Today started early for me as I had to go down to the city hall and register. Oh bureaucracy, got to love it. The appointment was for 9:15 and I just made it on time. It was rather quick, they photocopy your passport ask you a few question and you are on your way. Because I got out of bed so late and was still tired I decided to return home right after and go back to bed. This was a good choice.
The weather here has been kind of up and down. A sunny day followed by a cool, rainy, and windy day. I think it is best described as a cold and rainy June in southern Alberta - if you know what that is like. The wind can be really bitting but mostly it is just kind of miserable. Luckily when you do get outside it isn't that awful cold. I've learned that this wind has been causing some stir and making all the news as having a wind this strong is not normal. It is enough that I occasionally wobble on my tall bike.
After my morning nap I had some breakfast, had a shower, had a cup of tea or two, read about traveling destinations, cleaned up my room, nothing too exciting. Eventually I made lunch.
At around 4:30 I decided to go to the city centre to try and get a cell phone for the time being. I was thinking this would be sufficient time to buy a phone before I had to be at our ESN welcoming kick off, I was wrong. The stores were quite busy and I didn't have time, so still no phone.
Our International Student Kick Off socializing week of madness started tonight. We started at the main Academy Building hearing about what the week would entail then split into small groups of about 10 people - we will be with this group the whole week - and had a city tour. I would say this was an abbreviated tour because the wind was quite cold. The tour concluded with us going to the house of one of our leaders for dinner. It was interesting to see a Dutch flat where students would live. There is one very noticeable thing about Dutch houses or even buildings in general, the staircases are often treacherous and deadly. These things are almost as steep as ladders and just as narrow often curving to make a triangle step, if you know what I mean. These things are crazy.
So you climb these two very narrow steep steps to get to the top floor of this building to get to a rather small room where we hung out. It was nice to sit around and chat with a number of other international students. We had a pretty wide variety or countries of origin. We had pizza and beers.
Shortly before 11 o'clock we went back down to the city centre to start a "pub crawl." I've put that in quotations because you should not think about this like a pub crawl you have been on in Canada or otherwise. First, it was organized by ESN, secondly, we all didn't travel in huge groups from one to the next, we stayed in our smaller groups. We were, however, provided one free shot at every stop. Supposedly there are over 125 pubs and bars in Groningen and if you do the math that means that if I went to one a day, every day I was here, I wouldn't be able to see them all. I guess an average night out here means running around to a variety of different pubs/clubs. This was pretty fun, for a while we ran in just long enough to get our shots before we left. I wasn't really taken with any particular bar - the music was very techno - a lot of unce unce unce unce beat and not enough songs - clubby music. Ha, this is where most clubs fail me, I guess I'm a music snob.
We went to a piano bar and in the basement was a little area painted in an Americana theme and they were playing a NY Rangers NHL game. I was pretty excited, from the sounds of it they play hockey often. The sad news is, it is unlikely I will ever be willing to stay up for the duration of a game as the earliest start time here for me is 1am.
The last bar that I went into then left to come home because I was tired is supposedly a bar that people usually go to around 4am - we were told that it being 2am meant that it was probably too early to go. hmm. TOO EARLY?!
The nice thing is it seems there is no cover anywhere and they have free coat check, and if they don't have free coat check they have hangers where people just hang up their coats and trust no one will take them. What a novel idea.
I biked home shortly after 2am. Tomorrow we have a number of other activities, I think first it is some sort of cultural activity of our choosing, but I'm sure I can fill you in on the details later.
Lastly, some general observations:
- I miss smoke free bars, here everyone smokes inside - yuck
- I miss my gum, and I can't seem to find any here that satisfies
- Everything really is bigger back home - everything from the size of the beers to the size of pasta sauce jars or pop bottles comes smaller here
- I like to try the different types of potato chips they have in different countries. The other day I bought a bag of Lays Paprika chips and they were really tasty
- I'm making it my new goal to travel as much on the weekends as possible
- In April I have 2 and a half weeks off of school! I am hoping to plan a long excursion - I hope I don't have too much school work!
- I tried to explain Tim Horton's tea today, I don't know if it worked
Hahah love the "unce unce unce". Totally created the picture.
ReplyDeleteWhat kind of gum do you get here that they don't have there? That's interesting.
Miss youuu