Time for a Breather

My my. What a hectic time! I don’t think I’ve ever actually been so busy in my entire life and strange things are happening to my language capabilities. I’m not sure if you know, I may, or may not have mentioned it, BUT, I was ‘The best Germanic Studies Student’ at the end of Year 1 (as voted by the overwhelming majority of, well, the overwhelming majority..?!). However, now I can’t speak German to save my life. This is not good seeing as I’m also doing a German course here too! Believe me I’ve tried to speak to my good German buddies here but all that comes out are ‘ik’, ‘ben’ and ‘maar’ instead of ‘ich’, ‘bin’ and ‘aber’... So I feel like I’ve gone back about 4 years. Mindblowing... I’d rather speak in Dutch now! Sod der/die/das/denen/dessen/dem etc, just say ’de’ It’s amazing what 5 weeks does. Practically Johan Cruijff now. (If you don’t know who that is: Google)

So, what have I been up to? Perhaps easier to say what I’ve not been doing: sleeping. All day, everyday, it is party time! One problem though: I can’t physically take it anymore! I need a

holiday... Oh wait, I’m an ERASMUS student. Pretty much a holiday then ;) To the right you will see my lovely group mentors Gaby and Vincent! Hartelijk bedankt mensen :D

Here are a few things which are now getting quite on my t*ts after 5 weeks:

1. The Dutch transport company seem to make it as difficult as possible for you to actually buy a ticket. There a machines at every station. That’s great. However, what’s not great is that most of them don’t let you pay by coin. None of them take notes and you can’t use your foreign debit card to purchase them. Thus, this generates the greatest possibility as a newbie in Holland, that a nice inspector will come along and slap a hefty fine on you as you’ve got no ticket. It’s one-nil to the money grabbing company who also charge you 50 CENTS if you buy a ticket from a counter at a station!? Man alive!! You could get an OV chipkaart (type of Oyster card for my fellow Londoners) where they will also rinse you of €7.50 just to buy the thing... oh and if you forget to check out after finishing your journey, you’ll be shot or something. Wow, that was a rant and a half. I’ll give you that for free. In Holland, they’d probably charge you. (This experience is thanks to our very own Laura 'The first Brit to visit me' Barnes! Never travelling with that one again! What an absolute MARE!!!)
2. Next: Water. Yes that stuff which this country is finely balanced upon or under or whatever is in abundance here. It hasn’t stopped raining for about 2 weeks now and I’m getting worried as I live next to a river... anyhow, that wasn’t the point. Why do I have to PAY for water? Restaurants, cafés etc they’re all the same: that’ll be €2 please. SORRY! What?! Unbelievable.
3. Last one for this blog: Shops... Never open when you need something; never have what you need if they are indeed open and the prices are always wrong. And what sort of opening hours are 4pm – 8pm on a Sunday? Give me my 24 hour Tesco. Enough said.

Now for something more light-hearted. There is no oven in my kitchen?! I live a good 25 minute bike ride away from the university which is just so annoying. Now I really appreciate Sheffield Uni accommodation being so close. The quality of the accommodation here is also, erm, what’s the word.... erm, oh yeah: SHIT. It’s like living in a ghetto for international students. I like the way Nijmegen decides to just shove most of the foreigners across a bridge and a light year away from anything. I’m thinking apartheid here. My next conundrum is that I have no idea what I’m doing in terms of courses, which start tomorrow, and I’ve pretty much been told one of the courses I’m doing in Dutch, which is for actual Dutch students, is going to be almost impossible to pass. Great.

On the up side, there is an unlimited supply of Dutch and German TV, I can pass by the station everyday and pick up my free Metro Newspaper to keep my mind busy and there are many friendly Germans and Dutch people to talk a multitude of languages with. I really enjoy the music here. It’s like living 15 years ago, just classic after classic!! Oh and there is MORE: I’m going to play squash (YAY) and hopefully with Dutch people, I have a very helpful Dutch mentor who I can pester whenever and the beer is cheap.

It’s raining again... I’m going outside to assign everyone an ark

Zie je straks mensen :)

Don’t miss me too much and always ‘doe je best’

James

xXx