September 14, 2015

Monday, September 14, 2015

I once again took a hiatus from blogging, which is probably not a problem, because you missed out on less of my life if you didn’t have time to read. I also wrote a lot in this post to make sure I update everyone, and I’ve included an equivalent amount of pictures to help illustrate my life. 

I have now had two full weeks of school- there are about 20 student in my specialization and another 20 in each of the other two specializations. The students are from a lot of different countries, with a few Dutch people mixed in, but it is a very international group. This makes for a lot of interesting conversations I think. Two other psychology students live in my building: Alena (who lives across the hall) is studying cognitive neuropsychology, and is from Hamburg, Germany, but went to school at Sussex in Brighton (UK). She actually had a class with Andy Fields, who she says is a very eccentric person. Lauren lives down the hall from me and is in the same program as I am, and is also from the US, but she is from Oregon. The three of us hang out quite a bit, since we are kind of in an isolated dormitory compared to the rest of our classmates. 

I originally thought that the course load we had was a little ridiculous (only about 9 hours of class a week), but I quickly understood that we have a lot of reading to do, and are expected to spend a large amount of time doing that reading. We also have quite a bit of writing, but that has just started to map out in the past week (we have two assignments due this upcoming week that were assigned). The two courses I have are Psychopathology and Research Methods in Epidemiology. The first course is very content based, and we are having a series of guest lectures and seminars on various content areas and writing. The second course is methodology and statistics, and is very heavy in terms of how much study it actually requires. Oddly enough, I applied to Holland in part because I heard they were very rigorous in methodology and statistics, and I am getting exactly what I wanted, but now I am always a little concerned about trying to keep up. We covered some material at UNC, but not all of it, and I feel especially behind on how to use SPSS as efficiently as some of my classmates. 

After two trips to Ikea and a few more shopping endeavors, I now have a coffee machine and everything I think I want in my room. The first trip to Ikea was quite the journey, as this time, it rained when I was coming back. The metro was about a fifteen minute walk away and I had way too many things to carry in the rain. I wanted to wait for the rain to end, but it didn’t seem to be ending. Lucky for me, at the bottom level of Ikea, a Dutch and a Slovakian guy, who both appeared to be about 20 or so, offered to help me to the metro. The Slovakian guy said he had been in a similar situation only a few days earlier, and they only had very few things. So, with two bicycles, we put the two folding chairs they had bought and one of my bags onto the Slovakian guy’s bike (which was a very very nice bike, bought for 20 Euros- he had apparently been given the bike by someone on the street at around 4 in the morning- not suspicious at all). I sat on the back of the Dutch guy’s bicycle, and held onto his jacket with the other bag in my hand, while he held onto an umbrella with one hand and the handlebars with the other, and off we went. This was maybe my first truly crazy Dutch experience, but I got very good at riding on the back of a bike. 

 

I’ve begun to have some other adventures in Amsterdam, and am especially enjoying going to a market and then to a park to eat whatever treasures (read: food) I’ve found. Dutch desserts have been somewhat disappointing, and so has the beer, but it’s alright. Alena and I especially enjoy spending our spare time exploring our surroundings, and since I’ve begun to know the neighborhood I live in well, I am ready to venture further out into downtown. Since I have a museumkaart (we received this as a gift from the scholarship office) I can now go to museums easily and am excited to begin doing so.

We have had about 50% nice weather, compared to how Holland is usually characterized. The nice weather is lovely, with blue skies and drifting clouds. The not so nice weather can be rainy. There is also a series of photos illustrating my experiences with the rain in this post, and if you look closely, you can see the original color of my pants and the color they became. As I told my mom over the phone afterwards, the degree of rain was the equivalent of me going outside and laying my pants in a puddle until they were soaked. In Holland, the things I have learned about the weather are the following:

