Trains

Way back when in the first year of my studies (2004/2005), I didn’t live in Utrecht yet. In fact, I didn’t get my room here until March 2006. In April of 2004 I subscribed myself to the student housing thing and yes, it really took me 2 years to get a room. So for almost two years I’ve been travelling back and forth a couple of times per week.
Some terms it was only 2 days, but others it was 5 days and believe me, it wasn’t pretty! Especially early morning classes, meaning classes which start at 9. I had to leave the house at 7:30, to get on the first train and then I’d catch the 7:55 train to Utrecht. It’s always super crowded at that time, with all the people who work outside Zoetermeer. Of course in those years that I travelled back and forth I have had a million delays. I could seriously write a book about them haha. And during those delays you really wonder where we were when we didn’t have mobile phones yet. Worried sick mums, no more dinner left when you get home, no news about when the trains will start riding again (as the people at the station never know anything, mum kept me updated via text TV), stuff like that. No idea I’d ever say this actually, as I was very anti-mobile for a long time. Until my dad got me one for my 16th or 17th birthday *ahem*

Why I write this is because I had to think about my first blog today when I was transporting my bike to Utrecht, by train. In the first year of my studies I had a Dutch blog. It’s still out there somewhere I think, but I only kept it up for a couple of months. I mainly talked about my study and a lot about my train pains haha. I remember the last blog I put up there was a major rant about the public transportation, because that day it really was terrible.
I won’t bother you with the details, but normally it would take me an hour to get to Utrecht. That day, it took 4,5 hours! I had to go via Schiphol (Amsterdam Airport), which is a complete different direction.  Luckily they didn’t do a control check on the train tickets on my way to Utrecht, because when I went back I realised I had forgotten my train card! (students can use public transportation ‘for free’, on a loan base, complicated to explain) So I travelled through the half of the country, ok only three provinces.., without having a ticket! Eek!! Of course on the way back I did get asked for my card, so initially I had to pay a fine. Lovely things is though, you’re allowed to forget your card once per calender year, so I didn’t have to pay for it after all. That was some serious madness.
So I’m just very glad I don’t have to travel by train everyday anymore, I have respect for the working people that do!! Best thing to do is just laugh about it, otherwise you go crazy everytime there’s a delay haha.

Tonight I’m going to have dinner with my housemates, first time that almost everyone will be actually here, so that should be fun. I’m cooking together with one other housemate, wish us luck, it’s for seven people. Nothing complicated, but it should be tasty!

The sun is shining

But I’m cold. Brr, getting up before 7 certainly isn’t my thing!
I wanted to leave early to get to my class, because I had no idea where it is. Well, it was at the campus of the ‘University College’, which isn’t directly linked to my university. It’s a special thing where the students live on campus and never get off it lol. Well, I don’t know, but it is very expensive to go there, I guess it’s a bit of an American model..
Apparently we don’t have enough classrooms at my uni anymore, so we had to go there. I’d never been there before, so I had to search a bit for it. It was really easy to find, so I was 20 minutes early before my class. The campus looks alright, the university college concept is only a couple years old I think. Ah, a quick search told me it was found in 1998. The campus used to be a military base. I would never want to live there. The houses are directly across the uni buildings, so you see them every time you look out the window, fun!
I waited for some familiar faces before I went inside. The class was ok, we’re supposed to actively debate the book stuff.

Last night, for the same class as I was talking about up there ^, I had to go to a dance performance. It was highly experimental and it basically wasn’t finished. They only came up with the subject last Friday and didn’t start practising until Monday.. That was all the meaning of the choreographer though, but during the performance itself (which lasted about 35 minutes) I was quite clueless what he wanted to tell. Now I always have trouble telling what’s it about with dance/ballet, I just don’t see it. I like a nice classical piece of ballet, but I never really *see* the story. Anyway, after the performance there was a talk, which lasted about twice as long as the actual performance!! In the talk the choreographer and other dancers explained what they wanted to do, blah blah. This Friday they have another performance and they’re probably doing things a lot different than last night. I guess it’s pretty cool from the theatre they performed at, that they got the time and space to try stuff out. And of course us theatre students had to go to this, so there would be an audience no matter what

Oh, the sun isn’t even shining anymore. Today on the news I heard that “we” (the Dutch) are generally happier than 2 years ago. With our lives, but also with our government. Funny how they never ask me anything. A lot of blah blah about that we feel safer again, because nothing really major happened the past two years and that we’re also financially more stable again.
If they say so..

*edit*
I completely forgot to mention that when I was walking to the university college campus, I passed the famous Rietveld Schröder House (do click!). My brother’s been trying for ages now to explain to me where it was exactly, but I didn’t have a clue. So now I just walked past it without knowing it was there. It looks pretty spiffy, maybe I’m going to try to get a tour sometime.
And in case you’re too lazy to check out the link, here’s a picture of how it used to look and what it looks like now:

Ready or not.. there’s no way back

Well, that was my summer vacation… This weekend as usual I worked on Saturday, didn’t do anything after. On Sunday I went to my grandmother with my dad. My brother and his girlfriend were there too.
After we had some cake we went to the boulevard to eat fish. There was a lot of wind and the sun wasn’t shining either, but it’s always nice to be at/near the beach I think. And the fish was good!!
When we went back we got stuck in a major traffic jam, as the main road to get out of the city was closed for the weekend… So we went through a village, but a whole lot of other people got that idea as well, so we were stuck anyway.

