I love it so much here. I also think I need to stop falling in love with european . . . . .cities. . .which brings me to my next story:
over the weekend, because I needed to go somewhere since it was the only 3 day weekend I had that I could go somewhere, I went to Prague, which was fucking amazing. I fell in love with the city and not just because things there were so cheap compared to the Netherlands. The sights were beautiful and the people I met were really cool. Plus the beer was cheap. yeah I know . . .I'm a college student though. The hostel that I stayed at was really good too. I went to the club with 5 stories and although I got there really late in the night and felt kinda awkward at first it got really fun. I had such a great time. I want to go back really bad.
Also, last week to keep the subject of partying like a rock star alive in this post, on wednesday of last week we had our illumination party at the meta (and by we I mean the universalis party committee)
see, that's us right before the party started (photo credit: MeDo ALshalowi and maybe facebook a bit) Anyways, most of us are dressed in white or neon because it was a blacklight party. It was so much fun. I kept buying beer so Greg wrote "beer me" on my arm since the first 50 people got markers to write on each other so it would glow under the blacklight. I also got something written on another part of my arm in Dutch (thanks Jeroen) I only understood the first part of it. The next day I tried to go and help clean up but as I had class until 3:30 I got there too late.
Thursday evening was also the second taco night (thanks to Matthew or Jose Jimenez as he was known for the night) For taco night, I made guacamole. It wasn't too bad if I say so myself. The tacos were rather good and my tequila sunrises were a hit. what can I say? I'm a master of mixed drinks. (insert evil laughter here)
This upcoming weekend, a bunch of us are going to go see the Dutch Santa Clause (Sinterklaas) arrive in Maastricht then go eat cookies and watch a Dutch romantic comedy. the day was Weike's idea and it was a lovely one. I'm quite excited for it. However, I have class in less than 9 hours so I should probably go to sleep. I shall update another time when I remember more adventures . . .yes remembering adventures is important for blogging about them.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
A Boat One Night and Beer Pong the Next
On friday night, there was a party on a boat called Freigeist. The boat left the dock at 8pm. The adventure began with Ally, Nina, Ben, Rafaela and Ally's friend Imran. Once we boarded we got our included cocktails. They were fucking STRONG. I drank mine and then drank the rest of Ally's drink and then drank some of the lovely Malibu-Cola mixture Nina brought. Hence within 15 minutes I was drunk. Ben and Rafaela were worried about this (for no reason). The boat went up and back down the river Maas so we were in belgium for a little while. Since the boat left at 8 and came back at 12 there was a solid 4 hours of partying like rock stars there. Then glow sticks got showered on us on the dance floor. The boat had 3 levels but the lowest one was the bathrooms so essentially 2 levels for exploration. on the level with the dance floor, we could go out to the bow or the stern I dunno and when we went out there, there were some people having a titanic moment which was lovely and kind of sickeningly adorable but since I was drunk I didnt care and took some pictures on some piles of rope. It was fun. We got off the boat at exactly midnight and went to De Kadans. Partied there til around 2ish. Then went back home and attempted to give Rafaela a ride back on my bike but we kinda fell off going up brusselstraat. i was really tired
On Saturday night, I went to a halloween party where I wasn't the only cowgirl. It was really funny. The other Americans were dressed up as the scooby gang. It was adorable. I also played beer pong in the backyard where I had to be the designated drinker since the person I was playing with was the designated driver. Oy drunk two nights in a row. Then we went to de Alla for the first time and got fries om nom nom. Got back around 3ish.
It was fun. The adventure continues.
On Saturday night, I went to a halloween party where I wasn't the only cowgirl. It was really funny. The other Americans were dressed up as the scooby gang. It was adorable. I also played beer pong in the backyard where I had to be the designated drinker since the person I was playing with was the designated driver. Oy drunk two nights in a row. Then we went to de Alla for the first time and got fries om nom nom. Got back around 3ish.
