Hungry Hungry Hippo

First of all, happy Superbowl Sunday, or Superbowl veryearlyMondaymorning from the way I see it. I was actually invited to a Superbowl party here so I don't feel that left out. There are a number of American's heading to a bar somewhere in town to watch the game but it should last until 4am ish in the morning. I don't really watch football let alone go to superbowl parties at home so why would I do it here.

Today was a very long day. I didn't go to bed until quite late because I was up pouring over my travel book, looking up cheap flights, hostels, and the like. I need to get myself together so I can get the most out of my time here.

I had to get out of bed around 9:30 - which felt really early due to my 3am bed time, and then I didn't sleep well. Regardless, a couple girls from my building biked down to meet our group and then we biked to the northern campus to go to the sports facility for the day. It is just on the northern edge of Groningen - it is where the business school is, as well as the other university I think. I don't know really, but it is about 15 minute bike ride, which for here seems like an eternity.

We had a very fun day - our groups were our teams, then we were split into divisions and we played a number or sports and we also got to try out some of the facilities in the building. We played volleyball, basketball, and floor ball - or as I like to call it - floor hockey (with a ball). My group did pretty alright considering most people were not very sports oriented and hadn't played the sports before. It was kind of sad though because we were a group of 6 girls and the leaders kept trying to recruit boys to play on our team because they said we didn't stand a chance (they were part of the 6 girls). I kept telling them we didn't need boys to win, and if we were going to lose it was because we weren't as good, not because we were girls. This rationale didn't go far. Either way I told some of the boys we didn't need their help. Get out of town.

We lost at volleyball but we managed to do alright at it in the end, we just had a rocky start. Floor ball was decent and because there was no goalie it was often a matter or luck, we lost 3-5. The good news is we won basketball with a score of 3-0. Two of those baskets were mine. Believe that, offensively challenged me - but I was playing against people who didn't know how to dribble so it can hardly be considered fair. Our team made it to play-downs but we missed the call to compete so we were eliminated. We weren't to broken up about this.

The cool thing about this campus rec centre is once you pay a small membership fee you can take as many courses as you want. You just put down a deposit of €10, then if you attend 80% of the class you get your money back. If you don't then they keep your money. So, if you sign up and go it is free! Isn't that great incentive. I don't know if I'll sign up, but the thought of free courses really has me hooked. I mean you pay €39 for the semester, but for a couple courses that is nothing. I might take tennis because I've always wanted to take a tennis class but we'll see.

After the tournament finished we were served dinner and then given a Salsa lesson. It was actually quite fun. Afterwards we had about an hour to waste before the bar for us for the evening opened up. We went over to one of our leaders' flat to hang out for a while.

Eventually we made our way to the bar. There was a Caribbean band playing downstairs and a DJ upstairs. I don't really like the DJd music here, it is all so techno-y.. I don't know if that is the right label but just a constantly changing beat. I much prefer a mix of top-40ish or huge hits that I can sing along to while I dance. Just a beat isn't as much fun. Anyways, although tired and hungry I held out because there was a rock'n'roll cover band coming on at 11:30. They were quite good but it was only so long before the tired and hungry part overtook me and I left to come home.

It was quite nice to ride home because the streets were quiet and the wind had (mostly) died down.

Tomorrow we don't have any activities until around 7pm when we have a Dutch language lesson. As such I will be sleeping in then hopefully getting some important things done like opening a Dutch bank account, buying a cell phone, finding where to buy books, and other things I've been putting off for a while, like cleaning up my room.

Maybe soon I'll have some more exciting tales to tell you about where I am traveling next. Hopefully.