Oh well, when I got home we had someone over for dinner. Was good fun. And then I just played around on the computer, of course going to bed too late again.
That should be over for now though, tomorrow uni starts again. I had no idea which books I needed, because there wasn’t any info online. I got an e-mail about it though, so I guess I’m going to have to check that out tomorrow before my class. It starts at 1, so that should be ok.
And then the real life starts again. I’m kinda curious how things will go. At one hand I’m not looking forward to it at all, but on the other hand I really want to pass my classes, so I’ll do everything I can.
Should make a schedule again..

Wednesday’s good for action

Whoa! Some day

At the end of the morning/beginning of the afternoon I went in to donate blood. Both my blood pressure and iron-level were good, so I could donate. All went very well, only have a small bruise. After that I packed my stuff and drove to Utrecht.
I’d go to Amsterdam with a friend, to the opening of some website from the theatre institute. Quite vague, yes… So when I met her at the train station she said her boyfriend wanted to come along as well, so he was going to pick us up with his car. He just got home from work though, so we had to wait a bit hehe.
Of course it was rush hour, but we didn’t even hit a traffic jam. However, as we all should’ve known, parking in the centre of Amsterdam is nearly impossible, especially with a van. And it was raining too. We were already to late for the actual launch, so after quite a while of driving around the city centre, we decided we would better head back to Utrecht and go do something there. So we went to eat at McDonald’s and we talked about going to a movie. My studymates and I were planning on going to Hairspray (really my thing ), but due to very diverse schedules we realised that wasn’t going to work (again), so we thought we could go to it tonight. After the eating we went to the house of my friends boyfriend to look up what time the film would be and where. It appeared it only had an early showing, so we already missed that. Then we decided to go to 1408, even though my friend normally avoid movies like that, because she gets scared easily. The movie wouldn’t start for another 2 hours, so we just sat and talked. And I got shown a lot of movie clips on Youtube from her boyfriend and his friends. Great fun!!
I’m not good at writing reviews, so I won’t bother trying, but the movie.. yes, what can I say? At my right were my friend and her boyfriend and at my left there were two very easily scared girls haha. During the break they said they had wanted to see Harry Potter (oh shit, I hope I won’t get HP hits now!!), but it wasn’t showing that night or something. So the guy at the theatre told them to go see this movie… without them knowing what kind of movie this was. They freaked about everything haha, I thought it was funny, because I only had a couple of very small ’scary moments’. Am I immune? Spoiled? Afraid to let myself go in public? Or was it, once again, too unrealistic for me? I don’t know, but I thought it was a bit weird. When I would watch a movie like this on my own I do get freaked out I think.
Ah well, it was nice to watch it, had a good twist to it. And then afterwards all the ladies got a ‘goodybag’, because it had been ladies night (they showed this movie with Catherine Zeta-Jones, forgot what it’s called) and I guess they had some bags left, so we also got one. It has some magazine, chocolates and a lot of promotion material haha.

And now I’m in my room again, tired, yet not feeling like sleeping yet.

Time to count off the days…

Usually people count off to fun things, or long awaited events. I, on the other hand, count off for uni to start again
If all goes well I start classes on the 11th again. This term I’ll only have a classes on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Thursday and Friday are early morning, since I’ll have to start at 9:00. So today I thought I’d be a good, responsible student, and look up what I have to do before classes start. So I login to the site which is supposed to have info your courses, but I only found old courses there. No info on the new ones yet.
At one hand not very surprising as it always seems to happen at the last minute, but right now it is very inconvenient for me, because I actually had the intention to start the year well-prepared. Maybe over the next few days some information will show up. I mean, it would be nice to know if I have to buy books or syllabi..

Sunday night I brought my plants back to my room. I got two new ones, because I didn’t really like one and another was, well.. dead. So I gave my mum the plant I didn’t like and got myself a new one.  I understand it’s really boring to read about ones plants, but it occurred that with the plants, I also brought a beetle to my room! I am now a fan of bugs, let’s put it at that *twitch* I’m so lucky to live on the 15th floor, because we never get spiders or bugs!!
Also, the new housemate installed himself this weekend. Didn’t really have a chance to talk to him yet, but on Monday he asked me how he could get internet (super fast internet from the uni network is included in our rent) installed, so I told him he had to buy a cable and possibly a network card, and then he was good to go.
There was more computer stuff going on in hour flat though, because another housemate found her her computer wouldn’t start anymore, while it was working just fine last week! Her screen wouldn’t turn on and her keyboard didn’t work either. So I detached my screen from my computer and tried to get it set up with hers, but nothing happened. She’s has an old computer though, so maybe they just weren’t compatible. After that we tried to set up my keyboard to her computer, but still nothing happened. She really needs her comp though, so she asked if I could leave my key there so she can use my computer when I’m not there.

Tomorrow it is time to donate some blood again. I got a card last week if I wanted to come give tomorrow. Will be the third, and last, time of  this year. Also the last time in Zoetermeer, because I really need to transfer it to Utrecht haha. Maybe after that I will go back to Utrecht, not sure yet though.
Oh and Friday I will get my hair cut, it’s become too long at the front, so I thought I might as well get it cut off before the new year starts. I’m still unsure if I want to dye it again.Maybe it was a bit too dark last time after all..

Well, that was a bit of an update, now it’s time to feed the cats (while still counting off, of course).