It was fun. The adventure continues.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
The Tale of One Beer, Jazz, and Rose Beer
Friday night in honor of the last day of exams, a bunch of us went out to celebrate at the highlander. Since it feel weird to just be in a bar not drinking, I had ONE beer. This led to an evening of dancing and staying out until 4am. (the full story will be told upon request) I went to the Meta for the first time and it was interesting, vaguely what I expected but not as much. I dunno. . .I also didn't expect that there would be a Drake video playing on the tvs.
The next night, it was the continuation of Jazz Promenade in Maastricht so I went out to watch some bands play in cafes. it was a magical adventure meeting new people, watching bands, etc.
As I am currently watching Eastwick (thanks a lot, Zac) I can't really concentrate on this blog entry plus I'm writing the remainder of my postcards and I have a class at 8:30am tomorrow this will be lovely. tomorrow night I'm going to get some sushi with Kaho and some other people on account of its her birthday.
YAY!!
The next night, it was the continuation of Jazz Promenade in Maastricht so I went out to watch some bands play in cafes. it was a magical adventure meeting new people, watching bands, etc.
As I am currently watching Eastwick (thanks a lot, Zac) I can't really concentrate on this blog entry plus I'm writing the remainder of my postcards and I have a class at 8:30am tomorrow this will be lovely. tomorrow night I'm going to get some sushi with Kaho and some other people on account of its her birthday.
YAY!!
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Maastricht is Prachtig and so were the last several weeks
That means Maastricht is wonderful (according to Google translator). And it is. I haven't posted in a while. . as I don't recall when I last posted, some fun stuff has happened:
- I joined the Universalis Party Committee. . . .this takes some explaining: as I usually overload myself with shitloads of stuff to do in Santa Cruz, and here I'm only taking two classes at a time, I was feeling rather bored and I already finished all 5 seasons of Angel as well as caught up on all the other good shows. Universalis is the only student organization at the school and they have all these committees. . .my friend Ally joined the party committee and I decided to follow her to one for the fun of it. . hence I joined the party committee. We plan parties. Yay for us. I go to meetings once a week and we talk about shit. again Yay for us.
-I found a "substitute fake big brother" since Mike, my real fake big brother is in santa cruz, not in Maastricht with me, i needed somebody to give me bad advice except for when it actually matters so I arbitrarily appointed Matthew, a guy in my corridor to be my "substitute fake big brother" unfortunately, I had to fire him as my fake big brother today due to him not knowing what I meant when I said that Zac was the Samantha to my Carrie
Speaking of my corridor, it is rather diverse and I fucking love it. We have at least 6 different countries represented on the corridor alone: France, Italy, Australia, England, Singapore, and the U.S. There's one girl who's from two countries so it might even be 7. oooh SNAP. Oh and from within the US we have me from California, 3-5 people from New York and 2-3 people from Boston. I hope that was all correct geographic data because as we all know, I SUCK at giving directions. The corridor is kinda becoming a family but currently I feel like that awkward relative who comes to visit every once in a while because I haven't really formed strong bonds with anybody on my corridor, although Sybille is being awesome and fixing my bicycle tomorrow (story to follow in several paragraphs)
A few weeks ago, Elsa and I went shopping for boots. It was a productive day. We both got really cute new leather boots. I'm slightly in love with mine and wear them almost daily due to how comfy they are and how good they look with EVERYTHING. Continuing on the shopping topic, on Wednesday, I finally went to the damn market at the Markt (one of the big squares in Maastricht) and I bought some fruit and some delicious fresh bread and 2 new scarves. I have now begun wearing scarves daily, as well. They are not only fashionable and versatile but keep my neck warm in this cold ass weather. It is somewhat similar to santa cruz but a wee bit colder a wee bit earlier.