1. No matter what the weather report says, you don’t actually know what the weather is going to be like. It can change in a matter of twenty minutes from being beautiful, sunny, and 25 degrees (celsius), to rainy, dark, and 15 degrees. 
2. It is really windy. Before I came, I read that I shouldn’t buy an umbrella because it will break, so I bought a rain jacket. This is true. An umbrella would have broken almost on the first day I was here. It is also very easy to catch a cold because if one is biking and it is windy it can become very chilly very quickly. This is particularly an issue for coughing (which I have been, for the first two weeks), since the front of your body is very exposed to the wind and the weather, while the back is not. This is a country that is very suitable for vests and scarves, as a result. 
3. There is an application (multiple, actually) for phones which shows whether it is going to rain in the next two hours and exactly how much (licht - zwaar). Online, you can see if it is going to rain soon where you are at the following website: http://www.buienalarm.nl. I cannot stress how ingenious this is. 

I have started looking for things to do, and I plan on trying to go singing, and also to play soccer (football?). I have gone twice to soccer and very much enjoyed that. The group is mixed Amsterdam football and we play in parks all over town. It is a really wide variety of age groups (20ish-50ish) and nationalities. Some people are Dutch, and others are not, but everyone has been very welcoming, and afterwards, we usually go out for a drink (coffee or a beer), which is a great way to socialize with some non-students. During the year, there will be indoor, and you can pay a 60 euro fee to play every time, or individually 5 euros if there are empty spots. I missed the cutoff (in time) for the 60 euros, but I plan to play when there are spots available.

This past weekend, I was in Budapest for my Aunt’s wedding, and I crammed as many friends and family in as I could during that time. I was lucky because my dad was also there for the wedding, as were my Aunt Kathy and Ron, so I got to see a few important people one more time before I wouldn’t see them for a while. I also got to have some delicious cake made by my cousin, Vera, which I was more than happy to eat. I included some pictures from those two days, just for dramatic effect. For those of you following the Refugee situation in Europe, and the news having to do with Hungary, I have some insights. I went and visited the transit zone at Nyugati Pályaudvar, where some of my friends work as volunteers.

1. Hungary is “between a rock and hard place”, as they say. It is difficult to explain how, but the basic premise is that they are obligated to register the refugees as refugees by law (which takes a lot of time- bureaucracy), but most of the refugees want to leave Hungary.  And then, Hungary is simultaneously being criticized by the international community for not allowing them to move on from camps where they are being held while waiting to register. The Germans and other nations have also been slow on the response and limit how many refugees can enter and cross borders at a time with their own bureaucratic systems. All of this means that no matter what Hungary does, it can’t really do right- just like no European nation knows how to deal with this influx properly. 
2. The refugees are not just “young men”, no matter what anyone is saying. They are plenty of children and women… what there are not is individuals over the age of 50, once again reiterating that this is not a journey people are taking with pleasure. These are actual people who have been uprooted from their homes and they need as much help as the “western world” can offer. 
3. The people who live in Hungary are not synonymous with the prime minister of Hungary, and the people who live in Hungary do not necessarily agree with what he is doing or saying (most of my friends and family certainly don’t). 

On that happy note, I will put down my pen (keyboard), and leave you for a bit. I will write again soon, with more adventures! And in exchange for my laziness, I hope you will accept the large collection of photographs I have attached.

Two helpful friends after Ikea

Picnic in the park after the market

Alena from Hamburg

The view from Alena's room and my room at sunset

My bicycle is my best friend

A cat in the neighborhood 

Flowers and a favorite photo (thanks Mom) 

I'm really soaked

Pants side 1

Pants side 2 (note color differences)

Whenever this bridge goes up
(on my way to Vondelpark, or class), a
huge crowd gathers by the time we can cross. 

Lauren from Oregon

Me (I'm alive!) 

Wedding shenanigans

Lots of good food and good drinks

A beautiful cake

And delicious

The Danube (for good measure) 

My cooker has been broken since Day 1
Today it was fixed (!!!) 

The coffee machine that fuels my life 

Room: Updated

I haven't even shown you my bathroom 

And my shower! 

I decorated

My window sill, made for reading

Desk

And bed- I've even gotten used to that picture