5 Days in

I have been in Groningen for 5 full days and it's beginning to feel a bit like home. I have visited my University a few times now, finalized all my courses, and gotten my schedule. I have Mondays off, and end at 1:15 on Fridays which is great because I have a long weekend, perfect for weekend trips to Paris or Amsterdam or...
My classes are....intl. communication, the news interview, pop music: theories and discourse, and international human rights. I'm quite content with all of them, in theory at least.
This is my school...


I have been cooking all my meals at home. I still get a bit frightened every time I light the stove. I ran out of matches and had to start using a lighter today, which is terrifying, but I'm actually cooking a lot more than I did at home. One small disaster trying to make rice pudding but otherwise successful.





I bought a bike! It's a kids mountain bike (rare in Holland) and I got it for 50 E. It has changed everything. The city seems to have shrunken. It take me about 5 minutes to get anywhere, such as school. Though people say you don't need to lock your bike up here, most people do, but just with a thin chain locking the wheel to the frame. If someone went through this town with a big truck they could grab every single bike. But noone does. I guess everyone already has a bike, so bike thieves wouldn;t have much of a market. Though they could bring them over the border....to Belgium...hmmm

Staring tomorrow, there is an introduction-type week for International students. Still trying to decide whether to sign up or not. Paying 30 E will get you a tour, museum visit, 3 dinners, drinks....but the rest of it seems kind of 'froshy'... so I may have to not participate in the evening activities, and then determine whether its worth it paying 30E for the other stuff. I hate organized group activities though! and Icebreakers! So.....

The Groningen train station, sunset


My big accomplishment today was buying an alarm clock. There is this huge electronics story called Mediamarkt. They have anything that plugs in, from computers to vacuums to blenders to stereo systems. I bought alarm clock because I've been going to sleep at 5AM and waking up at 1PM almost every day and that clearly needs to change before I start school. Unable to sleep last night, I turned on the television for the first time. I get almost 50 channels, and one or two of them are in English. At 4AM, most of them were quite...sexy....but the most interesting channel was playing movies while a man stood in front signing the entire movie out for the deaf. I wonder if he is an actor.


I heard someone playing cello on the floor above me. When I went to investigate, I realized that I only have access to my floor. So the cellist remains a mystery. Maybe I will leave her a note in the lobby....