To further compare Santa Cruz and Maastricht please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maastricht and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Cruz,_California
So what else? Um. . . Last weekend I went to Berlin and it was ridiculously fun. Partly due to the fact I got rather wasted. Surprisingly, despite how much I drank i did not have a hangover the next day and I did not get sick. Yay for being smart enough to drink 2 bottles of water during the evening. Lets see: we left on Friday around 3ish, hooray magical journey on the way there: due to traffic and other unforeseeable road conditions we did not get there until around 1am. On the plus side, we watched a really good movie called "Berlin Calling" it was about this Berlin DJ who got into all sorts of crazy shit. Hard to describe but I highly recommend it. It's in German but it has subtitles . That night some of us went out and I had my first turkish kebab. OMG soooooooo good. And we got drinks, I got something called a Hurricane and it was quite strong. I was a bit tipsy after just that one drink. so of course, I drunk dialed Zac. The next day, I went on a walking tour of Berlin and saw all the cool stuff: the brandenburg gate, the berlin wall, checkpoint charlie, stood over the bunker where hitler killed himself, etc. Following that lovely tour (our tour guide was fucking awesome and really hot) we went exploring and bought some souvenirs and stuff. later that day, we went to the "anti pub crawl" so it was basically a pub crawl but not the mainstream one where tourists go, the one that takes you to bars real Berliners go to. . .so the adventure began in our trying to get there since there was an issue with the train there, we kinda got fucked over in terms of trying to get there.
The pub crawl was epic enough that it deserves its own paragraph. We began on the train subway, whatever. Since in Germany, you can drink in public without consequences (i.e. it's LEGAL) so we all started the night off with a beer in the subway:
Then once we got off one stop before the one we needed because they needed to do repairs or something on a saturday at 9:30ish we went to a bus stop for the replacement bus. Of Course. By this point I had finished my .5liter of becks and decided I needed to drink something else. Perhaps rehydrate myself. So I buy a bottle of water and lo and behold, they also sell booze so I buy .2 liter bottle of 20% alcohol apple liqueur. burns so good. When we finally get to the first damn bar, we're all relieved. All 14 of us. Especially when we get our free shots. We get free shots of vodka, I down mine Yum Yum and somebody else hands me theirs saying they dont like vodka. I said something along the lines of "i have to pace myself since I'm a lightweight when it comes to drinking" somebody else says "drink it" and I say "mmm. . peer pressure and take that second shot. Then I decide I want a green beer. The tour guide was talking about green beer and red beer. you can only get it in Berlin: its called "Berliner Weisse" Its basically flavored and colored beer. Doesn't taste like alcohol at all. I finish the beer and shortly thereafter we go to the next bar: this one is a Goth Bar (dark, metal music everyone wearing spikes, AWESOME) I get a mojito or some form of it and its adorable if only because instead of an umbrella it has a long toothpick looking thing with a gummy bat candy. and then we get another shot and I meet a really cool girl from Israel and we toast in as many languages as we know. (to recap: by the time we get to the second bar, I've had .5 liters of becks, .2 liter apple liqueur, 2 shots vodka, green beer, mojito and another shot) Next bar we go to I get the red beer, the other Berliner Weisse. That bar was a bit boring but meh. we then go to this cool ping pong bar where I separated from our group and went with the other group on the pub crawl cause I met this cool girl from Iceland,I didn't drink anything there though because the l knew the next bar we were going to was the absinthe bar. YUMMM. . .so of course I got absinthe at the absinthe bar. it was 80% alcohol (shiiiitttt) the way you drink it is you have a glass of absinthe, a thing of water and a spoon with a sugar cube. you dip the sugar cube in the absinthe, light the cube on fire (on the spoon) wait til it goes out, dump it in the absinthe, pour in the water, stir and drink. As soon as I drank that, I called Zac because I knew I would be incoherent in several minutes. And boy, was I ever. . . . drunk. . .so I decided I better get another bottle of water. I drank that second bottle of water and the last place we went was this really cool party where we unfortunately only stayed for a little while because the majority of people wanted to go home and I didn't want to get lost in Berlin. Hazal and I shared a cab with a cute boy from Brazil and his friend from Argentina who were staying at our hostel. They were really sweet and paid for the cab and we got there way before anybody else cause everyone else took the subway. We all went to bed and slept rather well. Then on sunday, we just went adventuring a bit more around Berlin with Phillipe, the guy who organized the trip, Kaho, Delphine, and Hazal. We left berlin around 2:30pm and got back to Maastricht around midnight. I of course found something to complain about:i left my bike over the weekend at the business faculty and we got dropped off at the guesthouse. As everyone else had walked there friday, they were happy. It was a lovely trip and I really wanna go back, I think Elsa and I might go for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. I also wrote a bunch of postcards to people on the bus back.
