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

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.

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.