Alrighty now fast forward to umm . . .thursday, I want to say. . .I start riding my bike as usual to school (yes I ride a bike, yes pigs are flying, yes hell froze over, yes Lizzy's buying a hummer and Zac's turning straight) [just kidding about that last one, thats gonna happen about 70 million lightyears after the universe implodes] So something feels off and I dont realize what until I try to turn and almost fall off. . . my back tire is completely flat so .. . . I walked it back to the shed, locked it up and walked to school .. . . the day of my presentation. Which by the way, I think went well although I may have talked a bit fast. I liked the examples I used especially the one that described my hatred of internet explorer. Astrid actually told me she thought my presentation was interesting (which is rather high praise in my opinion). The next day, it was still broken and I had no idea how to fix it. Matthew told me I needed to get the thing for the inside of the tire. . .people expect me to know these things? come on the last time before I got here that i rode a bike I was like 10. ok?So I again walked to class. Last Development Economics Tutorial. OY. I started giggling uncontrollably after trying to say something and losing my train of thought. I blame the lost train of thought on the fact that there are attractive men in the tutorial (me with my one track mind and all). Yah. then I walked home. . . again and today, I went to the store and bought the thing for my bike, and bought bread and some more fruit YUM. I start walking back, it starts raining. . .GRRRR. so I park the bike I walked to brusselspoort, go inside, buy a 3 euro umbrella from Blokker and go back to Alphie (my bike). The second I open my umbrella, it stops raining. FML, right? I get back, make french toast (YUMMM) and Kaho comes over. Today we spent approximately 6 or 7 hours STUDYING for development economics due to the fact we have a final exam worth 60% of our grade on monday. did I forget to mention that? Here there are 2 periods per semester, 2 eight week periods hence that 8th week is final exams, the first period's exams are next week. I have the development economics one monday at 1:30pm and the infonomics one tuesday at 1:30pm and my final paper regarding aquaria which is to be 12-18 pages (i have 12 just have to revise and reflect) is due by friday. OY is all I can say.
I'll update this again later when my brain isn't trying to send up white flags.
- I joined the Universalis Party Committee. . . .this takes some explaining: as I usually overload myself with shitloads of stuff to do in Santa Cruz, and here I'm only taking two classes at a time, I was feeling rather bored and I already finished all 5 seasons of Angel as well as caught up on all the other good shows. Universalis is the only student organization at the school and they have all these committees. . .my friend Ally joined the party committee and I decided to follow her to one for the fun of it. . hence I joined the party committee. We plan parties. Yay for us. I go to meetings once a week and we talk about shit. again Yay for us.
-I found a "substitute fake big brother" since Mike, my real fake big brother is in santa cruz, not in Maastricht with me, i needed somebody to give me bad advice except for when it actually matters so I arbitrarily appointed Matthew, a guy in my corridor to be my "substitute fake big brother" unfortunately, I had to fire him as my fake big brother today due to him not knowing what I meant when I said that Zac was the Samantha to my Carrie
Speaking of my corridor, it is rather diverse and I fucking love it. We have at least 6 different countries represented on the corridor alone: France, Italy, Australia, England, Singapore, and the U.S. There's one girl who's from two countries so it might even be 7. oooh SNAP. Oh and from within the US we have me from California, 3-5 people from New York and 2-3 people from Boston. I hope that was all correct geographic data because as we all know, I SUCK at giving directions. The corridor is kinda becoming a family but currently I feel like that awkward relative who comes to visit every once in a while because I haven't really formed strong bonds with anybody on my corridor, although Sybille is being awesome and fixing my bicycle tomorrow (story to follow in several paragraphs)
A few weeks ago, Elsa and I went shopping for boots. It was a productive day. We both got really cute new leather boots. I'm slightly in love with mine and wear them almost daily due to how comfy they are and how good they look with EVERYTHING. Continuing on the shopping topic, on Wednesday, I finally went to the damn market at the Markt (one of the big squares in Maastricht) and I bought some fruit and some delicious fresh bread and 2 new scarves. I have now begun wearing scarves daily, as well. They are not only fashionable and versatile but keep my neck warm in this cold ass weather. It is somewhat similar to santa cruz but a wee bit colder a wee bit earlier.
To further compare Santa Cruz and Maastricht please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maastricht and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Cruz,_California
So what else? Um. . . Last weekend I went to Berlin and it was ridiculously fun. Partly due to the fact I got rather wasted. Surprisingly, despite how much I drank i did not have a hangover the next day and I did not get sick. Yay for being smart enough to drink 2 bottles of water during the evening. Lets see: we left on Friday around 3ish, hooray magical journey on the way there: due to traffic and other unforeseeable road conditions we did not get there until around 1am. On the plus side, we watched a really good movie called "Berlin Calling" it was about this Berlin DJ who got into all sorts of crazy shit. Hard to describe but I highly recommend it. It's in German but it has subtitles . That night some of us went out and I had my first turkish kebab. OMG soooooooo good. And we got drinks, I got something called a Hurricane and it was quite strong. I was a bit tipsy after just that one drink. so of course, I drunk dialed Zac. The next day, I went on a walking tour of Berlin and saw all the cool stuff: the brandenburg gate, the berlin wall, checkpoint charlie, stood over the bunker where hitler killed himself, etc. Following that lovely tour (our tour guide was fucking awesome and really hot) we went exploring and bought some souvenirs and stuff. later that day, we went to the "anti pub crawl" so it was basically a pub crawl but not the mainstream one where tourists go, the one that takes you to bars real Berliners go to. . .so the adventure began in our trying to get there since there was an issue with the train there, we kinda got fucked over in terms of trying to get there.
The pub crawl was epic enough that it deserves its own paragraph. We began on the train subway, whatever. Since in Germany, you can drink in public without consequences (i.e. it's LEGAL) so we all started the night off with a beer in the subway:
Then once we got off one stop before the one we needed because they needed to do repairs or something on a saturday at 9:30ish we went to a bus stop for the replacement bus. Of Course. By this point I had finished my .5liter of becks and decided I needed to drink something else. Perhaps rehydrate myself. So I buy a bottle of water and lo and behold, they also sell booze so I buy .2 liter bottle of 20% alcohol apple liqueur. burns so good. When we finally get to the first damn bar, we're all relieved. All 14 of us. Especially when we get our free shots. We get free shots of vodka, I down mine Yum Yum and somebody else hands me theirs saying they dont like vodka. I said something along the lines of "i have to pace myself since I'm a lightweight when it comes to drinking" somebody else says "drink it" and I say "mmm. . peer pressure and take that second shot. Then I decide I want a green beer. The tour guide was talking about green beer and red beer. you can only get it in Berlin: its called "Berliner Weisse" Its basically flavored and colored beer. Doesn't taste like alcohol at all. I finish the beer and shortly thereafter we go to the next bar: this one is a Goth Bar (dark, metal music everyone wearing spikes, AWESOME) I get a mojito or some form of it and its adorable if only because instead of an umbrella it has a long toothpick looking thing with a gummy bat candy. and then we get another shot and I meet a really cool girl from Israel and we toast in as many languages as we know. (to recap: by the time we get to the second bar, I've had .5 liters of becks, .2 liter apple liqueur, 2 shots vodka, green beer, mojito and another shot) Next bar we go to I get the red beer, the other Berliner Weisse. That bar was a bit boring but meh. we then go to this cool ping pong bar where I separated from our group and went with the other group on the pub crawl cause I met this cool girl from Iceland,I didn't drink anything there though because the l knew the next bar we were going to was the absinthe bar. YUMMM. . .so of course I got absinthe at the absinthe bar. it was 80% alcohol (shiiiitttt) the way you drink it is you have a glass of absinthe, a thing of water and a spoon with a sugar cube. you dip the sugar cube in the absinthe, light the cube on fire (on the spoon) wait til it goes out, dump it in the absinthe, pour in the water, stir and drink. As soon as I drank that, I called Zac because I knew I would be incoherent in several minutes. And boy, was I ever. . . . drunk. . .so I decided I better get another bottle of water. I drank that second bottle of water and the last place we went was this really cool party where we unfortunately only stayed for a little while because the majority of people wanted to go home and I didn't want to get lost in Berlin. Hazal and I shared a cab with a cute boy from Brazil and his friend from Argentina who were staying at our hostel. They were really sweet and paid for the cab and we got there way before anybody else cause everyone else took the subway. We all went to bed and slept rather well. Then on sunday, we just went adventuring a bit more around Berlin with Phillipe, the guy who organized the trip, Kaho, Delphine, and Hazal. We left berlin around 2:30pm and got back to Maastricht around midnight. I of course found something to complain about:i left my bike over the weekend at the business faculty and we got dropped off at the guesthouse. As everyone else had walked there friday, they were happy. It was a lovely trip and I really wanna go back, I think Elsa and I might go for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. I also wrote a bunch of postcards to people on the bus back.
Alrighty now fast forward to umm . . .thursday, I want to say. . .I start riding my bike as usual to school (yes I ride a bike, yes pigs are flying, yes hell froze over, yes Lizzy's buying a hummer and Zac's turning straight) [just kidding about that last one, thats gonna happen about 70 million lightyears after the universe implodes] So something feels off and I dont realize what until I try to turn and almost fall off. . . my back tire is completely flat so .. . . I walked it back to the shed, locked it up and walked to school .. . . the day of my presentation. Which by the way, I think went well although I may have talked a bit fast. I liked the examples I used especially the one that described my hatred of internet explorer. Astrid actually told me she thought my presentation was interesting (which is rather high praise in my opinion). The next day, it was still broken and I had no idea how to fix it. Matthew told me I needed to get the thing for the inside of the tire. . .people expect me to know these things? come on the last time before I got here that i rode a bike I was like 10. ok?So I again walked to class. Last Development Economics Tutorial. OY. I started giggling uncontrollably after trying to say something and losing my train of thought. I blame the lost train of thought on the fact that there are attractive men in the tutorial (me with my one track mind and all). Yah. then I walked home. . . again and today, I went to the store and bought the thing for my bike, and bought bread and some more fruit YUM. I start walking back, it starts raining. . .GRRRR. so I park the bike I walked to brusselspoort, go inside, buy a 3 euro umbrella from Blokker and go back to Alphie (my bike). The second I open my umbrella, it stops raining. FML, right? I get back, make french toast (YUMMM) and Kaho comes over. Today we spent approximately 6 or 7 hours STUDYING for development economics due to the fact we have a final exam worth 60% of our grade on monday. did I forget to mention that? Here there are 2 periods per semester, 2 eight week periods hence that 8th week is final exams, the first period's exams are next week. I have the development economics one monday at 1:30pm and the infonomics one tuesday at 1:30pm and my final paper regarding aquaria which is to be 12-18 pages (i have 12 just have to revise and reflect) is due by friday. OY is all I can say.
I'll update this again later when my brain isn't trying to send up white flags.
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